Science & TechnologyS


Telescope

Facebook 'in talks to buy drone satellite firm' to bring internet connectivity everywhere, so everyone can be spied on!

Samuel Gibbs
The Guardian
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 18:45 UTC
Image
© GuardianFacebook is reportedly interested in acquiring a company that makes drones to replace satellites, capable of flying at high altitude for up to five years at a time.
Social network said to be in talks with Titan Aerospace in order to bring internet connectivity to people in the developing world

Facebook is reportedly in discussions to acquire Titan Aerospace, a manufacturer of drones, for around $60m.

Titan Aerospace specialises in solar-powered, very high flying drones capable of staying airborne for five years at a time, positioned as a more cost-effective alternative to orbital satellites dubbed as "atmospheric satellites".

The talks, confirmed by technology site TechCrunch, indicate that Facebook is likely interested in these satellite alternative drones that fly as high as 20km in altitude as part of its Internet.org initiative.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress in February to elaborate on the Internet.org coalition's plans to connect the next five billion people to the internet in developing nations. The drones could be used to blanket large areas of Africa and other countries with internet access.
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Cassiopaea

SOFIA gives scientists a first-class view of a supernova

Jason Major
Universe Today
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 03:10 UTC
Image
© NASA/SOFIA/FLITECAM team/S. ShenoyImage of M82 with supernova SN2014J at near-infrared wavelengths made Feb. 20 by the FLITECAM instrument on SOFIA.
Astronomers wanting a closer look at the recent Type Ia supernova that erupted in M82 back in January are in luck. Thanks to NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) near-infrared observations have been made from 43,000 feet - 29,000 feet higher than some of the world's loftiest ground-based telescopes.

(And, technically, that is closer to M82. If only just a little.)

All sarcasm aside, there really is a benefit from that extra 29,000 feet. Earth's atmosphere absorbs a lot of wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, especially in the infrared and sub-millimeter ranges. So in order to best see what's going on in the Universe in these very active wavelengths, observational instruments have to be placed in very high, dry (and thus also very remote) locations, sent entirely out into space, or, in the case of SOFIA, mounted inside a modified 747 where they can simply be flown above 99% of the atmosphere's absorptive water vapor.

During a recent 10-hour flight over the Pacific, researchers aboard SOFIA turned their attention to SN2014J, one of the closest Type Ia "standard candle" supernovas that have ever been seen. It appeared suddenly in the relatively nearby Cigar Galaxy (M82) in mid-January and has since been an exciting target of observation for scientists and amateur skywatchers alike.
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Fireball 5

Asteroid came close today and missed, but there's another tonight!

Jake Ellison
The Big Science Blog
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 23:01 UTC
Asteroid 2014 EC
© Blastr.com
This afternoon asteroid 2014 DX110 zoomed by the Earth at a distance closer than the moon. NASA said:
As happens about 20 times a year with current detection capabilities, a known asteroid will safely pass Earth Wednesday closer than the distance from Earth to the moon.

This asteroid, 2014 DX110, is estimated to be about 100 feet (30 meters) across. Its closest approach to Earth will be at about 217,000 miles (about 350,000 kilometers) from Earth at about 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EST) on March 5. The average distance between Earth and its moon is about 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers).
We're all more aware of these small yet dangerous asteroids that slide right by the Earth because, one, NASA and others are getting better at discovering them on approach; and, two, there was that surprise meteorite that blew up over Chelyabinsk last year (see gallery below), injuring hundreds and generally freaking people out.

Now, as Slate reports, a smaller one will pass even closer tonight ... and of particular note, it was spotted just yesterday:
An asteroid called 2014 EC that was discovered only last night will pass the Earth just after midnight UTC tonight, sliding past us at a distance of just 56,000 km (35,000 miles) above Earth's surface! This rock is roughly 10 meters across - half the diameter of the Chelyabinsk asteroid. A miss is as good as a mile, as they say, but it shows that there are lots of these things passing us all the time.
As the veil lifts and we humans get better at seeing just how much danger is circling our little blue life raft, scientists and enthusiasts are arguing that we need a plan. In response, the U.N. has established the International Asteroid Warning Network for that purpose.
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Attention

Scientists revive giant virus from 30,000-year-old Siberian permafrost


RT
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:15 UTC
giant virus
© Julia Bartoli & Chantal Abergel, IGS, CNRS/AMU

French and Russian researchers have revived a 30,000-year-old living virus from deep below the frozen Siberian tundra, which they say is the largest ever discovered. It targets amoebae, but hints that other ancient viruses could be in the Earth's soil.

The giant virus was discovered by a group of scientists led by Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel, a husband-and-wife duo at Aix-Marseille University in France.

The contagion, which has been dubbed Pithovirus sibericum due to its oddly long and narrow shape, infects amoebae and presents no threat to humans, Nature scientific journal reported.

The Greek word "pithos" represents a large container used by the ancient Greeks to store wine and food. "We're French, so we had to put wine in the story," said the researchers, who published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have long known that viruses can survive for thousands of years. For example, latent smallpox virus genes were discovered in 400-year-old mummies.

However, the Siberian virus is not latent. It has shown to be able to infect host cells and replicate.
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Galaxy

NASA image shows spiral galaxy being torn


Nature World News
Wed, 05 Mar 2014 15:34 UTC
Image
© NASA, ESA/ Ming Sun (UAH), and Serge MeunierThis new Hubble image shows spiral galaxy ESO 137-001, framed against a bright background as it moves through the heart of galaxy cluster Abell 3627.
A new image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 being ripped into several pieces.

Discovery News has described the image as the Universe's R-rated movie, complete with an innocent galaxy being butchered at the heart of a star cluster called Abell 3627.

The blue streaks of light seen in the image are stars that are being torn apart from the galaxy. According to Hubble, ESO 137-001 is undergoing a process known as ram pressure stripping.

Ram Pressure is a drag force experienced by a body moving through a fluid. It's almost like the pressure of wind experienced by a moving bicyclist. In the present context, the "fluid" is superheated gas in the center of a galaxy cluster. Ram pressure stripping of a galaxy is a commonly observed phenomenon.

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Info

Plants are far more intelligent than we ever assumed

April McCarthy
Prevent Disease
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 22:50 UTC
Plant
© Prevent Disease
Like higher organisms, plants appear able to make complex decisions. A new study shows that plants may be able to initiate a survival mechanism by aborting their own seeds to prevent parasite infestation.

Plants have previously been shown to draw alternative sources of energy from other plants. Plants influence each other in many ways and they communicate through "nanomechanical oscillations" vibrations on the tiniest atomic or molecular scale or as close as you can get to telepathic communication. Plants exhibit intelligence with an intrinsic ability to process information from several type of stimuli that allows optimal decisions about future activities in a given environment.

Stefano Mancuso from the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology at the University of Florence, Italy, and his colleagues are starting to apply rigorous standards to study plant hearing (Trends in Plant Sciences, vol17, p323). Their preliminary results indicate that corn roots grow towards specific frequencies of vibrations. What is even more surprising is their finding that roots themselves may also be emitting sound waves. For now, though, we have no idea how a plant might produce sound signals let alone how they might detect them.

Scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the University of Gottingen have now shown from their investigations on Barberry (Berberis vulgaris), that it is is able to abort its own seeds to prevent parasite infestation.

The results, as reported in a news release, are the first ecological evidence of complex behaviour in plants. They indicate that this species has a structural memory, is able to differentiate between inner and outer conditions as well as anticipate future risks, scientists write in the renowned journal American Naturalist -- the premier peer-reviewed American journal for theoretical ecology.
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Fireball

270m asteroid swings past Earth almost exactly a year after a meteor burst over Russia


news.com.au
Tue, 18 Feb 2014 16:33 UTC
Chelyabinsk
© Oleg Kargopolov/AFP Fire in the sky ... the meteorite trail seen above an apartment block in Chelyabinsk.
Just days after the anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteor that injured 1,000 when the spectacular fireball burst over Russia, a massive asteroid has flashed past Earth.

The trajectory of the 270m diameter near-Earth asteroid, named 2000 EM26, posed no threat to our planet as it whizzed past at 12.37km per second earlier today.

At its closest point, it was about 8.8 times further from Earth than the Moon.

Unfortunately the Slooh Observatory on the Canary Islands was 'iced up' so it wasn't possible to record any live images of the asteroid.
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Fireball 5

Asteroid expected to whizz between the Earth and the moon on March 5


RT.com
Tue, 04 Mar 2014 12:28 UTC
Asteroid
© AFP Photo/NASA/JPL CaltechThis NASA image shows an artist's animation that illustrates a massive asteroid belt.
An Apollo class asteroid is expected to whizz between the Earth and the moon on March 5. The 98-foot-wide space rock is expected to come within 218,000 miles of earth (0.9 lunar distances), creating quite the site for stargazers.

The asteroid, named 2014 DX110, is expected to make its closest approach at 21:07 GMT on Wednesday at a blistering speed of 14.85 km/s (32,076 mph). Although the space rock poses no threat to earth, it highlights the earth's susceptibility to near-Earth asteroids.

For amateur astronomers interested in watching the flyby as it happens, the virtual telescope project will offer live coverage via Slooh, which allows viewers to peer through a telescope via the web.

DX110 belongs to the Apollo class of asteroids, a group of Earth-crossing asteroids, which pose a potential threat to humankind. The February-15, 2013, 65-foot-wide meteor, which exploded over the town of Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals region of Russia, belonged to the Apollo class. The meteor explosion was 30 times stronger than the Hiroshima atomic bomb. As windowpanes shattered throughout the city, 1,500 people were injured, but luckily no one was killed.

Nearly one year after the Chelyabinsk atmospheric extravaganza, another massive asteroid sailed past the Earth. The space-rock known officially as 2000 EM26 had an estimated diameter of 885 feet, roughly the equivalent of 3 football fields. It however, only came within some 2,094,400 miles of Earth.
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Info

Strange signal from Galactic Center is looking more and more like dark matter?

Adam Mann
Wired.com
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 13:53 UTC
Dark Matter?
© NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT CollaborationThe sky as seen in gamma rays from the Fermi telescope. The red line through the center is the disk of our galaxy.
The more that scientists stare at it, the more a strange signal from the center of the Milky Way galaxy appears to be the result of dark matter annihilation. If confirmed, it would be the first direct evidence for dark matter ever seen.

Dark matter is a mysterious, invisible substance making up roughly 85 percent of all matter in the universe. It floats throughout our galaxy, but is more concentrated at its center. There, a dark matter particle can meet another dark matter particle flying through space. If they crash into one another, they will annihilate each other (dark matter is its own antiparticle) and give off gamma rays.

To search for a dark matter signal, astronomers use NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Telescope to map the gamma radiation throughout the galaxy. Then, they try to account for all known sources of light within this map. They plot the location of gas and dust that could be emitting radiation and subtract that signal from their gamma-ray map. Then they determine where all the stars are and subtract out that light, and so on for every object that might be emitting radiation. Once all those sources are gone, there remains a tiny excess of gamma radiation in the data that no known process can account for.
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Info

Giant virus resurrected from permafrost after 30,000 years

Tia Ghose
LiveScience
Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:00 UTC
Virus
© Julia Bartoli and Chantal Abergel, IGS and CNRS-AMUAn ultrathin section of a Pithovirus particle in an infected Acanthamoeba castellanii cell observed by transmission electron microscopy with enhancement.
A mysterious giant virus buried for 30,000 years in Siberian permafrost has been resurrected.

The virus only infects single-celled organisms and doesn't closely resemble any known pathogens that harm humans.

Even so, the new discovery raises the possibility that as the climate warms and exploration expands in long-untouched regions of Siberia, humans could release ancient or eradicated viruses. These could include Neanderthal viruses or even smallpox that have lain dormant in the ice for thousands of years.

"There is now a non-zero probability that the pathogenic microbes that bothered [ancient human populations] could be revived, and most likely infect us as well," study co-author Jean-Michel Claverie, a bioinformatics researcher at Aix-Marseille University in France, wrote in an email.

"Those pathogens could be banal bacteria (curable with antibiotics) or resistant bacteria or nasty viruses. If they have been extinct for a long time, then our immune system is no longer prepared to respond to them."

(A "non-zero" probability just means the chances of the event happening are not "impossible.")
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