"Zombie" stars

Credit: NASA/Chandra X-ray Observatory

"Zombie" stars  suck the matter out of other stars.

ScienceDaily (June 30, 2011) — "Zombie" stars that explode like bombs as they die, only to revive by sucking matter out of other stars. According to an astrophysicist at UC Santa Barbara, this isn't the plot for the latest 3D blockbuster movie. Instead, it's something that happens every day in the universe -- something that can be used to measure dark energy.

This special category of stars, known as Type Ia supernovae, help to probe the mystery of dark energy, which scientists believe is related to the expansion of the universe.

Andy Howell, adjunct professor of physics at UCSB and staff scientist at Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope (LCOGT), wrote a review article about this topic, published recently in Nature Communications. LCOGT, a privately funded global network of telescopes, works closely with UCSB.
Supernovae are stars that have been observed since 1054 A.D., when an exploding star formed the crab nebula, a supernova remnant.

More recently, the discovery of dark energy is one of the most profound findings of the last half-century, according to Howell. Invisible dark energy makes up about three-fourths of the universe. "We only discovered this about 20 years ago by using Type Ia supernovae, thermonuclear supernovae, as standard or 'calibrated' candles," said Howell. "These stars are tools for measuring dark energy. They're all about the same brightness, so we can use them to figure out distances in the universe."

Strange: Turtles Delay Air Travel

 Air  traffic was delayed at New York's JFK airport because over 100 turtle were crawling across the runway.

Team of European astronomers has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to find universe's most distant quasar

Quasars are very bright, distant galaxies that are thought to be powered by super-massive black holes at their centers.

NOTTINGHAM, England, June 29 (UPI) -- Astronomers have spotted the most distant quasar located to date, a finding a British researcher says could offer information on the early life of the universe.

University of Nottingham astronomer Simon Dye says the brilliant and rare beacon, powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the sun, is the brightest object yet found from a time when the universe was less than 800 million years old, or just a fraction of its current age.

The object is about 100 million years younger than the previously known most distant quasar and its signal reaching Earth corresponds to looking back in time to a universe that was 5 percent of its current age, a university release said Wednesday.

Flash Forward 2035: Electrically Powered Airplanes

The electric airplane will be powered by li-ion batteries an called VoltAir.

(PhysOrg.com) -- EADS is looking to release an entirely electricity powered plane by the year 2035. The plane, which has been dubbed the VoltAir, was shown off at the Paris Air Show, which took place last week. The Paris Air Show is one of the largest aviation shows in the world.

The VoltAir is going to be powered by a pair of li-ion batteries that are nestled below the nose of the plane. These batteries will, obviously, be significantly larger than the ones currently found in electric land and water vehicles. The power provided will then be sent to a set of co-axial, counter-rotating propellers that are located at the back of the plane.

Since the plane will not rely on a traditional combustion engine it is expected to be noticeably quieter than the current generation of planes, with the majority of the noise coming from the propellers. It also means that refueling is as simple as taking out one set of batteries and replacing them with a new pair.

Viral Video: UFO Mothership & Fleet Over London UK 24th June 2011

This viral video is making the rounds on the Internet. It purports to show what’s been dubbed a "mothership" and three separate smaller spacecraft over London.

Student design teams make 1000 mpg cars

Two student teams in the UK have designed cars that get over 1000 mpg as part of an annual Mileage Marathon Challenge near Leicester, England. Unfortunately, the cars only go about 15 mph.

(PhysOrg.com) -- When you think about the design team for an ultra-fuel efficient vehicle, on that can get more than one thousand miles per gallon of gas; you probably picture a professional design lab outfitted with the most modern technology available and the best minds in the industry, not a group of school children.

Nevertheless, that is the case. A group of students in the United Kingdom pulled from regional schools and universities recently participated in the annual Mileage Marathon Challenge near Leicester, England. Though, many of the students did work on the prototypes with the help of design or engineering firms. The goal of the challenge is to create a vehicle with a new record in as mileage efficiency as the vehicles race around the track. The cars, which are allows the cars to coast some of the way, sets a minimum speed of 15 miles per hour.

Two of the cars came in at over 1000 miles per gallon. The winning car of the competition has a recorded fuel efficiency of about 1,980 miles per gallon and it was drive by Sam Chapman-Hill age 14. The car weighed about 100 pounds and was constructed primarily of plastics that were reinforced by glass. Another car, driven by an 11-year-old girl named Kitty Foster, reached 1,325 miles per gallon with a design that featured a Cambridge Design Partnership oxygen concentrator and micro-diesel engine along with some smart technology. The use of a GPS tracking system helped her to decide when to put the pedal to the metal and when to coast.

Is Marine Life in Peril? (video)

New report finds pollution and over-fishing could lead to mass extinctions.

Hereditary disease breakthrough: Genetic code 'edited' by scientists

This could lead to new treatments for some hereditary diseases.

(The Telegraph)- The researchers managed to persuade cells in mice to repair a faulty gene but, instead of recreating the flawed piece, the cells generated a healthy one.

The faulty gene was the one responsible for haemophilia, meaning that the process cured the mouse of the hereditary condition, which can be life-threatening in humans.

The scientists hope the discovery could help develop better treatments for conditions affecting the immune system, bone marrow and liver.

“Genetic editing” works by using enzymes to unlock the DNA.

Are 'worms from hell' the secret to life on other planets?

Author Marc Kaufman on discovery of 'worms from hell' in South Africa

New Camera Lets You Focus Photos After Taking Picture

A new camera by Lytro, a Silicon Valley start-up,allows you to refocus after taking the picture.

No fuss focus.

Click away. Shoot first, focus after. That's right, after. You can't miss.

 Click on an area of the picture to refocus. Double-click to zoom.

Innovative Aeronautical Technology (IAT21) has unveiled a new type of aircraft that flies without wings or rotors

Flying is about to undergo a new revolution.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A firm from Austria, Austrian Innovative Aeronautical Technology (IAT21) has unveiled a new type of aircraft that flies without wings or rotors, at the Paris Air Show. Though not actually flown at the show, spokesmen for the new aircraft, named D-Dalus (no doubt after the tragic Greek figure Daedalus, who lost his son Icarus when his wings melted as he flew too close to the sun) claim the aircraft is capable of both hovering and flying forward as fast as a jet, all with very little noise.

The new technology is actually based on old technology; it flies by means of rotating discs surrounded by blades whose angle of attack can be altered in flight. The discs are spun by means of a conventional airplane engine. What’s new is the computer and software that controls the blades, allowing for very precise flying. The company says D-Dalus can hover next to a wall, maneuver though buildings or even lay still atop a moving bobbing ship in bad weather by pushing itself down against the deck.

The power comes from its four 2200-rpm turbines and can be thrust in any of 360 degrees, allowing the D-Dalus to launch vertically, hover, dart around and to remain stable even in turbulent conditions. The company also says the craft requires very little maintenance and would be cheaper than current vertical takeoff aircraft and because of its new “friction free bearing at the points of high G force” the craft should be, according to the company, as quiet as a whisper.

NASA Spacecraft DAWN Provides Video of Vesta

Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the solar system.

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Amazing Discovery About How Solar System formed

Our sun and its inner planets may have formed differently than previously thought.

ScienceDaily (June 24, 2011) — Researchers analyzing samples returned by NASA's 2004 Genesis mission have discovered that our sun and its inner planets may have formed differently than previously thought.

Data revealed differences between the sun and planets in oxygen and nitrogen, which are two of the most abundant elements in our solar system. Although the difference is slight, the implications could help determine how our solar system evolved.

"We found that Earth, the moon, as well as Martian and other meteorites which are samples of asteroids, have a lower concentration of the O-16 than does the sun," said Kevin McKeegan, a Genesis co-investigator from UCLA, and the lead author of one of two Science papers published this week. "The implication is that we did not form out of the same solar nebula materials that created the sun -- just how and why remains to be discovered."

The air on Earth contains three different kinds of oxygen atoms which are differentiated by the number of neutrons they contain. Nearly 100 percent of oxygen atoms in the solar system are composed of O-16, but there are also tiny amounts of more exotic oxygen isotopes called O-17 and O-18. Researchers studying the oxygen of Genesis samples found that the percentage of O-16 in the sun is slightly higher than on Earth or on other terrestrial planets. The other isotopes' percentages were slightly lower.

Wildlife officials are using bear-chasing dogs (video)

Wildlife officials are using man's best friend to keep bears out of the suburbs.

The 10,0000 Year Clock

Amazon.com founder plans to make a 10,000 year clock.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon.com has embarked on an interesting and unique project that, if all goes well, will last the test of time, a whole lot of time. He is looking to create a clock that is able to run for 10,000 years.

If, at first, this sounds like a bit of a strange project you have to understand why Mr. Bezos wants to make a giant clock that will keep time long after his great-great-grandchildren are dead and gone and Amazon.com is less than a faint memory in the collective of the web.

To Mr. Bezos the clock is not just about creating a timepieces that will give him the ultimate in bragging rights, even among the super rich. It is his hope that by building a clock meant to stand the ages it will alter the way that humans think about time and the way that we act, encouraging future generations to take a longer-term view.

Feel Good Story: Rescued Sea Turtle Released Back Into the Wild

Maude the turtle was found stranded in 2009. She was dehydrated, malnourished and had a broken flipper.

Mystery ingredient in coffee protects against Alzheimer's disease

Caffeinated coffee offers protection against Alzheimer's, but some other ingredient is helping.

(PHYSORG)- A yet unidentified component of coffee interacts with the beverage's caffeine, which could be a surprising reason why daily coffee intake protects against Alzheimer's disease. A new Alzheimer's mouse study by researchers at the University of South Florida found that this interaction boosts blood levels of a critical growth factor that seems to fight off the Alzheimer's disease process.

The findings appear in the early online version of an article to be published June 28 in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. Using mice bred to develop symptoms mimicking Alzheimer's disease, the USF team presents the first evidence that caffeinated coffee offers protection against the memory-robbing disease that is not possible with other caffeine-containing drinks or decaffeinated coffee.

Previous observational studies in humans reported that daily coffee/caffeine intake during mid-life and in older age decreases the risk of Alzheimer's disease. The USF researchers' earlier studies in Alzheimer's mice indicated that caffeine was likely the ingredient in coffee that provides this protection because it decreases brain production of the abnormal protein beta-amyloid, which is thought to cause the disease.
The new study does not diminish the importance of caffeine to protect against Alzheimer's. Rather it shows that caffeinated coffee induces an increase in blood levels of a growth factor called GCSF (granulocyte colony stimulating factor). GCSF is a substance greatly decreased in patients with Alzheimer's disease and demonstrated to improve memory in Alzheimer's mice. A just-completed clinical trial at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Institute is investigating GCSF treatment to prevent full-blown Alzheimer's in patients with mild cognitive impairment, a condition preceding the disease. The results of that trial are currently being evaluated and should be known soon.

"Caffeinated coffee provides a natural increase in blood GCSF levels," said USF neuroscientist Dr. Chuanhai Cao, lead author of the study. "The exact way that this occurs is not understood. There is a synergistic interaction between caffeine and some mystery component of coffee that provides this beneficial increase in blood GCSF levels."

Spaceship of Tomorrow on Display in Texas

Texas museum displays spacecraft that may soon travel to the moon or Mars.

Hartley-2, a New Breed of Comet?

NASA's EPOXI mission reveals groundbreaking new information about Hartley-2.

At the heart of every comet lies a remnant of the dawn of the solar system. Or is that remnants? Astronomers don't know, but the answer would give them a clearer picture of exactly how comets were born eons ago at the birth of the Solar System. Did thin tendrils of dust and ice get drawn slowly inward and pack themselves into a single, uniform mass? Or did a hodge-podge of mini-comets come together to form the core for a comet of substance?

For Hartley-2, the answer so far is neither. "We haven't seen a comet like this before," says Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Hartley-2 could be the first of a new breed."

Both data collected by Mumma's team and detailed images of the comet taken by NASA's EPOXI mission reveal that the comet's core is not uniform. "We have evidence of two different kinds of ice in the core, possibly three," says Mumma. "But we can also see that the comet's overall composition is very consistent. So, something subtle is happening. We're not sure what that is."

The researchers observed Hartley-2 six times during the summer, fall and winter of 2010, both before and after the EPOXI mission's Deep Impact spacecraft had its November rendezvous with the comet. Using telescopes perched high in the mountains of Hawaii and Chile, Mumma's team studied the comet's coma—the aura of gas, dust and ice particles that surround the core. The findings of Mumma and his colleagues at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the University of Missouri in St. Louis, the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., are being reported in a special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters on May 16, 2011

Lab Grown Meat Touted As Way To Reduce Greenhouse Gases

Would you eat lab grown meat? It depends on what is is made from. Japanese scientists are trying to make food out of poop. These scientists are using Cyanobacteria hydrolysate (pond scum).

(PhysOrg.com) -- Meat grown using tissue engineering techniques, so-called ‘cultured meat’, would generate up to 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventionally produced meat, according to a new study.

The analysis, carried out by scientists from Oxford University and the University of Amsterdam, also estimates that cultured meat would require 7-45% less energy to produce than the same volume of pork, sheep or beef. It would require more energy to produce than poultry but only a fraction of the land area and water needed to rear chickens.

A report of the team’s research is published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

‘What our study found was that the environmental impacts of cultured meat could be substantially lower than those of meat produced in the conventional way,’ said Hanna Tuomisto of Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, who led the research. ‘Cultured meat could potentially be produced with up to 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions, 45% less energy, 99% lower land use, and 96% lower water use than conventional meat.’

Time -Lapse Video: A Year In The Life Of The Moon

Invention of Agriculture Caused Height and Health of People to Decline

Early man became dependent on one or two crops and ate a less diverse diet.

ScienceDaily (June 18, 2011) — When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined.

"This broad and consistent pattern holds up when you look at standardized studies of whole skeletons in populations," says Amanda Mummert, an Emory graduate student in anthropology.

Mummert led the first comprehensive, global review of the literature regarding stature and health during the agriculture transition, to be published by the journal Economics and Human Biology.

"Many people have this image of the rise of agriculture and the dawn of modern civilization, and they just assume that a more stable food source makes you healthier," Mummert says. "But early agriculturalists experienced nutritional deficiencies and had a harder time adapting to stress, probably because they became dependent on particular food crops, rather than having a more significantly diverse diet."

Bear Watching in Boulder (video)

Boulder, Colorado residents spot bears in tree in busy park.

New Research Finds Vitamin D Boosts Immune Response

A paper in the June 2011 issue of the journal Infection and Immunity offers evidence vitamin D can boost your immune system.

(PHYSORG)- Laboratory-grown gingival cells treated with vitamin D boosted their production of an endogenous antibiotic, and killed more bacteria than untreated cells, according to a paper in the June 2011 issue of the journal Infection and Immunity. The research suggests that vitamin D can help protect the gums from bacterial infections that lead to gingivitis and periodontitis. Periodontitis affects up to 50 percent of the US population, is a major cause of tooth loss, and can also contribute to heart disease. Most Americans are deficient in vitamin D.

His interest piqued by another laboratory’s discovery that vitamin D could stimulate white blood cells to produce natural proteins that have antibiotic activity, Gill Diamond of the UMDNJ—New Jersey Dental School, Newark, showed that vitamin D could stimulate lung cells to produce LL-37, a natural antibiotic protein, and kill more bacteria. That suggested that , vitamin D might help cystic fibrosis patients. Next, in the new research, he showed that vitamin D has the same effct on gingival cells.

Then, Diamond found that vitamin D also stimulates gingival cells to produce another protein, called TREM-1, which had not been well-studied, but which was thought to be made by white blood cells. He found that it boosts production of pro-inflammatory cytokines.

Video: Target Practice on Human-Like Robots

Police in Florida use new technology to practice shooting at moving targets.

Surprises about the planet Mercury

The MESSENGER spacecraft confirming some things and revealing new information about the planet Mercury.

ScienceDaily (June 17, 2011) — On March 18, 2011, the MESSENGER spacecraft entered orbit around Mercury to become that planet's first orbiter. The spacecraft's instruments are making a complete reconnaissance of the planet's geochemistry, geophysics, geologic history, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and plasma environment. MESSENGER is providing a wealth of new information and some surprises. For instance, Mercury's surface composition differs from that expected for the innermost of the terrestrial planets, and Mercury's magnetic field has a north-south asymmetry that affects interaction of the planet's surface with charged particles from the solar wind. Keep on reading...

SpongeBob has his own mushroom

Tom Bruns, U.C. Berkeley

This new mushroom species, found in the forests of Borneo, has a sponge-like appearance.

ScienceDaily (June 15, 2011) — Sing it with us: What lives in the rainforest, under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii, a new species of mushroom almost as strange as its cartoon namesake.

Its discovery in the forests of Borneo, says San Francisco State University researcher Dennis Desjardin, suggests that even some of the most charismatic characters in the fungal kingdom are yet to be identified.

Shaped like a sea sponge, S. squarepantsii was found in 2010 in the Lambir Hills in Sarawak, Malaysia. It is bright orange -- although it can turn purple when sprinkled with a strong chemical base -- and smells "vaguely fruity or strongly musty," according to Desjardin and colleagues' description published in the journal Mycologia.

Under a scanning electron microscope, the spore-producing area of the fungus looks like a seafloor carpeted in tube sponges, which further convinced the researchers to name their find after the famous Bob.

Is the Earth Headed for a New Mini Ice Age?

Observations of solar activity indicate sunspots are abnormally low. This could mean a new Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots. The last occurred from 1645 to 1715. This period os also known as the "Little Ice Age."

The Sun normally follows an 11-year cycle of activity. The current cycle, Cycle 24, is now supposed to be ramping up towards maximum strength. Increased numbers of sunspots and other indications ought to be happening: but in fact results so far are most disappointing. Scientists at the NSO now suspect, based on data showing decades-long trends leading to this point, that Cycle 25 may not happen at all.

This could have major implications for the Earth's climate. According to a statement issued by the NSO, announcing the research:

An immediate question is whether this slowdown presages a second Maunder Minimum, a 70-year period with virtually no sunspots [which occurred] during 1645-1715.

As NASA notes:

Early records of sunspots indicate that the Sun went through a period of inactivity in the late 17th century. Very few sunspots were seen on the Sun from about 1645 to 1715. Although the observations were not as extensive as in later years, the Sun was in fact well observed during this time and this lack of sunspots is well documented. This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past.

Time-Lapse Video of Lunar Eclipse 2011

This and other videos are the only way we can see this eclipse. It occurred during daylight hours in the U.S.

Astronomy Pic Of The Day: Face Of Gandhi Found On Mars

Even if this is a trick of light and shadow on a natural formation, you have to admit it is an amazing image.

Via Space.com:

The latest is a face found by an Italian named Matteo Ianneo, who has also claimed to have found vegetation, entrances to underground tunnels and city ruins on Mars in the past few weeks. Ianneo says his latest surface find, which is located at 33°12'29.82"N and 12°55'51.21"W, looks like a picture of Mahatma Gandhi in profile.

Video: Therapy Dog Shoots His Own Video

These dog camera videos are a hit online!

Earth Aurora Affected By Solar Minimum

Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientists gain new insights on the affect of solar minimums on Earth.

ScienceDaily (June 14, 2011) — Since 1611, humans have recorded the comings and goings of black spots on the sun. The number of these sunspots waxes and wanes over approximately an 11-year cycle -- more sunspots generally mean more activity and eruptions on the sun and vice versa. The number of sunspots can change from cycle to cycle, and 2008 saw the longest and weakest solar minimum since scientists have been monitoring the sun with space-based instruments.

Observations have shown, however, that magnetic effects on Earth due to the sun, effects that cause the aurora to appear, did not go down in synch with the cycle of low magnetism on the sun. Now, a paper in Annales Geophysicae that appeared on May 16, 2011 reports that these effects on Earth did in fact reach a minimum -- indeed they attained their lowest levels of the century -- but some eight months later. The scientists believe that factors in the speed of the solar wind, and the strength and direction of the magnetic fields embedded within it, helped produce this anomalous low.

"Historically, the solar minimum is defined by sunspot number," says space weather scientist Bruce Tsurutani at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who is first author on the paper. "Based on that, 2008 was identified as the period of solar minimum. But the geomagnetic effects on Earth reached their minimum quite some time later, in 2009. So we decided to look at what caused the geomagnetic minimum."

Students create new form of transportation

The new electric diwheel looks like something out of Star Wars.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In a bit of technical wizardry, students from the University of Adelaide, Australia, have devised and built an electric diwheel, that with modification, could possibly solve inner city transportation problems. The team, comprised of 14 mechanical engineering students, has taken the idea of a diwheel and quite literally, turned it on its head, and in the process have created a vehicle that could be used to safely transport people around; all with a minimum amount of energy.

The diwheel is a vehicle with two wheels on the same axle, i.e. in parallel, like the back two wheels on a wheelchair, and works by mounting a cabin of sorts for a driver between them. In this case, the power source is electricity stored in a battery. Diwheels have been created before, and have of course been seen in sci-fi movies; what’s new here is the stability control. Keep on reading...

Missouri River Levee Collapses (video)

An Arizona contractor catches an earthen levee collapsing on the Missouri River.

Electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents

A surprising study has found electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents. The reason is the energy consumed making their batteries.

(The Australian) — Electric cars could produce higher emissions over their lifetimes than petrol equivalents because of the energy consumed in making their batteries, a study has found.

An electric car owner would have to drive at least 129,000km before producing a net saving in CO2. Many electric cars will not travel that far in their lifetime because they typically have a range of less than 145km on a single charge and are unsuitable for long trips. Even those driven 160,000km would save only about a tonne of CO2 over their lifetimes.

The British study, which is the first analysis of the full lifetime emissions of electric cars covering manufacturing, driving and disposal, undermines the case for tackling climate change by the rapid introduction of electric cars.

Astronomy Video of the Day: Views from Cassini at Saturn

 Views from Cassini at Saturn(with music)

CASSINI MISSION from Chris Abbas on Vimeo.

Rise in CO2 Levels Having No Effect on Temperature

This chart reveals rise in CO2 levels are having no effect on temperature.

The hidden world of sharks (video)

Author dives into unchartered waters in new book 'Demon Fish'.

Quit Smoking Without Gaining Weight?

Nicotine suppresses appetite and scientists may be able to duplicate this with a different drug.

ScienceDaily (June 10, 2011) — Smokers tend to die young, but they tend to die thinner than non-smokers. A team of scientists led by Yale School of Medicine has discovered exactly how nicotine suppresses appetite -- findings that suggest that it might be possible to develop a drug that would help smokers, and non-smokers, stay thin.
 Nicotine activates a small set of neurons in a section of the hypothalamus that signals the body has had enough to eat, the researchers report in the June 10 issue of the journal Science. Nicotine accomplishes this trick by activating a different set of receptors on the surface of neurons than those that trigger a craving for tobacco.

"Unfortunately, smoking does keep weight off," said Marina Picciotto, the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry, professor of neurobiology and pharmacology and senior author of the paper. "Many people say they won't quit smoking because they'll gain weight. Ultimately, we would like to help people maintain their body weight when they kick the habit and perhaps help non-smokers who are struggling with obesity."

Is your computer tech spying on you? (video)

California man, 20, suspected of installing spyware on victims' laptops.

NASA's Swift satellite and the Chandra X-ray Observatory has found nearby galaxy boasts two monster black holes

Credit: SDSS

the massive black holes in the Markarian 739 galaxy are active.

(PhysOrg.com) -- A study using NASA's Swift satellite and the Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a second supersized black hole at the heart of an unusual nearby galaxy already known to be sporting one.

The galaxy, which is known as Markarian 739 or NGC 3758, lies 425 million light-years away toward the constellation Leo. Only about 11,000 light-years separate the two cores, each of which contains a black hole gorging on infalling gas.

"At the hearts of most large galaxies, including our own Milky Way, lies a supermassive black hole weighing millions of times the sun's mass," said Michael Koss, the study's lead author at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and the University of Maryland in College Park (UMCP). "Some of them radiate billions of times as much energy as the sun."

Astronomers refer to galaxy centers exhibiting such intense emission as active galactic nuclei (AGN). Yet as common as monster black holes are, only about one percent of them are currently powerful AGN. Binary AGN are rarer still: Markarian 739 is only the second identified within half a billion light-years.

Video: Kilauea's lava lake rises

 Hawaii's Kilauea is pushing out a brilliant stream of lave. (video)

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Steel Can Now Be Made 7% Stronger

The new Flash Bainite heat-treatment process makes steel 7% stronger in 10 seconds!

ScienceDaily (June 9, 2011) — A Detroit entrepreneur surprised university engineers in Ohio recently, when he invented a heat-treatment that makes steel 7 percent stronger than any steel on record -- in less than 10 seconds.

In fact, the steel, now trademarked as Flash Bainite, has tested stronger and more shock-absorbing than the most common titanium alloys used by industry.

Now the entrepreneur is working with researchers at Ohio State University to better understand the science behind the new treatment, called flash processing.

What they've discovered may hold the key to making cars and military vehicles lighter, stronger, and more fuel-efficient.

In the current issue of the journal Materials Science and Technology, the inventor and his Ohio State partners describe how rapidly heating and cooling steel sheets changes the microstructure inside the alloy to make it stronger and less brittle.

Video: Voyager Satellites Find Magnetic Bubbles at Edge of Solar System

The magnetic field gets unexpectedly bubbly at the edge of the solar system.

The edge of the solar system is a turbulent place, filled with a roiling sea of huge magnetic bubbles, new research suggests.

The find, made with the help of observations from NASA's venerable Voyager probes, shakes up prevailing views of the solar system's outer reaches. And it shows that this region, once thought to be a relatively firm shield against interstellar particles such as galactic cosmic rays, is actually more of a porous membrane.
"We will have to change our view of how the sun interacts with particles, fields and gases from other stars," Arik Posner, a Voyager program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., told reporters today (June 9).

Can gadgets help keep couples together? (video)

Becky Worley shows off gadgets that could help keep couples together. One is a toilet seat that opens and closes itself.

1987 Supernova is getting brighter

Credit: Pete Challis (CfA)

Astronomers have discovered Supernova 1987A, in the Large Magellanic Cloud,is getting brighter again.

(PhysOrg.com) -- In 1987, light from an exploding star in a neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, reached Earth. Named Supernova 1987A, it was the closest supernova explosion witnessed in almost 400 years, allowing astronomers to study it in unprecedented detail as it evolves.

Today a team of astronomers announced that the supernova debris, which has faded over the years, is brightening. This shows that a different power source has begun to light the debris, and marks the transition from a supernova to a supernova remnant.

"Supernova 1987A has become the youngest supernova remnant visible to us," said Robert Kirshner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

Kirshner leads a long-term study of SN 1987A with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has provided a continuous record of the changes in SN 1987A.

As shown in the accompanying image, SN 1987A is surrounded by a ring of material that blew off the progenitor star thousands of years before it exploded. The ring is about one light-year (6 trillion miles) across. Inside that ring, the "guts" of the star are rushing outward in an expanding debris cloud.

Most of a supernova's light comes from radioactive decay of elements created in the explosion. As a result, it fades over time. However, the debris from SN 1987A has begun to brighten, suggesting that a new power source is lighting it.

Ants Use Chemical Weapons

Credit: Trevor Sorrells

I guess ants don't have a Geneva Convention.

ScienceDaily (June 7, 2011) — Stanford sophomores studying ants in a summer course discovered that the local ants were using poison to kill invading Argentine ants. The discovery provides new insight into the war between the local "winter ants" and the South American invaders who have shown up everywhere from California to South Africa.

Argentine ants are taking over the world -- or at least the nice temperate parts. They've spread into Mediterranean and subtropical climates across the globe in sugar shipments from Argentina, and no native ant species has been known to withstand their onslaught -- until now. A group of Stanford University undergraduate students working on a class project have discovered that a native species, the plucky winter ant, has been using chemical warfare to combat the Argentine tide.

The winter ants -- named for their unusual ability to function in cold weather, rather than grind to a halt like most insects -- manufacture a poison in a gland in their abdomen that they dispense when under extreme duress. One tiny drop applied to an Argentine ant is enough to put an end to it. In laboratory testing, the poison had a 79 percent kill rate.

Video: Massive Solar Flare Caught On Video

 The sun emitted a massive solar flare June 7, 2011. (video embedded below)

The sun unleashed a massive solar storm today (June 7) in a dazzling eruption that kicked up a vast cloud of magnetic plasma that appeared to rain back down over half of the sun's entire surface, NASA scientists say.

The solar storm hit its peak at about 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), but the actual flare extended over a three-hour period, said C. Alex Young, a solar astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who runs a website called The Sun Today, in a video describing the event.

Solar Flare video Via Helioviewer:

Your Jetpack is Almost Here!

You may only have to wait another 18 months for your personal jetpack!

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AFP) – Whizzing around with your own personal jetpack may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but New Zealand inventor Glenn Martin aims to have his "jetski for the skies" on the market within 18 months.

After 30 years of painstaking development, Martin's jetpack last month soared 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) above the South Island's Canterbury Plains as its creator watched anxiously from a helicopter hovering nearby.

The May 21 flight, featuring a remote-controlled jetpack carrying a dummy pilot, was a milestone in Martin's dream of building the world's first practical jetpack.

"The first people using these in cities will be medical personnel doing emergency response," he said.

"Then you'll see people putting camera mounts on them for traffic reporting and it will eventually evolve into people just flying for fun or going to work."

Video: Artificial Base Found on Mars?

A man claims to have found an artificial base on Mars. He has uploaded a YouTube video (embedded below). The object does look like several cylinders, but the image quality isn't good enough to be definitive.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is investigating a California armchair astronomer's claim that a white, fuzzy image on the red planet's surface might be evidence of life.

David Martines' YouTube video is heading for viral status after he uploaded a flyby of Google Earth's Mars explorer zooming in on a white, cylindrical object.

The object, according to Martines, is "about 700 feet long and 150 feet wide." He's calling it "Bio Station Alpha, because I'm just assuming that something lives in it or has lived in it."

His video was uploaded May 28, and has already been watched nearly 750,000 times.

A spokesman for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab told FoxNews.com it was investigating the wild claims, speculating that "Bio Station Alpha" would most likely be determined to be a glitch in the digital imaging or an unusual feature on the surface of the planet -- and not a Martian base.

Dog Nurses Liger Cubs (video)

Baby liger cubs abandoned by mother, find canine surrogate in China.

Physicists Store Antimatter Atoms for 17 Minutes

Antihydrogen atoms have been stored for 10000 seconds. Is this the beginning of the antimatter age?

ScienceDaily (June 5, 2011) — The ALPHA Collaboration, an international team of scientists working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, has created and stored a total of 309 antihydrogen atoms, some for up to 1,000 seconds (almost 17 minutes), with an indication of much longer storage time as well.

ALPHA announced in November, 2010, that they had succeeded in storing antimatter atoms for the first time ever, having captured 38 atoms of antihydrogen and storing each for a sixth of a second. In the weeks following, ALPHA continued to collect anti-atoms and hold them for longer and longer times.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley, including Joel Fajans and Jonathan Wurtele of Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division (AFRD), both UC Berkeley physics professors, are members of the ALPHA Collaboration.

Says Fajans, "Perhaps the most important aspect of this result is that after just one second these antihydrogen atoms had surely already decayed to ground state. These were likely the first ground state anti-atoms ever made." Since almost all precision measurements require atoms in the ground state, ALPHA's achievement opens a path to new experiments with antimatter.

A principal component of ALPHA's atom trap is a superconducting octupole magnet proposed and prototyped in Berkeley Lab's AFRD. It takes ALPHA about 15 minutes to make and capture atoms of antihydrogen in their magnetic trap.

Bsst UFO Video? (Video)

Best UFO video on the web!!! 

 

UFO 2011 sightings (video)

For some reason, UFO sightings are on the increase. These sightings are producing lore and better video. Be warned, some may be a hoax. The China video and pictures is very interesting. This collage of UFO videos contains some of the best recent video.

Video: Ice Age Fossils Found in Colorado Lake Bed

Paleontologists unearth huge bones from woolly mammoths, ground sloths and bison.

Solar Powered Bikini Recharges Your iPod (with pic)

Hmm... Would you by a solar power bikini?

(Metro)- It might look like your bog-standard piece of swimwear, but this is actually the brainchild of US-based designer Andrew Schneider, who crafted the bikini using photo-voltaic panels sewn together with conductive thread.

The Solar Bikini allows the wearer to plug in an iPod or camera to USB sockets sewn into the fabric, meaning you'll never run out of battery life on the beach again.

Every bikini is made to measure and takes an impressive 80 hours to hand-stitch, but surprisingly, it'll only set you back £120 to get your hands on one - no more expensive than any designer swimwear on the market.

Now You Clean Your Gutters Remotely (video)

Check out iRobot's new remote controlled gutter cleaner.

How bad do you want an iPad 2?

Would you sell a kidney to buy an iPad 2? A boy in China did.

CHENZHOU, China – A teenager in China sold one of his kidneys to buy an iPad 2, Chinese newspaper the Global Times reported Thursday.

The 17-year-old boy, identified only by the surname Zheng, searched the internet and found a buyer who was willing to pay 22,000 yuan ($3,400) for the organ.

Without telling his family of his plans, he traveled north from his home in the eastern Anhui province to a hospital in the city of Chenzhou in Hunan province, where he was operated on under the supervision of a kidney-selling agent.

The Incredible Juggling Robot (video)

 See what happens when scientists have too much time on their hands.

Rare Electric-blue lobster caught off Prince Edward Island

Only one in four million lobsters are blue.

Video: Crash Shows Dangers of Texting While Driving

Do not text and rive. Just watch this video to see why.

Role Reversal: Ancient hominid males stayed home while females roamed

Walter Voigt/Lee Berger/Brett Hilton-Barber

House husbands are a new invention.

(PHYSORG)- The males of two bipedal hominid species that roamed the South African savannah more than a million years ago were stay-at-home kind of guys when compared to the gadabout gals, says a new high-tech study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The team, which studied teeth from a group of extinct Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus individuals from two adjacent cave systems in South Africa, found more than half of the female teeth were from outside the local area, said CU-Boulder adjunct professor and lead study author Sandi Copeland. In contrast, only about 10 percent of the male hominid teeth were from elsewhere, suggesting they likely grew up and died in the same area.

"One of our goals was to try to find something out about early hominid landscape use," said Copeland, who also is affiliated with the Max Plank Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. "Here we have the first direct glimpse of the geographic movements of early hominids, and it appears the females preferentially moved away from their residential groups."

A paper on the subject is being published in the June 2 issue of Nature. Co-authors included CU-Boulder anthropology Professor Matt Sponheimer, Darryl de Ruiter from Texas A&M University, Julia Lee Thorp from the University of Oxford, Daryl Codron from the University of Zurich, Petrus le Roux from the University of Cape Town, Vaughan Grimes of Memorial University-St. John's campus in Newfoundland and Michael Richards of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Cell phones and brian cancer linked

The evidence is in. Cell phones likely cause brain cancer.

ScienceDaily (May 31, 2011) — The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer1, associated with wireless phone use.

Over the last few years, there has been mounting concern about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by wireless communication devices. The number of mobile phone subscriptions is estimated at 5 billion globally.

From May 24-31 2011, a Working Group of 31 scientists from 14 countries has been meeting at IARC in Lyon, France, to assess the potential carcinogenic hazards from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. These assessments will be published as Volume 102 of the IARC Monographs, which will be the fifth volume in this series to focus on physical agents, after Volume 55 (Solar Radiation), Volume 75 and Volume 78 on ionizing radiation (X‐rays, gamma‐rays, neutrons, radio‐nuclides), and Volume 80 on non‐ionizing radiation (extremely low‐frequency electromagnetic fields).