The Enlightening Science Thread

[Anak]

One small step for a frog; one giant leap for frogkind.

The Frog That Got Caught in the Crossfire of a Rocket Launch
This brings a whole new meaning to "amphibious vehicle."

We can only speculate, though: We do not, alas, know the frog's fate. (Or, as Atkinson puts it, "We cannot say with any certainty that no frog was harmed in the making of this picture.") But rest assured, the animal's sacrifice, if it came to that, would not have been in vain: This was a frog that, we can safely assume, got closer to the moon than almost all others of its fellow creatures ever has. One small step for a frog; one giant leap for frogkind.

Source, with picture of frog: The Frog That Got Caught in the Crossfire of a Rocket Launch - Megan Garber - The Atlantic






Image source: Probe streaks over NY skyline on its way to the moon - PhotoBlog

 

[Anak]

Sept. 12, 2013: NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft officially is the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space. The 36-year-old probe is about 12 billion miles (19 billion kilometers) from our sun.

Source: Voyager 1 Has Left the Solar System - NASA Science

 

[A Guy]

Scientists create new memories by directly altering neurons in the brain

Neurobiologists at UC Irvine (UCI) have succeeded in creating new memories in the brains of rats. The same process should allow scientists to create memories in human (and other mammalian) brains, too. The UCI neurobiologists say that this is the first evidence that memories can be created by directly altered neurons in the cerebral cortex.

Source

A Guy

 

[Britton30]

Scientists create new memories by directly altering neurons in the brain

Neurobiologists at UC Irvine (UCI) have succeeded in creating new memories in the brains of rats. The same process should allow scientists to create memories in human (and other mammalian) brains, too. The UCI neurobiologists say that this is the first evidence that memories can be created by directly altered neurons in the cerebral cortex.

Source

A Guy

Ala Total Recall.

 

[A Guy]

Intel shows off wine-powered processor and biometric boffinry

Day three of the Intel Developer Forum is usually when the firm shows off its future projects and Chipzilla's in-house anthropologist Dr Genevieve Bell took to the keynote stage to demonstrate a processor powered by wine and mobile phones that use your gait or voice as a password.

Bell, who thanks to her Australian outback upbringing is possibly the only Intel executive who knows how to get drinkable water out of a frog (hint: it's not very good for the frog) has been studying some of the problems of mobile computing. Chief among these is power, and Bell demonstrated an extremely low-powered processor and accelerometer that was powered by a glass of wine.

Source

A Guy

 

[A Guy]

Part of Apollo 12 rocket engine returns after decades in deep space

In much of science fiction, space is visualized as the ultimate dumping ground. It’s big enough, certainly, and so far as we can currently tell there’s no indigenous wildlife to be disturbed by our wastefulness. When you no longer want to deal with something and want it truly gone for good, set it off into space, and forget all about it.

It turns out, of course, that things aren’t so simple as that. Without some serious planning, even the strongest of pushes can leave a would-be interstellar traveler trapped as a satellite of any of a dozen celestial bodies in our solar system. It could fall down those gravity wells and crash, or have its path deformed into a weird, loopy mess.

Source

A Guy

 

[Anak]

Nice link Bill,

I witnessed a fiery end to some space debris quite a few years ago. I tried to link it with some tracking programs and web sites I have, but nothing seemed to match with the time and day of the incident, I'll never forget it.

Here's the link to my observation: Memories are the substance of Faith...

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Just when you thought we knew it all LOL!!
The Moon Just Got 100 Million Years Younger : Discovery News

 

[Golden]

Scientists Create New Form Of Matter, And It's Like A Lightsabre | Gizmodo Australia

 

[A Guy]

A first: Stanford engineers build basic computer using carbon nanotubes

A team of Stanford engineers has built a basic computer using carbon nanotubes, a semiconductor material that has the potential to launch a new generation of electronic devices that run faster, while using less energy, than those made from silicon chips.

This unprecedented feat culminates years of efforts by scientists around the world to harness this promising but quirky material.

Source

A Guy

 

[A Guy]

Nasa's Curiosity rover finds water in Martian soil

Water has been discovered in the fine-grained soil on the surface of Mars, which could be a useful resource for future human missions to the red planet, according to measurements made by Nasa's Curiosity rover.

Each cubic foot of Martian soil contains around two pints of liquid water, though the molecules are not freely accessible, but rather bound to other minerals in the soil.

Source

A Guy

 

[ICIT2LOL]

A first: Stanford engineers build basic computer using carbon nanotubes

A team of Stanford engineers has built a basic computer using carbon nanotubes, a semiconductor material that has the potential to launch a new generation of electronic devices that run faster, while using less energy, than those made from silicon chips.

This unprecedented feat culminates years of efforts by scientists around the world to harness this promising but quirky material.

Source

A Guy

Nice one Bill and I saw this last night I don't know if you will be able to open it but it is incredible Catalyst: Quantum Computing - ABC TV Science

and this I found subsequently http://class.ee.iastate.edu/mmina/ee314x/Qbit-after-trans.pdf

 

[Anak]

Gravitational assist for Juno satellite in nine days:

Animation:
Earth Flyby | Mission Juno

Live coverage from Slooh:
Juno Flies by Earth | Slooh

If that's too busy:

Clicking on start button will only produce countdown clock until event start.

 

[A Guy]

TomTato plant grows both tomatoes and potatoes

We've seen a number of innovations that allow for gardening in small spaces, including a ferris wheel-like contraption, a mat that shows you where to plant specially-prepared seeds, and a system that lets you grow vertically-stacked veggies in your window. The TomTato, however, is in a league of its own – it's a single plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes at the same time.

Created by UK horticulture company Thompson and Morgan, the TomTato is not the result of genetic engineering. It's "simply" the top of a cherry tomato plant and the bottom of a white potato plant, that have been grafted together at the stem.

Source

A Guy

 

[ICIT2LOL]

TomTato plant grows both tomatoes and potatoes

We've seen a number of innovations that allow for gardening in small spaces, including a ferris wheel-like contraption, a mat that shows you where to plant specially-prepared seeds, and a system that lets you grow vertically-stacked veggies in your window. The TomTato, however, is in a league of its own – it's a single plant that produces both tomatoes and potatoes at the same time.

Created by UK horticulture company Thompson and Morgan, the TomTato is not the result of genetic engineering. It's "simply" the top of a cherry tomato plant and the bottom of a white potato plant, that have been grafted together at the stem.

Source

A Guy

Ype Bill I wonder why they haven't genetically modified this yet as they come from the same genus It surely couldn't be that difficult an would solve a lot of problem for gardeners eh?
Solanaceae - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[A Guy]

Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

Now, a breakthrough by scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) could boost hopes of scaling up fusion.

NIF, based at Livermore in California, uses 192 beams from the world's most powerful laser to heat and compress a small pellet of hydrogen fuel to the point where nuclear fusion reactions take place.

The BBC understands that during an experiment in late September, the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel - the first time this had been achieved at any fusion facility in the world.

Source

A Guy

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Nuclear fusion milestone passed at US lab

Now, a breakthrough by scientists at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) could boost hopes of scaling up fusion.

NIF, based at Livermore in California, uses 192 beams from the world's most powerful laser to heat and compress a small pellet of hydrogen fuel to the point where nuclear fusion reactions take place.

The BBC understands that during an experiment in late September, the amount of energy released through the fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel - the first time this had been achieved at any fusion facility in the world.

Source

A Guy

Nice one mate now for the containment vessel! Hard to imagine how they are going to do this ona large scale at least but it;s one step closed eh?

 

[Britton30]

Mr. Fusion can't be far behind.

 

[A Guy]

A Strange Lonely Planet Found without a Star

An international team of astronomers has discovered an exotic young planet that is not orbiting a star. This free-floating planet, dubbed PSO J318.5-22, is just 80 light-years away from Earth and has a mass only six times that of Jupiter. The planet formed a mere 12 million years ago—a newborn in planet lifetimes.

It was identified from its faint and unique heat signature by the Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) wide-field survey telescope on Haleakala, Maui. Follow-up observations using other telescopes in Hawaii show that it has properties similar to those of gas-giant planets found orbiting around young stars. And yet PSO J318.5-22 is all by itself, without a host star.

Source

A Guy

 

[A Guy]

Curiosity proves that bits of Mars fall to Earth as meteorites

Case closed. After several decades of speculation and the gathering of imperfect evidence, Mars rover Curiosity has positively identified hundreds of meteorites found all over the Earth as Martians. The discovery is not unexpected, but it allows the science to go forward with renewed confidence in conjectures about the Red Planet. In particular, Curiosity’s findings could help scientists figure out exactly how Mars lost the vast majority of its atmosphere, why, and how long ago it happened.

Source

A Guy