April 30, 2008
We're Just Bacteria of the Universal Body
Scientists have figured out what stoners and beatniks have known for over half a century.
Left: slices of mouse brain. Right: Computer Simulated Grown Universe
(via nytimes)
Posted by Groonk at 10:04 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
April 15, 2008
Bikini Atoll Coral 'A OK.' Coconuts Still Atomic, Though
Three islands of Bikini Atoll were vapourised by the Bravo hydrogen bomb in 1954, which shook islands 200 kilometres away. Instead of finding a bare underwater moonscape, ecologists who have dived it have given the 2-kilometre-wide crater a clean bill of health."It was fascinating – I’ve never seen corals growing like trees outside of the Marshall Islands," says Zoe Richards of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies in Australia.
The ecologists think the nearby Rongelap Atoll is seeding the Bikini Atoll, and the lack of human disturbance is helping its recovery. Although the ambient radiation is low, people have remained at bay.
This does not prove that we(humans) can do anything to the Earth and still survive. This proves that nature finds a way to survive. A disaster of this proportion, or greater, will very likely turn us into Hideous Mutant Freeks thirsting for the blood of everything.
Don't ever doubt that.
(via digg, newscientist)
Posted by Groonk at 01:29 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of History, Science
February 21, 2008
Looking at Ancient DNA
Discovery Channel. That advertisement at the end for this url: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/sidewalkscience/.
Are you fucking insane? Why should your url be comparable to writing a damn thesis paper?
Just sayin'.
(via discovery.com)
Posted by Groonk at 07:36 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science, Video
February 04, 2008
Horizon went In Search of Gravity
Particle physicist/keyboardist for some band I've never heard of, Dr Brain Cox stalked the USA last week. He attacked then moon with his laser, encounters bending space-time at a military base, and tries to detect reality ripples in Louisiana.
(via doc video google)
Posted by Groonk at 02:47 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Documentary, Google-fied, Science, Video
January 29, 2008
Small Canadian Town was Poisoned, from Space
Don't get any fucking new ideas, Chris Carter. Better yet, don't bother revisiting old ones.
Well water of the tiny Canadian town of Gypsumville, Manitoba (population 65) has been poisoned by an extraterrestrial.
The invader: A meteorite which struck down almost a quarter-billion years ago, creating the 25-mile-wide (40-kilometer) Lake Martin impact crater.
The ancient impact shattered the granitic ground so that extraordinary amounts of fluoride now taint the well water. Slightly higher than recommended amounts of fluoride can cause mottled teeth, while even higher concentrations can lead to neurological problems and softened bones.
Posted by Groonk at 08:09 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science, Space
January 28, 2008
Humans may have Created new Geologic Epoch
Instead of the Holocene Epoch, defined as about 11,500 years ago to present, we may be already a couple of hundred years into the Anthropocene Epoch as human effects begin to dominate the planet. Those influences will leave a profound mark in the geologic record.[...]
"In terms of biology," said Allenby, "there's probably not a place on Earth that's not affected by humans."
Which raises another question: Are we truly in a new epoch, or just serving the same role as an asteroid impact, i.e., ending one epoch and making room for the next? Two centuries may be a lot in terms of human history, but it's insignificant in terms of geological time.
"We don't know just yet," Allenby told Discovery News. "We're just beginning the story here. It may be that we're just a flash in the pan."
Coal followed by steam engines are noted to have aided in the immense changes upon the world.
(via discovery news)
Posted by Groonk at 10:48 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
January 23, 2008
Hello, Distant Galaxy? It's Me, Groonk.
What they found, however, was totally unexpected: methanimine and hydrogen cyanide.The discovery, which was unveiled at the American Astronomical Society conference in Austin, Texas, last week, is significant because methanimine and hydrogen cyanide are building blocks for amino acids, the foundation of life.
(via discovery channel)
Posted by Groonk at 02:34 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science, The Future
January 22, 2008
May 11, 1999: Solar Wind. Missing for 2 Days.
From May 10-12, 1999, the solar wind that blows constantly from the Sun virtually disappeared -- the most drastic and longest-lasting decrease ever observed.
Dropping to a fraction of its normal density and to half its normal speed, the solar wind died down enough to allow physicists to observe particles flowing directly from the Sun's corona to Earth. This severe change in the solar wind also changed the shape of Earth's magnetic field and produced an unusual auroral display at the North Pole.
Starting late on May 10 and continuing through the early hours of May 12, NASA's ACE and Wind spacecraft each observed that the density of the solar wind dropped by more than 98%. Because of the decrease, energetic electrons from the Sun were able to flow to Earth in narrow beams, known as the strahl. Under normal conditions, electrons from the Sun are diluted, mixed, and redirected in interplanetary space and by Earth's magnetic field (the magnetosphere). But in May 1999, several satellites detected electrons arriving at Earth with properties similar to those of electrons in the Sun's corona, suggesting that they were a direct sample of particles from the Sun.
"This event provides a window to see the Sun's corona directly," said Dr. Keith Ogilvie, project scientist for NASA's Wind spacecraft and a space physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. "The beams from the corona do not get broken up or scattered as they do under normal circumstances, and the temperature of the electrons is very similar to their original state on the Sun."
(via digg)
Posted by Groonk at 08:54 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Science
January 14, 2008
Milky Way to be Gassed in 20-40 Million Years
Dubbed "Smith's Cloud", it may set off spectacular fireworks when it smacks into our galaxy in 20-40 million years.
It contains enough hydrogen to produce a million stars like our Sun, researchers believe.
When it does fully interact with our galaxy, the cloud could indeed set off a new burst of star formation in the Milky Way.
[...]
The team's new measurements also demonstrate that the cloud is 11,000 light-years long and 2,500 light-years wide.
The monster cosmic "fog bank" is careering towards our galaxy at more than 240km/s (150 miles/s) and is set to strike the Milky Way at an angle of 45 degrees.
Broadly speaking, the cloud is currently rotating with our galaxy, but is also moving in towards it. Astronomers can see a wall of gas being ploughed up as Smith's Cloud thuds into the outskirts of our galaxy's atmosphere.
(via bbc news)
Posted by Groonk at 08:11 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
January 11, 2008
Earth's Geology May be What Keeps Water Wet
Hansen recently stirred the pot with a controversial hypothesis published in last month's issue of the journal Geology. Meteorite impacts early in Earth's history, she suggested, created the first rifts in the crust, jump-starting plate tectonics.[...]
Energizer Bunny Tectonics?
"It's an implicit assumption that plate tectonics never shuts down," Silver told Discovery News. "But it's nowhere stated in plate tectonics theory."Silver and his colleague Mark Behn proposed in the Jan. 4 issue of Science that all it takes to stop plate tectonics is the devouring of the crustal plate under the Pacific Ocean. And that's not as far-fetched as it sounds.
[...]
The end result would be a supercontinent, no remaining subduction zones, and virtually no plate tectonics, at least for a while.
(via disovery news)
"If Mars were to have plate tectonics, it would have to be bigger early on," said Valencia. This is because plate tectonics require a planet to have a lot of interior heat to keep things moving. Smaller planets dissipate their heat faster, and so have a very short window of time for plate tectonics.Venus, on the other hand, is about the same size as Earth, but it lacks water, said Hansen. Without water in the mantle to help melt rocks and trigger volcanic recycling of material, Venus' crust appears to have remained stiff and locked up forever. Had Venus held more water, or if it had been a super-sized rocky planet, it too would have had plate tectonics and perhaps life.
Posted by Groonk at 07:51 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Mars, Research, Science
December 19, 2007
Galaxy 3C321, Fully Armed and Operational
Astronomers have spotted a distant galaxy zapping its smaller neighbor with a deadly, Death Star-like particle beam.The beam is a jet of particles moving at near light-speed out of a super-massive black hole at the center of the larger galaxy. The beam has smashed into the nearby second galaxy, where it is probably decimating an untold number of planets.
(via discovery news)
Posted by Groonk at 03:09 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
December 17, 2007
Humans Evolving Faster, Becoming More Different
-- “We aren’t the same as people even 1,000 or 2,000 years ago,” he says, which may explain, for example, part of the difference between Viking invaders and their peaceful Swedish descendants. “The dogma has been these are cultural fluctuations, but almost any temperament trait you look at is under strong genetic influence.”-- “Human races are evolving away from each other,” Harpending says. “Genes are evolving fast in Europe, Asia and Africa, but almost all of these are unique to their continent of origin. We are getting less alike, not merging into a single, mixed humanity.” He says that is happening because humans dispersed from Africa to other regions 40,000 years ago, “and there has not been much flow of genes between the regions since then.”
[...]
in China and most of Africa, few people can digest fresh milk into adulthood. Yet in Sweden and Denmark, the gene that makes the milk-digesting enzyme lactase remains active, so “almost everyone can drink fresh milk,” explaining why dairying is more common in Europe than in the Mediterranean and Africa, Harpending says.He now is studying if the mutation that allowed lactose tolerance spurred some of history’s great population expansions, including when speakers of Indo-European languages settled all the way from northwest India and central Asia through Persia and across Europe 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. He suspects milk drinking gave lactose-tolerant Indo-European speakers more energy, allowing them to conquer a large area.
But Harpending believes the speedup in human evolution “is a temporary state of affairs because of our new environments since the dispersal of modern humans 40,000 years ago and especially since the invention of agriculture 12,000 years ago. That changed our diet and changed our social systems. If you suddenly take hunter-gatherers and give them a diet of corn, they frequently get diabetes. We’re still adapting to that. Several new genes we see spreading through the population are involved with helping us prosper with high-carbohydrate diet.”
(via physorg.com)
Posted by Groonk at 01:14 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
World Not as I Left It, Glow-in-the-Dark Cats Made
By demonstrating that it's possible to clone an animal with a manipulated gene, the research could help scientists better understand human genetic diseases. For example, scientists may be able to reproduce cloned animals suffering from the same diseases as humans. Cats have about 250 of the same kinds of genetic diseases that affect humans.The ability to clone genetically altered cats may also help to develop new stem cell treatments for humans. And, using the same technology, researchers may be able to clone endangered animals like tigers, leopards and wildcats.
(via geekologie, nightvisioned you tube)
Posted by Groonk at 12:20 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Animals, Science, Video
December 06, 2007
Scivee: Scientists very Own You Tube
SciVee is doing this thing where they preload the video without you asking. I dropped that sucker under the cut cause that's annoying as all hell.
Not half as entertaining* as Moyashimon but then again what is?
(via warrenellis)
(*Scivee is not meant ot be entertaining. It's meant to share information. But who says hard fact can't be interesting too? 21st century Bill Nye/Mr Wizard, 'Where the hell are you??')
Here's a Microbeworld video on episode 11.
Posted by Groonk at 06:55 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Anime, Science, The Future
December 03, 2007
Tesla's Missing Papers. About 6 of them.
One of the more controversial topics involving Nikola Tesla is what became of many of his technical and scientific papers after he died in 1943. Just before his death at the height of World War II, he claimed that he had perfected his so-called "death beam." So it was natural that the FBI and other U.S. Government agencies would be interested in any scientific ideas involving weaponry. Some were concerned that Tesla's papers might fall into the hands of the Axis powers or the Soviets.The morning after the inventor's death, his nephew Sava Kosanovic´ hurried to his uncle's room at the Hotel New Yorker. He was an up-and-coming Yugoslav official with suspected connections to the communist party in his country. By the time he arrived, Tesla's body had already been removed, and Kosanovic´ suspected that someone had already gone through his uncle's effects. Technical papers were missing as well as a black notebook he knew Tesla kept—a notebook with several hundred pages, some of which were marked "Government."
There are samples of the papers on the PBS site. Six documents in all.
Lovely mental steak for newly indoctrined Tesla geeks like myself.
Posted by Groonk at 06:04 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of History, Science, Tesla, USA
November 27, 2007
There's a Hole in the Universe
Astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as stars, galaxies, and gas, and the mysterious, unseen "dark matter." While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all.
(via NRAO, warrenellis)
Posted by Groonk at 07:45 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
November 18, 2007
Tattoos of Science Love
A whole mess of them after this jump.
(via digg)
Posted by Groonk at 05:54 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Culture, Photos2, Research, Science
November 17, 2007
Comets are Now Supersized. Bigger than the Sun!
A comet that has delighted backyard astronomers in recent weeks after an unexpected eruption has now grown larger than the sun.
The sun remains by far the most massive object in the solar system, with an extended influence of particles that reaches all the planets. But the comparatively tiny Comet Holmes has released so much gas and dust that its extended atmosphere, or coma, is larger than the diameter of the sun. The comparison is clear in a new image.
"It continues to expand and is now the largest single object in the solar system," according to astronomers at the University of Hawaii.
Because scientists know they can be a bit dodgy, they exclaim that you can see this thing with the naked eye.
Holmes is still visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy star anytime after dark, high in the northeast sky. You can find it by using this sky map. It is faintly visible from cities, and from dark country locations is truly remarkable.
(via space.com night sky)
Posted by Groonk at 04:09 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
October 24, 2007
Scientists Know Where that Half-Full Glass is Filled
That area deep behind the eyes activates when people think good thoughts about what might happen in the future. The more optimistic a person is, the brighter the area showed up in brain scans, the scientists reported in a small study published online Thursday in the journal Nature.That same part of the brain, called the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), seems to malfunction in people suffering depression, said the study co-authors, Elizabeth Phelps of New York University and Tali Sharot of University College London.
[...]
When researchers asked the subjects to think about 80 different future events that could be good, bad or neutral, they had a hard time getting people to think negatively, or even neutrally, about the future. For example, when people were asked to ponder a future haircut, they imagined getting the best haircut of their lives, instead of just an ordinary trim, Phelps said.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 10:34 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
October 19, 2007
DNA Discoverer Watson can't Hide His Racism
"Senility's a bitch."
Can't hide those 11th century thoughts anymore, eh?
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the 79-year-old said he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".He went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true".
Racist fucker.
Posted by Groonk at 10:37 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
October 18, 2007
Another Big Honking Dinosaur Found
Scientists from Argentina and Brazil said the Patagonian dinosaur appears to represent a previously unknown species because of the unique structure of its neck. They named it Futalognkosaurus dukei after the Mapuche Indian words for "giant" and "chief," and for Duke Energy Argentina, which helped fund the skeleton's excavation."This is one of the biggest in the world and one of the most complete of these giants that exist," said Jorge Calvo, director of paleontology center of National University of Comahue, Argentina, lead author of a study on the dinosaur published in the peer-reviewed Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
Of course, it was a plant eater.
(via discovery channel)
Posted by Groonk at 04:54 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Dinosaurs, Science
The Nomadic Aborigine Myth Debunked
Dwellings were constructed in various styles, depending on the climate. Most common were dome-like structures made of cane reeds with roofs thatched with palm leaves.Some of the houses were interconnected, allowing native people to interact during long periods spent indoors during the wet season.
The findings, by the anthropologist and architect Dr Paul Memmot, of the University of Queensland, discredits a commonly held view in Australia that Aborigines were completely nomadic before the arrival of Europeans 200 years ago.
The belief was part of the argument used by white settlers to claim that Australia was terra nullius - the Latin term for land that belonged to nobody.
Dr Memmott said the myth that indigenous Australians were constantly on the move had come about because early explorers made their observations in good weather, when indigenous people were more mobile than at other times.
(via warren ellis)
Posted by Groonk at 12:55 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Culture, History, Myth, Research, Science
September 17, 2007
Scientists Finally Catch Up to Arthur C Clarke's Imagination
Cassini flew within 1,000 miles of Iapetus on Monday and snapped images of its rugged, two-toned surface. As it was sending data back to Earth, it was hit by a cosmic ray that caused a power switch to trip. The spacecraft was not damaged, but had to turn off its instruments and relay only limited information.Mission controllers have since sent commands for Cassini to resume normal transmission and scientists recovered all the data from the moon flyby despite a nearly 12-hour delay. The spacecraft was expected to be fully functional by week's end.
Clarke surprised the Cassini team with a five-minute video played Tuesday during an internal meeting at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Clarke, who lives in Sri Lanka, told scientists he looked forward to viewing photos from the flyby.
(via discovery)
Posted by Groonk at 01:24 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
August 30, 2007
Galaxies Like to Eat Each Other
And to the Andromeda Galaxy: I hope that you're lactose intolerant.
(via yet another blog and History Channels The Universe)
Posted by Groonk at 05:30 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Just Freaking Neat, Research, Science, Video
August 27, 2007
Astronomers Look for Lunar Explosions this Tuesday
On Tuesday morning, Aug. 28th, Earth's shadow will settle across the Moon for a 90-minute total eclipse: full story. In the midst of the lunar darkness, Cooke hopes to record some flashes of light--explosions caused by meteoroids crashing into the Moon and blasting themselves to smithereens."The eclipse is a great time to look," says Cooke, who heads up NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office (MEO) at the Marshall Space Flight Center. The entire face of the Moon will be in shadow for more than two hours, offering more than 7 million sq. miles of dark terrain as target for incoming meteoroids.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
August 24, 2007
Astronomers Squee Over Finding a Great Big Nothing
Astronomers have found an enormous void in space that measures nearly a billion light-years across.It is empty of both normal matter - such as galaxies and stars - and the mysterious "dark matter" that cannot be seen directly with telescopes.
The "hole" is located in the direction of the Eridanus constellation and has been identified in data from a survey of the sky made at radio wavelengths.
(via bbc news)
Posted by Groonk at 02:28 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
The Tasman Outflow Connects the Weather...Maybe
The newfound Tasman Outflow is part of the "super-gyre" ocean current pathway which helps connect the Indian, South Atlantic and South Pacific oceans and is part of the global heat conveyor belt known as the thermohaline circulation. It's not certain, however, just how big a player the Tasman Outflow is."It's another link between the Pacific and Indian Ocean," said Ken Ridgway of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). "The other is through Indonesia." Ridgway and his colleagues report on the Tasman Outflow in the August issue of Geophysical Journal Letters.
(via discovery)
Posted by Groonk at 12:04 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Science
August 15, 2007
Cause You're a Dying Star. That's Who You Are.
(via bbc)
Posted by Groonk at 02:36 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Just Freaking Neat, Research, Science, Weird
August 12, 2007
Saturn has 60 Moons
(via bbc news and die puny humans)
Posted by Groonk at 07:14 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
Using Trees to Terraform Mars
MEXICO CITY - Scientists are using the pine-forested slopes of a Mexican volcano as a test bed to see if trees could grow on a heated-up Mars, part of a vision of making the chilly and barren red planet habitable for humans one day.Planetary scientists at NASA and Mexican universities believe if they can warm Mars using heat-trapping gases, raise the air pressure and start photosynthesis, they could create an atmosphere that would support oxygen-breathing life forms.
[...]
The scientists are studying what makes trees refuse to grow above a certain point, where temperatures drop and the air becomes thinner, to see how easily they could grow on Mars.
"Things don't really start cooking from a biological point of view until trees start growing. Trees are the engines of the biosphere," McKay said.
[...]
In the long term, Mars's low gravity could also have odd effects on would-be settlers, causing people to grow alarmingly tall, and cosmic radiation could cause cancers and mutations.
McKay ruled out anything more permanent than short-term research bases for the next century. "I don't have this vision of people moving to Mars the way people settled the New World, setting up homes and bringing their families."
(via msnbc and The Sputtering Engine)
Posted by Groonk at 07:08 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Mars, Research, Science
August 02, 2007
MIT Fall Fashion: The New Spacesuits are In
MIT folk have designed a new kind of spacesuit.
You can't tell me they didn't watch Robotech as kids.
(via geekologie)
Posted by Groonk at 09:56 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Mars, Research, Science
July 27, 2007
NASA-geddon: Sabotage and Drunken Pilots Edition
When did NASA become the Drama Club?
Scratch that. I went to school with those future NASA engineers and scientists. They have more drama than any coked-up, talentless, waste of a being that the entertainment biz can offer.
Aviation Week & Space Technology reported on its Web site that a special panel studying astronaut health found that on two occasions, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so drunk they posed a safety risk.The independent panel also found "heavy use of alcohol" before launch — within the standard 12-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule, the magazine reported.
[...]But Gerstenmaier had more news. He revealed that an employee for a NASA subcontractor had cut the wires in a computer that was about to be loaded into the shuttle Endeavour for launch.
The subcontractor, which he wouldn't name, contacted NASA 1 1/2 weeks ago, as soon as it learned that another computer had been damaged deliberately, Gerstenmaier said. Had the contractor not discovered the problem, NASA would have uncovered it by testing the computer before launch, Gerstenmaier said. Safety was not an issue, he added.
He refused to speculate on the worker's motive. He also wouldn't say where the sabotage occurred. He said it did not happen in Florida and had nothing to do with an ongoing strike at the Kennedy Space Center by a machinists' union.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 03:41 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
July 25, 2007
The Not so Glittering World and Diamond Centered Stars
A solid diamond inside a white dwarf star? That's the stuff a Dr Who villain creams his pants over. Where was I when this was reported?
The discovery three years ago of a white dwarf star with a solid diamond core bolstered theories that the carbon-containing atmospheres of the large outer planets were celestial diamond factories even closer to home.
Oh, and Uranus' skies would make graphite and not little diamond clouds.
(via discovery chewy diamond centered BPM37093)
Posted by Groonk at 04:21 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
July 16, 2007
Walking Upright = Energy Efficient
Bipedalism — walking on two feet — is one of the defining characteristics of being human, and scientists have debated for years how it came about. In the latest attempt to find an explanation, researchers trained five chimpanzees to walk on a treadmill while wearing masks that allowed measurement of their oxygen consumption.The chimps were measured both while walking upright and while moving on their legs and knuckles. That measurement of the energy needed to move around was compared with similar tests on humans and the results are published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
It turns out that humans walking on two legs use only one-quarter of the energy that chimpanzees use while knuckle-walking on four limbs. And the chimps, on average, use as much energy using two legs as they did when they used all four limbs.
The main thing they're ignoring, they're teaching chimps to walk on treadmills. The next thing you know, the walking bastards are buying expensive coffees and wearing bluetooth headsets even when they're not on the phone. After that, oblivion for the human race.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 06:57 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
July 05, 2007
Chinese Villagers are Eating Dinosaur Bones...for Sexual Healing
The article didn't say that but you just know they were.
BEIJING - Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers.Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as "dragon bones" at about 4 yuan (50 cents) per kilogram (2.2 pounds), scientist Dong Zhiming told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Dong, a professor with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said when the villagers found out the bones were from dinosaurs they donated 200 kilograms (440 pounds) to him and his colleagues for research.
"They had believed that the 'dragon bones' were from the dragons flying in the sky," he said.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 06:29 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Animals, Myth, Research, Science
June 06, 2007
Oh Hai, Global Warming Island. Y U So Melty?
What a fine place to drink my Global Warming Beer.
Off the coast of Greenland lies an island resembling a bony claw. Long connected to Greenland’s coast by ice, the island escaped recognition for what it was for nearly a century. The island might have been discovered when explorers such as Jean-Baptiste Charcot and Philippe, Duke of Orléans, mapped Greenland’s coast. Instead, this little island was only recognized as such in September 2005, by Dennis Schmitt, an explorer from Berkeley, California. Melting ice enabled Schmitt to detect the island while flying over northwestern Greenland.
(via earth observatory)
Posted by Groonk at 06:50 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
June 02, 2007
HAHAHAHA!
(via adventures of accordian guy, lolcats, )
Posted by Groonk at 11:53 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Animals, Funny, Science
June 01, 2007
Today I Learned: Italian Doctors Grew a Biotech Vagina
Yes, from this day forth DESIGNER VAGINAS is the possibility.
Rome, May 30 - Italian doctors have built the world's first biotech vagina.So far, two patients lacking vaginas because of a rare malformation have been helped to grow ones, using stem cells taken from their own bodies.
Vaginal tissue was grown from the cells and surgically grafted into the women's groins at Rome's Umberto I university hospital. In the first case, a 28-year-old woman received 0.3 square centimetres of mucous membrane a year ago and has since grown a vagina. She has married and is "in good health," doctors said Wednesday.
Day of wonders, I tell you.
(via ansa, warren ellis)
Posted by Groonk at 12:08 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Health, Science
May 31, 2007
Tonight, the Moon will be Blue
For me it happens around 8:04 PM Central Daylight Time. Adjust to your time zone accordingly.
But "meaning is a slippery substance," writes Philip Hiscock of the Dept. of Folklore, Memorial University of Newfoundland. "The phrase 'Blue Moon' has been around a long time, well over 400 years, and during that time its meaning has shifted."Blue Moon?The modern definition sprang up in the 1940s. In those days the Maine Farmer's Almanac offered a definition of Blue Moon so convoluted even professional astronomers struggled to understand it. It involved factors such as ecclesiastical dates of Easter and Lent, tropical years, and the timing of seasons according to the dynamical mean sun. Aiming to explain blue moons to the layman, Sky & Telescope published an article in 1946 entitled "Once in a Blue Moon." The author James Hugh Pruett (1886-1955) cited the 1937 Maine almanac and opined that the "second [full moon] in a month, so I interpret it, is called Blue Moon."
This was not correct, but at least it could be understood. And thus the modern Blue Moon was born.
Surveying the last four centuries of literature and folklore, "I have counted six different meanings which have been carried by the term," recounts Hiscock. In song, for instance, Blue Moons are a symbol of loneliness; when love conquers all, the Blue Moon turns gold. (See old Elvis records for more information.) "This makes discussion of the term a little complicated," he says.
Posted by Groonk at 06:22 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
May 30, 2007
Cellphones aren't Killing Honeybees
Meant to post on this many weeks ago. Neil Gaiman had a reader who informed him that the "mysterious bee deaths" that the media latched onto for whatever reason was actually due to mites. Let Sharon Stiteler inform us properly:
Our bees are Minnesota Hygienic Italian Bees developed by Marla Spivak at the U of M. She is one of the researchers studying Colony Collapse Disorder--she said that this has been a problem for the last 15 years and this year the media has grabbed on to the story. has studied the Varroa mite, which over the past 20 years has become a major threat to commercial honeybees. First discovered in the United States in 1987, the mite weakens the bee's immune system. It kills off most bee colonies within a year or two after invading. Beekeepers use pesticides to control the mites, but Spivak has studied ways to breed honeybees that are resistant to it. The bees have been bred to have a "hygienic" behaviors. They sense when brood is diseased and cleans them out. They also clean out any dead bees as well. This behavior cuts down on foul brood and other colony problems.
Marla wrote an article about Sharon's bees:
http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=290
Oh, and about that research that "pointed the finger" to cell phones? Well, they hadn't even studied cell phones. Wired points us to this:
Good story for sure, except that the study in question had nothing to do with mobile phones and was actually investigating the influence of electromagnetic fields, especially those used by cordless phones that work on fixed-line networks, on the learning ability of bees. The small study, according to the researchers who carried it out too small for the results to be considered significant, found that the electromagnetic fields similar to those used by cordless phones may interrupt the innate ability of bees to find the way back to their hive.Those searching for answers for the recent disappearance of millions of bees in the United States - what researchers are calling colony collapse disorder - jumped on the possible explanation though there was one particular, cellphones and cordless phones emit different types of radiation and what you learn studying one type is not necessarily significant to the other, according to the researchers.
I still say the bees are hatching other plans.
(via wired and neil gaimman)
Posted by Groonk at 02:32 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
May 03, 2007
Ancient Buddhist Paintings Found in Nepal's Caves
KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Explorers have discovered a series of caves decorated with ancient Buddhist paintings, set in sheer cliffs in Nepal's remote Himalayan north, leaving archaeologists excited and puzzled.An international team of scholars, archaeologists, climbers and explorers examined at least 12 cave complexes at 14,000 feet (4,300 metres) near Lo Manthang, a mediaeval walled city in Nepal's Mustang district, about 125 km (80 miles) northwest of Kathmandu.
"Who lived in those caves? When were they there, when were (the caves) first excavated and how did the residents access them, perched as they are on vertical cliffs?" asked Broughton Coburn, an American member of the survey team.
"It's a compelling, marvellous mystery."
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 01:20 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of History, Science
April 28, 2007
Ice-Lashes are a Bit Freaky
(via reuters pictures)
Posted by Groonk at 05:55 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Photos2, Research, Science
April 26, 2007
Burly-Man Hawking Experienced Zero Gravity via the Vomit Comet
Hawking did this in the interest to nudge private space ventures forward.
Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking floated free in zero gravity Thursday, becoming the first person with a disability to have the experience.The zero-gravity flight in a modified jet creates the experience of microgravity during 25-second plunges -- called parabolas -- over the Atlantic Ocean.
"It was amazing," Hawking, paralyzed by a progressive neurological disorder, said afterward through an electronic device.
"The zero-G part was wonderful and the full-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on.
"Space, here I come."
[...]
"We consider ... having him weightless for 25 seconds is a successful mission," Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO of Zero Gravity, said before the flight. "If we do more than one, fantastic."
Urged on by Hawking's smiles after the first parabola, they did seven more, Diamandis said afterward.
"He was doing gold-medalist gymnastics in zero G," Diamandis said.
Hawking has an ulterior motive for going on the flight other than the personal thrill of weightlessness -- he believes in the importance of private space ventures and the need to reduce the cost of space tourism so that it is accessible to more people.
[...]
"Professor Hawking reached for the sky and touched the heavens today."
Past news on the burly man that is Stephen Hawking
- Stephen Hawking has The Right Stuff
- Hawking wants the Human-Virus to Spread
- In Order to Save Humanity, Stephen Hawking Turns to Internet for Help
- The Pope told Stephen Hawking not to Study the Universes' Beginning
- Hawking revises black hole theory
(via ontd and cnn)
Posted by Groonk at 07:00 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Just Freaking Neat, Science
April 25, 2007
FOUND: Kryptonite in Serbia. Orphaned Babies Nowhere Closeby
Researchers from mining group Rio Tinto discovered the unusual mineral and enlisted the help of Dr Stanley when they could not match it with anything known previously to science.
Once the London expert had unravelled the mineral’s chemical make-up, he was shocked to discover this formula was already referenced in literature - albeit fictional literature.
“Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns.
“The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite.”
DC's PR team wasted no time in commenting:
“The universe is full of mysteries, and some have been foreshadowed by comics,” said Paul Levitz, DC Comics President and Publisher. “We look forward to scientists figuring this one out.”The real world version of “kryptonite” – which according to media reports will be officially named “jadarite,” after the place where it was discovered and because it does not contain the element krypton – is white, does not glow and is reportedly harmless to humans and/or natives of the planet Krypton.
Wait a tick...Goldilocks is orbiting a red dwarf(that's a tiny red sun to you and me). Then real life kryptonite is found in Serbia. Where is the Ubermensch? The Nietzschean ideal can't be far away. All the signs are there. Show yourself!
As long as you still "fight for truth, justice and the American way," that is.
Posted by Groonk at 12:40 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Comics, Marketing, Science
FOUND: Super Earth, 'Goldilocks,' is Better than Porridge
She has a possiblity of holding Earth-like atmosphere. Which means water and all those good things. And she has a red dwarf star to boot.
For the first time, astronomers have spotted a cosy alien planet that might be hospitable to life. The planet is not much bigger than the Earth, and it enjoys balmy temperatures of about 20° C (68° F) as well as spectacular scarlet sunsets."It's the smallest, lightest planet known at this time," says Stéphane Udry from the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. "And it's just at the right distance from its star for liquid water to possibly exist on its surface."
[...]
"If you take an average value for the amount of starlight heating the planet, you get something like 20° C," Udry told New Scientist. That's similar to the average temperature in New York City, US, in June.
Astronomers have discovered "super-Earths" slightly larger than this one before. However, they are either too hot or too cold for liquid water to exist. The smallest world circling Gliese 581 is a "Goldilocks" planet with the conditions just right for potential life.
Whether DEADLY SPACE BEARS are present is not yet known.
(via new scientist)
(horrible SPACE BEAR movie via Sci Fi Channel)
Posted by Groonk at 12:35 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Just Freaking Neat, Science
April 23, 2007
Those Damn Hobbit Hominids Still Baffling Scientists
If true, it would mean that H. sapiens, which has been around for around 150,000-200,000 years, would have shared the planet with rival humans far more recently than thought.And it implies that H. sapiens and H. floresiensis lived side by side on Flores for a while — and, who knows, may even have interbred, which could have left "hobbit" genes in our DNA heritage.
In a study that appears on Wednesday in the British journal Biology Letters, evolutionary zoologists at Imperial College London believe the hobbits may well have achieved their tininess naturally, through evolutionary pressure.
The principle under scrutiny here is called the "island rule."
It stipulates that because food on a small island is limited, smaller species do well and get bigger over time, sometimes becoming relatively gargantuan.
But larger species, facing fierce competition for a small amount of food, become smaller, because those members who eat less have an advantage.
- Hobbit Critter, Now a New Species. Everything Else, Debatable
- When is a Hobbit not a Hobbit?
- Hobbit Tools
- Halflings did Exist
(via discovery channel)
Posted by Groonk at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
April 19, 2007
Our Sun Likes to Rock-Out
But we can't hear it's song.
Astronomers have recorded heavenly music bellowed out by the Sun’s atmosphere.Snagging orchestra seats for this solar symphony would be fruitless, however, as the frequency of the sound waves is below the human hearing threshold. While humans can make out sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz, the solar sound waves are on the order of milli-hertz—a thousandth of a hertz.
The study, presented this week at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting in Lancashire, England, reveals that the looping magnetic fields along the Sun’s outer regions, called the corona, carry magnetic sound waves in a similar manner to musical instruments such as guitars or pipe organs.
[...]
They found that explosive events at the Sun’s surface appear to trigger acoustic waves that bounce back and forth between both ends of the loops, a phenomenon known as a standing wave.
“These magnetic loops are analogous to a simple guitar string,” von Fay-Siebenburgen explained. “If you pluck a guitar string, you will hear the music.”
In the cosmic equivalent of a guitar pick, so-called microflares at the base of loops could be plucking the magnetic loops and setting the sound waves in motion, the researchers speculate.
Why those bastards didn't include a sample of the "music" I'll never know.
Posted by Groonk at 05:45 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Music, Science
April 13, 2007
US Governement to Fight Global Warming with Futurama Plot
Life has become "Crimes of the Hot."
The US government wants the world's scientists to develop technology to block sunlight as a last-ditch way to halt global warming, the Guardian has learned. It says research into techniques such as giant mirrors in space or reflective dust pumped into the atmosphere would be "important insurance" against rising emissions, and has lobbied for such a strategy to be recommended by a major UN report on climate change, the first part of which will be published on Friday.
Yes, I know it was also a Simpsons episode. I like Futurama better.
(via guardian unlimited)
Posted by Groonk at 05:22 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
CosmosCode Equals Opensource NASA
NASA scientists plan to announce a new open-source project this month called CosmosCode -- it's aimed at recruiting volunteers to write code for live space missions, Wired News has learned.The program was launched quietly last year under NASA's CoLab entrepreneur outreach program, created by Robert Schingler, 28, and Jessy Cowan-Sharp, 25, of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. Members of the CosmosCode group have been meeting in Second Life and will open the program to the public in the coming weeks, organizers said.
"CosmosCode is ... allowing NASA scientists to begin a software project in the public domain, leveraging the true value of open-source software by creating an active community of volunteers," said Cowan-Sharp, a NASA contractor.
CosmosCode is indicative of a larger shift at NASA toward openness and transparency -- things for which complex and bureaucratic government labs are not known.
(via wired)
Posted by Groonk at 04:43 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
T. Rexes turned into Chickens
But not giant chickens.
Tiny bits of protein extracted from a 68-million-year-old dinosaur bone have given scientists the first genetic proof that the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex is a distant cousin to the modern chicken."It's the first molecular evidence of this link between birds and dinosaurs," said John Asara, a Harvard Medical School researcher, whose results were published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
Scientists have long suspected that birds evolved from dinosaurs based on a study of dinosaur bones, but until recently, no soft tissue had survived to confirm the link.
(via cnn.com)
Posted by Groonk at 10:01 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
April 04, 2007
BLIND CLICK: Wine and Resonance
(via university of salford)
Posted by Groonk at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Just Freaking Neat, Science, Video
March 27, 2007
Saturn's got a Bizarre Hexagon
One of the most bizarre weather patterns known has been photographed at Saturn, where astronomers have spotted a huge, six-sided feature circling the north pole.Rather than the normally sinuous cloud structures seen on all planets that have atmospheres, this thing is a hexagon.
[...]
"This is a very strange feature, lying in a precise geometric fashion with six nearly equally straight sides," said Kevin Baines, atmospheric expert and member of Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We've never seen anything like this on any other planet. Indeed, Saturn's thick atmosphere, where circularly-shaped waves and convective cells dominate, is perhaps the last place you'd expect to see such a six-sided geometric figure, yet there it is."
The hexagon is nearly 15,000 miles (25,000 kilometers) across. Nearly four Earths could fit inside it. The thermal imagery shows the hexagon extends about 60 miles (100 kilometers) down into the clouds.
At Saturn's south pole, Cassini recently spotted a freaky human eye-like feature that resembles a hurricane.
Scientists say Voyager 1 and 2 photographed it more than two decades ago. The Cassini spotting confirms it's a "long-lasting oddity."
Huh.
WATCH: The moving picture show of Saturn's hexagon.
More on Saturn:
- There's a Large Body of Liquid on Saturn
- There's a Storm Churning on Saturn
- Saturn has a Pearl Necklace
- The Earth as it is from Saturn
- Saturn's Moon Hyperion has Odd Rice Crispy Design
- Mimas: "Death Star" of Saturn
(via usatoday and 7d who's doing Relay for Life for Cancer again this year )
Posted by Groonk at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science, Weird
March 26, 2007
Found in Greenland: Oldest. Rock. Ever.
The oldest substantial chunk of Earth’s crust has been found in Greenland, and dates back at least 3.8 billion years. The find is important because it is of a type known as an ophiolite – a signature of plate tectonics – and provides the best evidence yet that plates have been moving across the Earth's surface for at least a billion years longer than thought.[...]
Ophiolites form when a piece of ocean crust is forced up onto a piece of continental crust. Ocean crust is denser than continental crust, and so it usually is forced under, meaning ophiolites are quite rare. They are created when two tectonic plates are moving towards each other, with one being forced under the other. The fragments of the descending - or subducted - oceanic plate can be shaved off and left on top of the other plate, forming an ophiolite.
Until now, the oldest example of an ophiolite was an example in China dated to 2.5 billion years ago, and its identification had been questioned. Now Harald Furnes at the University of Bergen in Norway and colleagues have analysed an ophiolite fragment embedded in the Isua supracrustal belt in south-west Greenland. The fragment was part of a distinctive layered deposit called "sheeted dikes" that are a key component of ophiolites, measuring about 30 by 50 metres.
(via rocketboom)
Posted by Groonk at 08:33 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Science
March 22, 2007
NASA Can't Afford to Think About the Future
NASA will likely shut down its Institute for Advanced Concepts, which funds research into futuristic – and often far-out – ideas in spaceflight and aeronautics, officials say. The controversial move highlights the budgetary pressures the agency is facing as it struggles to retire the space shuttles by 2010 and develop their replacement.The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) was established to "give an opportunity for people outside of NASA to develop really revolutionary and creative concepts for future aeronautics and space missions", says Robert Cassanova, who has served as the institute's director since its inception in February 1998.
The institute, which operates from an office in Atlanta, Georgia, US, receives about $4 million per year from NASA. Most of that is used to fund research into innovative technologies; recent grants include the conceptual development of spacecraft that could surf the solar system on magnetic fields, motion-sensitive spacesuits that could generate power and tiny, spherical robots that could explore Mars.
Now, the future development of those and other projects has been thrown into doubt...
Yet the current president made such grand speeches once upon a time about going back to the moon and eventually to Mars.
(via new scientist space)
Posted by Groonk at 08:39 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
March 21, 2007
HOW TO: Create a Baby Universe
(via newscientist and the engine)
Posted by Groonk at 10:33 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
Phenomenal Dinosaur Size! Itty Bitty DNA Space.
Tyrannosaurus rex may have been over 43 feet long, but the meat-loving predator and several other large dinosaurs had relatively little DNA in their cells, according to new research.The study, published in this week's Nature, is the first to estimate dinosaur genome size. A genome is an organism's complete set of genetic information, which includes DNA and RNA.
Since prior research by the same team demonstrated that small genomes correlate with high metabolism, the findings suggest T. rex, Allosaurus, Deinonychus (aka "Terrible Claw") and certain other large carnivorous dinosaurs may have been very active, fast moving animals, as many popular films, such as "Jurassic Park," portray.
(via discovery news)
Posted by Groonk at 11:15 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
Glowy-Eyed Mosquitoes May Reduce Malaria
US scientists have genetically engineered mosquitoes with eyes that glow in the dark and do not carry malaria that have a better survival rate than their wild counterparts.The study is published in this week's early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists, led by Dr Mauro Marrelli from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, suggest that the transgenic malaria-resistant mosquito could one day be introduced into the wild where it would outbreed natural mosquitoes and reduce the spread of malaria.
(via medicalnewstoday.com, The Engine)
Posted by Groonk at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
March 18, 2007
The Sound Theory of Nerves
The theory that nerves may use sound to communicate rather than electricity isn't as disturbing to me as the idea that scientists(doctors included) are quite sure about the workings of anesthetics. Yet they use the stuff every damn day.
Physicists don't liek the idea of electricity traveling along nerves because there's no detecable heat along the nerve. It's a whole Law of Thermodynamics, you know.
The sound theory seems to solve that problem:
Nerves are wrapped in a membrane of lipids and proteins. Biology textbooks say a pulse is sent from one end of the nerve to the other with the help of electrically charged salts that pass through ion channels in the membrane. But the lack of heat generation contradicts the molecular biological theory of an electrical impulse produced by chemical processes, says Heimburg, who co-authored the new study with Copenhagen University theoretical physicist Andrew Jackson.
Instead, nerve pulses can be explained much more simply as a mechanical pulse of sound, Heimburg and Jackson argue. Their idea will be published in the Biophysical Journal.
The lipids in a nerve membrane are similar to olive oil, the scientists explain. And the membrane has a freezing point that is precisely suited to the propagation of these concentrated sound pulses.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 04:45 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Science
The Mathematics of Jeopardy
For all the math geeks. In 23 years, this has never happened.
The three contestants on the venerable game show all finished with $16,000 after each answering the final question correctly in the category, "Women of the 1930s," on Friday's show. They identified Bonnie Parker, of the famed Bonnie and Clyde crime duo, as a woman who, as a waitress, once served one of the men who shot her.[...]
UPDATE: There's video, of course.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 04:38 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Science, Video
March 13, 2007
There's a Large Body of Liquid on Saturn
Scientists for the first time have discovered what appear to be sea-size bodies of liquid on the surface of Saturn's largest moon, including one about as big as the Caspian Sea on Earth.
The discovery by the international Cassini spacecraft was welcomed by researchers, who have long theorized that Titan possessed hydrocarbon seas because of methane and other organic compounds in its thick, largely nitrogen atmosphere. Until now, Cassini had only spotted clusters of small lakes on the planet-size moon.
"They're very obvious. There's nothing subtle about them," said Cassini scientist Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona, Tucson.
(via yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 04:19 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
March 06, 2007
Under the Apocalypse Cloak: NASA Underfunded to Fight Earth Killing Space Rocks
NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done.The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by 2020 would be about $1 billion, according to a report NASA will release later this week. The report was previewed Monday at a Planetary Defense Conference in Washington.
Congress in 2005 asked NASA to come up with a plan to track most killer asteroids and propose how to deflect the potentially catastrophic ones.
(via die puny humans, cnn)
Posted by Groonk at 01:14 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
Physicists Seek "Rabbit Hole" to the 5th Dimension...
...and beyond:
SEATTLE - The cosmos would make perfect sense … if it turns out we're living in a 10- or 11-dimensional realm where gravity is bubbling off a different plane entirely. At least that's what's emerging as the hottest concept on the frontier of physics.Though these sound like virtually unverifiable claims, physicists are trying to come up with ways to gather evidence to back up or disprove the extradimensional theories currently in vogue. But it’ll take several years to get that evidence, if it can be gotten at all.
[...]The theories work even better if you can think of our four-dimensional space-time continuum as a type of membrane, or "brane," embedded in a "bulk" that takes in even more dimensions. Randall and Sundrum found that gravity's comparative weakness was perfectly understandable if particles called gravitons could leak off a brane into a five-dimensional bulk. In fact, they said, it could well be that gravitons are leaking across the bulk into our own brane (the "Weakbrane") from an extradimensional brane nearby (the "Gravitybrane").
In all your stumbling around, don't free any Red Lectroids.
(via msnbc)
Posted by Groonk at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
An Ocean Sleeps Under Asia
Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle.
The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union.
[...]
Wysession has dubbed the new underground feature the “Beijing anomaly,” because seismic wave attenuation was found to be highest beneath the Chinese capital city. Wysession first used the moniker during a presentation of his work at the University of Beijing.
“They thought it was very, very interesting,” Wysession said. “China is under greater seismic risk than just about any country in the world, so they are very interested in seismology.”
(via livescience.com, rocketboom)
Posted by Groonk at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
Future Pipe: Bee Plague Haunts USA
Not a plague *of* bees, but a plague *on* bees. Funny how this doesn't get as much airplay as bees attacking people.
Does no one recall The Circle of Life?
A mysterious illness is devastating honeybee populations across the US from California to Florida, claiming up to 80% of colonies in some areas. The losses of honeybees could disrupt the pollination of food crops, researchers warn.Beekeepers are finding once-healthy colonies abandoned just a few days later, says Jerry Bromenshank, at the University of Montana at Missoula and Bee Alert Technology, a company monitoring the problem: “In most cases the only one left is the queen, along with a few young bees.”
The absence of dead bees makes it difficult to know what ails them and where they have gone. Furthermore, experts cannot track the spread of the mysterious illness. “The problem is that it strikes out of the blue,” says Bromenshank.
At a loss for an explanation, researchers have referred to the honeybee decline as “colony collapse disorder”.
Thank a mispent youth. I figured out the bees true plan.
(via new scientist, neil gaiman, buzzy youtube)
Posted by Groonk at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Research, Science
In the Future Pipe: "Boob Plants" Await Growth in Kansas, USA
Authorities in the United States have given preliminary approval to a plan to grow rice genetically modified to produce human proteins.Rice plants including human genes involved in producing breast milk would be grown in the state of Kansas.
The company behind the proposal, Ventria Bioscience, says the plants could be developed into medicines for diarrhoea and dehydration in infants.
Critics say parts of the rice plants could enter the food chain.
(via the engine, bbc)
Posted by Groonk at 10:01 AM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Science
February 27, 2007
Prepare Yourselves for Remote Controlled Harbingers of Doom
BEIJING (Reuters) - Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday.
Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Center at Shandong University of Science and Technology said their electrodes could command them to fly right or left or up or down, Xinhua news agency said.
You know what this means, right? Remote manned bird-flu on the wing.
You just wait and see.
UPDATE: Sweet merciful fuck. There are pictures.
(via the engine, yahoo news)
Posted by Groonk at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | Ministry of Animals