Category Archives: Science
Earth’s 2 Moons?!
AP
Huffingtonpost - In a spectacle that might have beguiled poets, lovers and songwriters if only they had been around to see it, Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think. But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the “big splat.”
The result: Our planet was left with a single bulked-up and ever-so-slightly lopsided moon.
The astronomers came up with the scenario to explain why the moon’s far side is so much more hilly than the one that is always facing Earth.
This is rather exciting to be making so many new discoveries about the galaxy, but I’m a bit weary to stand by this theory just yet. Many people use to believe that the Earth was flat, and that was understood fact amongst most. Unfortunately, it would be rather difficult to prove that another moon existed and smashed into the other considering it was billions of years ago.
Either way, this is a unique and interesting theory that I look forward hearing more about in the future.
Man Decapitated By Hovercraft He Created
By: Kelli Knight
ARHPTR Oneroa Bay Waiheke Island Auckland North Island New Zealand Aerial
Dr Alastair Kenneth Senior, 40, had made a hovercraft from a kit and was planning to fly it for the first time. Kenneth, from Australia, was with friends and family on Muriwai beach in Auckland. He decided to check one of the propellers when it suddenly came off and hit him in the head.
His partner and good friend were there and witnessed the entire incident. Most people stand by the fact that home made hovercrafts are safe and are currently investigating what led to this incident.
Facial Recognition And Technology Means A Scary Future
While the title may say it brings a scary future, this is just my take on the news. Apparently, thanks to Facebook, some researchers have been able to identify people who they took photos of (volunteers); Most were identified within three seconds. This was all done with software that is available publicly.
The researchers said that Facebook, which has 750 million members worldwide, is becoming the world’s default identification service.
In the past the only publicly available pictures have been school photographs or mugshots of criminals which have been tricky to get hold of.
Now ID thieves could potentially find out everything they need to know just by surfing the web and looking at photos.
Seeing into the future: U.S. artist plans to replace eyeball lost in car accident with webcam
Tonya Vlach, an artist living in the San Francisco area, has managed to turn a tragedy into something unique and artistic. After losing her eye in a horrible car accident in 2005, she was depressed and worried about how this would affect her artwork and future.
Luckily, she realized that there was something artistic she could do, that no one else has done before (in real life): replace her eye with a prosthetic eye that housed a tiny video camera.
That idea is, of course, nothing new. Look at the Six Million Dollar Man, the 1970s TV series that created a bionic humanoid.
Arnie in the Terminator films is another example.
But Ms Vlach’s planned intra-ocular camera is souped up for 2011.
Her dream is to make it web optimised, perhaps with its own app, so movement could be controlled externally.
She’d like sensors that respond to blinking, enabling the camera to take still photographs, zoom, focus and turn on and off.
The pupil would be sensitive to light change, dilating as a human eye would.
There would also be functions for geo-tagging and facial recognition.
Such a wish list doesn’t come cheap. But Ms Vlach has already smashed her goal of raising $15,000 by early August, such is the interest from the science community, those other ‘one eyeds’ as she calls them, and beyond.
‘While my prosthesis is an excellent aesthetic replacement, I am interested in capitalising on the current advancement of technology to enhance the abilities of my prosthesis for an augmented reality,’ Ms Vlach writes on her website.
I discovered in a very traumatic and jarring way that you can lose life quickly and without warning- everything that you knew, your memories, your friends and family gone in an instant.
‘This decision to implant a camera in my eye is like inviting a little cinematographer to live in my brain. This consciousness that I’m documenting what I’m observing enables me to be more present and engaged in every moment.’
Ms Vlach has plans for a graphic novel, an experimental documentary, a web series, a game, and a live performance all using the prosthetic.
But such a device could open up a world of opportunity elsewhere from the military through to personal shoppers, turning a disability into something positive.
Read more HERE
New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism
While this news of global warming is good, I also have some fears of how it will affect the positive changes we’ve been making in our environment. I hate to make this issue of global warming a political one, but I am afraid that’s what I feel it is at this point. Since the introduction of global warming, liberals have more so believed that it was occurring, while conservatives, well, were right. I’m afraid that the changes we have made to improve the quality of life here on Earth have been moving forward due to the understanding that global warming was occurring, and was an issue that needed to be addressed. With the new findings, I’m afraid that the conservatives would rather not move forward with such issues because they don’t affect our immediate future, and they would rather see their money spent elsewhere or remain safely in their own pockets.
Anyway, onto the article that sparked this blog:
NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.
“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”
In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.
The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.
When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a “huge discrepancy” between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.
For the full article and more information, visit here
Clone Factory in Japan
[Image credit: Danny Choo
To get your clone made, you must first have your picture taken by a battery of digital SLR cameras, shooting from every angle. These photos are then fed into specialized software that quickly creates a digital 3D model of your head, and prints it out in a nearby 3D printer. After printing, the miniature duplicate is coated with a protective material to ensure it lasts for years to come.
We’ve seen some pretty cool uses of 3D printers, though nothing quite like this. If you feel like having your very own mini-me made, you’d better start saving — it will set you back a little over $1,770 on top of the plane ticket to the company’s lab in Tokyo. You can check out a detailed account of a typical cloning session thanks to the “Tokyo Stormtrooper,” Danny Choo.”
Time Travel is NOT Possible
Discovery News – Hong Kong physicists say they have proved that a single photon obeys Einstein’s theory that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light — demonstrating that outside science fiction, time travel is impossible.
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology research team led by Du Shengwang said they had proved that a single photon, or unit of light, “obeys the traffic law of the universe.”
“Einstein claimed that the speed of light was the traffic law of the universe or in simple language, nothing can travel faster than light,” the university said on its website.
“Professor Du’s study demonstrates that a single photon, the fundamental quanta of light, also obeys the traffic law of the universe just like classical EM (electromagnetic) waves.”
The possibility of time travel was raised 10 years ago when scientists discovered superluminal — or faster-than-light — propagation of optical pulses in some specific medium, the team said.
It was later found to be a visual effect, but researchers thought it might still be possible for a single photon to exceed light speed.
Du, however, believed Einstein was right and determined to end the debate by measuring the ultimate speed of a single photon, which had not been done before.
“The study, which showed that single photons also obey the speed limit c, confirms Einstein’s causality; that is, an effect cannot occur before its cause,” the university said.
“By showing that single photons cannot travel faster than the speed of light, our results bring a closure to the debate on the true speed of information carried by a single photon,” said Du, assistant professor of physics.
“Our findings will also likely have potential applications by giving scientists a better picture on the transmission of quantum information.”
The team’s study was published in the U.S. peer-reviewed scientific journal ‘Physical Review Letters’.
This makes me very sad, because I had always held out hope that it was possible. Science being able to disprove the theory of time travel is like telling me that Santa doesn’t exist, and well, that’s just a little hard to handle.
‘Wired Science News for Your Neurons Black Hole Holds Universe’s Biggest Water Supply’ (So Far)
A black hole has been discovered that is 12 billion light years away. This black hole is relevant because it holds the most water we’ve been able to find in the entire universe, 140 trillion times the amount of water of all of Earth’s oceans combined. That is a whole hell of a lot of water.
Wired – “This quasar holds a black hole that’s 20 billion times more massive than the sun, and after gobbling down dust and gas it belches out as much energy as a thousand trillion suns. The water vapor is spread around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light years.
The water reservoir was discovered by astronomers, led by scientists at the California Institute of Technology, and using the Z-Spec instrument at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory in Hawaii and the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA) in the Inyo Mountains of Southern California.”
Astronomers are currently working on building a telescope that will enable them to better focus on these wavelengths; It is being called the CCAT (Cornell Caltech Atacama Telescope). They are hoping to begin construction in 2013 and have it all finished by 2017.
The fact that there is water prevalent in space is a wonderful sign. The existence of water goes well beyond our knowledge, considering the length that it took the light from this black hole to travel to us. The more we learn, the more exciting the future becomes as far as observing space. Way to go on this great find!
Amateur Fossil Hunter Makes Big Find!
James Kennedy, an amateur collector, found this fossilized bone with a mammoth or mastodon engraving in Vero Beach, Fla. It has been identified as one of the oldest pieces of prehistoric art in the Western Hemisphere
NPR – “It’s one of the most significant pieces of prehistoric art ever found in North America — a carving of a mammoth or mastodon on a piece of fossilized bone dating back to the Ice Age. An amateur fossil hunter found it several years ago in Vero Beach, Florida. Now, after three years of study, a team of researchers say they believe it’s authentic.
Researchers at the University of Florida conducted extensive testing of the fossilized bone. Rare earth element analysis showed it did come from the Vero Beach area. A scanning electron microscope indicated the carving appeared to be the same age as the bone.”
Living On Another Plantet
NPR – “Elon Musk wants humans to live on other planets one day. But he’s worried about the cost of getting there. So in 2002, he took the fortune he made in Internet start-ups and started his own rocket company. He called it SpaceX.”
Musk is continuing to work on his rockets on launches to try and bring the prices down, to enable people the affordability to make the venture to space. Unfortunately, while he has dropped the prices significantly, they are still at around $100,000 total to send a person into orbit. This means it’s about $1,000 a pound. His goal is to try and get it down to under $100 a pound, which would make it much more realistic.
His competitors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, are concerned that while bring the prices down, he’s jeopardizing the reliability of the shuttle itself. They have done many more launches; And while they are much more expensive, they do have a much better track record.
I’d like to think that Musk’s shuttle’s are just as reliable and one day he will build something that will enable me to be brought into space at a fairly decent price, but who knows. Seeing as NASA just had their last launch here in the US, I’m a little concerned with the future of space travel for us.