Where Does All This Dust Come From?

ScienceDaily (Oct. 29, 2009) — Where does it come from? Scientists in Arizona are reporting a surprising answer to that question, which has puzzled and perplexed generations of men and women confronted with layers of dust on furniture and floors. Most of indoor dust comes from outdoors. In the study, David Layton and Paloma Beamer point out that household dust consists of a potpourri that includes dead skin shed by people, fibers from carpets and upholstered furniture, and tracked-in soil and airborne particles blown in from outdoors. It can include lead, arsenic and other potentially harmful substances that migrate indoors from outside air and soil. That can be a special concern for children, who consume those substances by putting dust-contaminated...

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Why 'Sleeping on It' Helps

We're often told, "You should sleep on it" before you make an important decision. Why is that? How does "sleeping on it" help your decision-making process? Conventional wisdom suggests that by "sleeping on it," we clear our minds and relieve ourselves of the immediacy (and accompanying stress) of making a decision. Sleep also helps organize our memories, process the information of the day, and solve problems. Such wisdom also suggests that conscious deliberation helps decision making in general. But new research (Dijksterhuis et al., 2009) suggests something else might also be at work - our unconscious. Previous research suggests that sometimes the more consciously we think about a decision, the worse the decision made. Sometimes what's...

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Mega-star explosion most distant object ever seen

PARIS (AFP) – It took 13 billion years to reach Earth, but astronomers have seen the light of an exploding mega-star that is the most distant object ever detected, two studies published Thursday reported. The stunning gamma-ray burst (GRB) was observed by two teams of researchers in April, and opens a window onto a poorly known period when the Universe was in its infancy. GRBs are the most violent explosions known to exist, and can be 10 million times more luminous than the brightest of galaxies. They accompany the catastrophic death of a massive star, and are probably triggered by the collapse of the star's centre into a black hole. Dubbed GRB 090423, the new discovery was first spotted by the NASA satellite Swift. Astronomers alerted...

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Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown. The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia. Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab. Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments. Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours. 'Natural' remedy The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals. Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that...

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An Ancient Greek Computer?

In 1901 divers working off the isle of Antikythera found the remains of a clocklike mechanism 2,000 years old. The mechanism now appears to have been a device for calculating the motions of stars and planets by Derek J. de Solla Price. Among the treasures of the Greek National Archaeological Museum in Athens are the remains of the most complex scientific object that has been preserved from antiquity. Corroded and crumbling from 2,000 years under the sea, its dials, gear wheels and inscribed plates present the historian with a tantalizing problem. Because of them we may have to revise many of our estimates of Greek science. By ...

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Researchers create portable black hole

Physicists have created a black hole for light that can fit in your coat pocket. Their device, which measures just 22 centimetres across, can suck up microwave light and convert it into heat. The hole is the latest clever device to use 'metamaterials', specially engineered materials that can bend light in unusual ways. Previously, scientists have used such metamaterials to build 'invisibility carpets' and super-clear lenses. This latest black hole was made by Qiang Chen and Tie Jun Cui of Southeast University in Nanjing, China, and is described in a paper on the preprint server ArXiv1. Black holes are normally too massive to be carried around. The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, for example, has a mass around 3.6 million times...

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Alien Visitation

Part 1Part 2Part 3Part...

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New robotic hand 'can feel'

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'Magnetic' stem cells for hearts

Heart attacks and other vascular injuries could eventually be treated using regular injections of magnetised stem cells, experts say. In animal trials, the cutting-edge treatment delivered the healing cells to the precise site of damage where their help was needed. Although human tests are needed, a similar magnetic approach has been used to guide cancer therapies. The expert US journal Cardiovascular Interventions reports the findings. Targeted treatment ...

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'Magnetic electricity' discovered

Researchers have discovered a magnetic equivalent to electricity: single magnetic charges that can behave and interact like electrical ones. The work is the first to make use of the magnetic monopoles that exist in special crystals known as spin ice. Writing in Nature journal, a team showed that monopoles gather to form a "magnetic current" like electricity. The phenomenon, dubbed "magnetricity", could be used in magnetic storage or in computing. Magnetic monopoles were first predicted to...

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32 New Exoplanets Found

Today, at an international ESO/CAUP exoplanet conference in Porto, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO's 3.6-metre telescope, reports on the incredible discovery of some 32 new exoplanets, cementing HARPS's position as the world’s foremost exoplanet hunter. This result also increases the number of known low-mass planets by an impressive 30%. Over the past five years HARPS has spotted more than 75 of the roughly 400 or so exoplanets now known."HARPS is a unique, extremely high precision instrument that is ideal for discovering alien worlds," says Stéphane Udry, who made the announcement. “We have now completed our initial five-year programme, which has succeeded...

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The sound of Earth from space

Compare it with Jupit...

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ASIMOs new artificial intelligence. (ASIMO is learning!)

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Will Wright: Toys that make worlds

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Comfort Food: Chocolate, Water Reduce Pain Response To Heat

People often eat food to feel better, but researchers have found that eating chocolate or drinking water can blunt pain, reducing a rat's response to a hot stimulus. This natural form of pain relief may help animals in the wild avoid distraction while eating scarce food, but in modern humans with readily available food, the effect may contribute to overeating and obesity. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience by authors Peggy Mason, PhD, professor of neurobiology, and Hayley Foo, PhD, research associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago, is the first to demonstrate that this powerful painkilling effect occurs while the animals are ingesting food or liquid even in the absence of appetite. "It's...

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Glimpses of Solar System's edge

The first results from Nasa's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (Ibex) spacecraft have shown unexpected features at our Solar System's edge.Ibex was launched nearly one year ago to map the heliosphere, the region of space defined by the extent of our Sun's solar wind. Ibex's first glimpses show that the heliosphere is not shaped as many astronomers have believed. A series of papers in the journal Science outlines the results. Our Solar System is whipping around the centre of the galaxy. Just like a hand held out of a moving car, the Solar System feels a "wind" of particles from the region between our star and its nearest neighbours. At the same time, the solar wind - a constant stream of fast-moving particles in all directions - blows outwards...

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Interesting Real Facts (Strange but True)

1 Look at your zipper. See the initials YKK? It stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world's largest zipper manufacturer. 2 40 percent of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals. 3 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled. 4 On the average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. 5 Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog. 6 Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as a medicine. 7 Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time. 8 Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood. 9 There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos. 10 Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it...

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Thousands See UFO Live On British TV

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Dancing black hole twins spotted

Researchers have seen the best evidence yet for a pair of black holes orbiting each other within the same galaxy. While such "binary systems" have been postulated before, none has ever been conclusively shown to exist. The new black hole pair is dancing significantly closer than the prior best binary system candidate. The work, published in the journal Nature, is in line with the theory of the growth of galaxies, each with a black hole at their centre. The theory has it that as galaxies near one another, their central black holes should orbit each other until merging together. But evidence for black holes nearing and orbiting has so far been scant. Dancing cheek-to-cheek As matter falls into black holes, it emits light of a characteristic...

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Galaxy's 'cannibalism' revealed

The vast Andromeda galaxy appears to have expanded by digesting stars from other galaxies, research has shown.When an international team of scientists mapped Andromeda, they discovered stars that they said were "remnants of dwarf galaxies".The astronomers report their findings in the journal Nature.This consumption of stars has been suggested previously, but the team's ultra-deep survey has provided detailed images to show that it took place.This shows the "hierarchical model" of galaxy formation in action.The model predicts that large galaxies should be surrounded by relics of smaller galaxies they have consumed.Whole story h...

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New flying reptile fossils found

Researchers in China and the UK say they have discovered the fossils of a new type of flying reptile that lived more than 160 million years ago. The find is named Darwinopterus, after famous naturalist Charles Darwin. Experts say it provides the first clear evidence of a controversial type of evolution called modular evolution. The 20 new fossils found in north-east China show similarities to both primitive and more advanced pterosaurs, or flying reptiles. The research is published in the journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Missing link Pterosaurs, sometimes called pterodactyls, were flying reptiles that flourished between 65 and 220 million years ago. Until now, scientists had known about two distinct groups of these creatures...

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Robot and AI developments continue

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Juggling Boosts Brain Connections

Researchers the UK found that learning to juggle boosts brain connections by making structural changes in the white matter of the brain. They hope the study will help develop new treatments for diseases such as multiple sclerosis where central nervous system pathways have become degraded. The study was led by Dr Heidi Johansen-Berg, a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow at the University of Oxford and was published online ahead of print on 11 October in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Johansen-Berg told the media that: "We tend to think of the brain as being static, or even beginning to degenerate, once we reach adulthood." "In fact we find the structure of the brain is ripe for change. We've shown that it is possible for the brain to condition its own wiring system to operate more...

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Robots with a mind of their own

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Jaw bone created from stem cells

Scientists have created part of the jaw joint in the lab using human adult stem cells.They say it is the first time a complex, anatomically-sized bone has been accurately created in this way. It is hoped the technique could be used not only to treat disorders of the specific joint, but more widely to correct problems with other bones too. The Columbia University study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The bone which has been created in the lab is known as the temporomandibular joint (TMJ)Whole story h...

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Sugar-coating nanoparticles to tempt cancer cells

An iron-centered nanoparticle (left) has a coating of the sugar dextran, whose tendrils prevent groups of the particles from clumping. When tumor cells ingest them (right), the particles still congregate closely enough to share heat, killing the cells. White arrow indicates a red blood cell (Image: NIST)Article Summary Researchers believe nanoparticles hold the promise of battling cancer without the damaging side effects of chemotherapy or radiation treatment. They have discovered that coating minuscule balls of iron oxide with sugar molecules not only makes them particularly attractive to resource-hungry cancer cells, it also makes them more effective by allowing them to get close to each other, but not too close to render treatment ineffective.Full...

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Light-Switched Drug Delivery

Drugs could be slipped into living cells using a light-sensitive capsule.  Targeted drug delivery is a hot topic of research. Scientists around the world are working on different ways to get drugs into specific cells without negatively impacting the rest of the body. Now researchers in England and Germany have created gold-studded polymer microcapsules that release compounds into cells by rupturing when exposed to ultraviolet light. The capsules could be useful for researchers studying the effects of drugs on cells, and eventually they could perhaps serve as a clinical tool for administering medication. "You can keep the capsules in the body for a while, and then you switch [on] the light to release them," says Gleb Sukhorukov, professor...

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Golden spacecrafts landed on the Moon?

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Ardi's Secret: Did Early Humans Start Walking for Sex?

Jamie ShreeveScience editor, National Geographic magazine October 1, 2009 The big news from the journal Science today is the discovery of the oldest human skeleton—a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female of the species Ardipithecus ramidus, nicknamed "Ardi." She lived in what is now Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago, which makes her over a million years older than the famous Lucy fossil, found in the same region 35 years ago.(Full story: "Oldest 'Human' Skeleton Found—Disproves 'Missing Link.'")Buried among the slew of papers about the new find is one about the creature's sex life. It makes fascinating reading, especially if you like learning why human females don't know when they are ovulating, and men lack the clacker-sized testicles and bristly...

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Hellish Exoplanet Rains Hot Pebbles, Has Lava Oceans

Ker Thanfor National Geographic News October 6, 2009 The first rocky planet ever discovered outside our solar system has a hellish environment where hot pebbles rain down on oceans of lava, a new study suggests.Located about 500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros, CoRoT-7b was first discovered in February by the French and European space agencies' CoRoT space telescope.The exoplanet was recently confirmed to be a rocky, Earth-like world—but that's where the similarities with our planet end.CoRoT-7b is about twice the size and five times the mass of Earth, and it's separated from its star by only 1.5 million miles (2.5 million kilometers)—that's about 23 times closer than Mercury is to our sun. On CoRoT-7b...

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How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect

By BENEDICT CAREYIn addition to assorted bad breaks and pleasant surprises, opportunities and insults, life serves up the occasional pink unicorn. The three-dollar bill; the nun with a beard; the sentence, to borrow from the Lewis Carroll poem, that gyres and gimbles in the wabe.An experience, in short, that violates all logic and expectation. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that such anomalies produced a profound “sensation of the absurd,” and he wasn’t the only one who took them seriously. Freud, in an essay called “The Uncanny,” traced the sensation to a fear of death, of castration or of “something that ought to have remained hidden but has come to light.”At best, the feeling is disorienting. At worst, it’s creepy.Now a study suggests that, paradoxically, this same sensation may...

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nasa moon mission last minute before impact

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Latest Updates on LCROSS

The mission operations team has initiated power-up of the LCROSS science payload and is evaluating the health of the spacecraft instruments. Spacecraft data being transmitted to LCROSS mission control at NASA Ames at 1.5 Mbps via the Goldstone Deep Space Network Facility in California. Spacecraft and science instrument data are relayed in real-time. More info here Live feed here ...

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Nasa discovers huge ring of ice orbiting Saturn

A giant ring so faint it is all but invisible to conventional light telescopes has been discovered around Saturn by the infra-red imaging instruments on board Nasa's Spitzer space telescope. The ring extends much further out than Saturn's other rings, and is tilted at a different angle to the rest in relation to the planet's axis of rotation. Saturn's rings are known to be composed of dust, ice and other debris caught up in orbit around the planet. Scientists believe the newly discovered ring is so tenuous because its particles of ice and dust are thinly dispersed in space. This means they do not reflect much light, making the ring hard to see. Spitzer's infra-red camera was able to detect the "glow" of the band's cool dust, which only...

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Nasa prepares moon smashing satellite

 Nasa's attempt to smash two probes into the moon's surface could prove the presence of water and hint at a faster, cheaper future for space exploration As Britain tucks into its lunch on Friday, hundreds of scientists, engineers and astronomers on the other side of the planet will be nervously watching the skies. Across California and Hawaii, hundreds of eyes will be trained on the moon, watching for the moment when a hi-tech orbiter – weighing more than 2 tonnes and travelling at 5,600mph – plunges headlong into the lunar surface. The collision will throw a massive cloud of dust and debris up into space before, just a few minutes later, another, smaller, spacecraft follows suit and plummets to its doom. For most people, it sounds like...

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NASA , UFO files

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Is life a transitory phenomenon?

We don't mean just life on earth, where it has hung on for a couple billion years, but life anywhere in the universe.  Many cosmologists advance the socalled Anthropic Principle, which states that the physical constants of nature are honed to just the right values to make life possible. If the charge on the electron were a little less or the properties of carbon a bit different, life could not exist. The Anthropic Principle seems to imply that the universe was designed for earth life. But "design" is a bad word these days. It is redolent of purpose and a supernatural being. Suppose, though, that the Anthropic Principle is correct but only in our part of the cosmos and only for a little while. If the constants of nature are not really constant, life could be just a transitory phenomenon,...

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