Slashdot Mirror
Domain: newscientist.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to newscientist.com.
Stories · 1,328
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Mars Hi-Res & Thermal Images Payoff
eldavojohn writes "The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter & Mars Odyssey Orbiter took high resolution images (and shots of each other) earlier this year and after studying them, experts believe that there are too many boulders around the proposed Phoenix Mars Lander landing site. From the article, 'At the end of January 2007, scientists will meet to see if there is an obvious choice for a landing site. If not, they will keep analyzing the data until summer 2007. They are comparing HiRISE's data with that taken by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) camera on the Mars Odyssey orbiter. Since boulders hold heat better than soil or sand, they show up in THEMIS images taken early in the morning.'" -
Robot Spaceplane To Launch In 2008
FleaPlus writes "The US Air Force has announced that it is developing an unmanned reusable spaceplane, the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle. The first launch is in 2008 on an Atlas V rocket. The X-37B will be one-fourth the size of the Space Shuttle and serve as a testbed for technologies for future reusable spacecraft. Its predecessor, the X-37, was drop-tested from the Scaled Composites White Knight mothership earlier this year." -
Emissions of Key Greenhouse Gas Stabilize
brian0918 writes "Multiple news sites are reporting that levels of the second most important greenhouse gas, methane, have stabilized". From Scientific American: "During the two decades of measurements, methane underwent double-digit growth as a constituent of our atmosphere, rising from 1,520 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) in 1978 to 1,767 ppbv in 1998. But the most recent measurements have revealed that methane levels are barely rising anymore — and it is unclear why." From NewScientist: "Although this is good news, it does not mean that methane levels will not rise again, and that carbon dioxide remains the 800-pound gorilla of climate change." -
Recycled Tires Could Filter Water
MattSparkes writes "According to New Scientist, water could be cleansed and filtered more easily and cheaply by using old tires. From the article: 'Rubber tires, the kind that lie at the bottom of rivers and at the back of junkyards the world over, could be ideal water filters says an environmental engineer at Penn State University in the US.'" -
Drugs Eradicate the Need For Sleep
MattSparkes writes "New Scientist is running an article on lifestyle drugs that claim to help you function on little or no sleep. I'm dubious, but the interviewee in the article claims they work well. 'Yves (not his real name), a 31-year-old software developer from Seattle, often doesn't have time for a full night's sleep. So he swallows something to make sure he doesn't need one.'" But, sleep is where I'm a Viking! -
Mars Probe Probably Lost Forever
David Shiga writes, "NASA's silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft is likely lost forever. The space agency attempted to take a picture of the 10-year-old spacecraft using the newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but did not detect it, either because its orbit has shifted since last contact, or because it isn't reflecting enough sunlight to be visible. NASA has now ordered its Opportunity rover to listen from the planet's surface for MGS's radio beacon. If that fails, the agency may call on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft to join the search. But MGS may already have run out of power and NASA officials are not optimistic about recovering it." -
Mars Probe Probably Lost Forever
David Shiga writes, "NASA's silent Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft is likely lost forever. The space agency attempted to take a picture of the 10-year-old spacecraft using the newer Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but did not detect it, either because its orbit has shifted since last contact, or because it isn't reflecting enough sunlight to be visible. NASA has now ordered its Opportunity rover to listen from the planet's surface for MGS's radio beacon. If that fails, the agency may call on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft to join the search. But MGS may already have run out of power and NASA officials are not optimistic about recovering it." -
Fastest Spinning Black Hole Ever Found
brian0918 writes, "NewScientist reports that researchers in Cambridge have detected a black hole spinning at nearly 1,000 times per second — the fastest ever recorded. From the article: 'McClintock's team examined a black hole in our galaxy called GRS 1915+105, which lies about 36,000 light years away. They found the innermost stable orbit around GRS 1915 is so close that the black hole must be spinning at nearly 1000 times per second. The finding supports the idea that only fast-spinning stars can collapse to create powerful explosions called long gamma-ray bursts.'" The Astrophysical Journal abstract is open but you have to be a subscriber to read the full article there. -
Warming a Tiny Piece of Mars For Terraforming
dptalia writes "It's been a dream of science fiction writers everywhere that we would eventually terraform Mars. Now an engineering student has proposed a way to terraform only a kilometer of Mars. By building an array of space based mirrors to focus the sun's light, a small area of Mars could be warmed to about 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius) which would make it easier for explorers to work and live there. Since Mars' atmosphere is thin, the mirrors would have to be carefully designed to prevent them from reflecting harmful radiation as well as light and warmth." -
Scientists Find New Painkiller From Saliva
dptalia writes "Scientists have found a new pain killer based on human saliva. Apparently 1 gram of the new drug provides as much pain blocking as 3 grams of morphine. The drug blocks the breakdown of the body's natural pain killing mechanism. Scientists say the molecule is simple and synthesis is expected to be simple." -
Space Elevators Could Be Lethal
Maggie McKee writes, "A new study reports that passengers on space elevators of current design could be killed by radiation. Even traveling at 200 kilometers per hour, passengers would spend several days in the Van Allen radiation belts, long enough to kill them." Looks like the elevator scientists will get this one solved before liftoff. -
Astronauts Throw Trash Into Space
MattSparkes writes "The International Space Station is home to an increasing amount of unwanted goods, and NASA has just approved a policy where these could be thrown out of the door into space. 'Tools and other gear have accidentally floated away during spacewalks. But NASA has shied away from intentionally jettisoning gear off the ISS in the past because of the threat of space junk hitting the station or other spacecraft.' The loosening of the rules on this comes just as Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin is about to take a space walk where he will hit a golf ball from the ISS in a promotional stunt for a golf company." -
Astronauts Throw Trash Into Space
MattSparkes writes "The International Space Station is home to an increasing amount of unwanted goods, and NASA has just approved a policy where these could be thrown out of the door into space. 'Tools and other gear have accidentally floated away during spacewalks. But NASA has shied away from intentionally jettisoning gear off the ISS in the past because of the threat of space junk hitting the station or other spacecraft.' The loosening of the rules on this comes just as Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin is about to take a space walk where he will hit a golf ball from the ISS in a promotional stunt for a golf company." -
NASA Struggles To Contact Lost Mars Probe
David Shiga writes "Just when NASA was about to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, the probe suddenly lost contact with Earth, New Scientist Space reports. NASA last heard from the MGS probe on November 5, two days before the 10th anniversary of its launch from Earth. The MGS team is not sure yet what the problem is, but a micrometeorite could have jolted the spacecraft's main antenna out of alignment with Earth, or it might have a solar array problem and too little power to talk to Earth as a result. If they can't re-establish communication this week, NASA may try to diagnose the problem by taking pictures of MGS with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The two spacecraft come within about 100 kilometers of each other several times each week." -
NASA Struggles To Contact Lost Mars Probe
David Shiga writes "Just when NASA was about to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, the probe suddenly lost contact with Earth, New Scientist Space reports. NASA last heard from the MGS probe on November 5, two days before the 10th anniversary of its launch from Earth. The MGS team is not sure yet what the problem is, but a micrometeorite could have jolted the spacecraft's main antenna out of alignment with Earth, or it might have a solar array problem and too little power to talk to Earth as a result. If they can't re-establish communication this week, NASA may try to diagnose the problem by taking pictures of MGS with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The two spacecraft come within about 100 kilometers of each other several times each week." -
Chinese GPS System To Be Offered Free
MattSparkes writes, "The Chinese GPS system, Beidou, is apparently to be opened up for free access within China, worrying European investors on the €2.5 billion competing project, Galileo. Initially, China had declared that access to their system would be restricted to the military, and Europe had planned to recoup some of the cost of their system by selling licenses to China. Michael Shaw, from the US government's National Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Coordination Office in Washington DC, said, 'Frankly, China's behavior towards Europe is not so different to how Europe behaved with us when GPS was the only game in town a decade ago.'" -
Keeping Cool May Be the Key To Longevity
merryprankster writes "New Scientist reports that Scripps Research Institute scientists have found that lowering the body temperature of mice by just 0.5C extends their lifespan by around 15%. Until now the only proven way of increasing longevity has been calorie restriction — but as this also causes a lowering of body temperature the researchers speculate that this cooling may be the underlying mechanism retarding aging. In this study mice with a defect in their lateral hypothalamus, which has the side effect of cooling body temperature, not only lived longer but also ate normal amounts." -
Trial For The Male Pill Shows No Side-effects
Blahbooboo3 writes "Men concerned about contraception may soon be able to use the male equivalent of the Pill, without the potential side-effects of a drug based on altering the balance of sex hormones. The drug, called Adjudin, works by disrupting the interaction that takes place in the testicles between immature sperm cells and the nurse cells responsible for nurturing sperm to maturity. The germ cells need to adhere to the nurse cells for sperm to properly develop, and the drug prevents this bond from forming. It looks like it will be a gel patch type of applicator." -
Smart Cameras Detect Crime, Erode Privacy
MattSparkes writes "Smart surveillance systems could identify crimes as they take place, if a computer vision system developed at the University of Texas goes into production. The system is capable of classifying behaviour as friendly or violent. In the past there have been attempts to spot unusual behaviour, but this required subsequent user classification. These new systems may keep us more secure, but is it worth sacrificing our privacy for? And will we see false positives, where police cars screech to a halt beside hugging couples?" -
Space Elevator Challenge
MattSparkes writes "For the second year in a row, no team has won the $200,000 prize in the Space Elevator Challenge at the Wirefly X Prize Cup. Three teams were disqualified before the contest even started. Another competition at the event has been held up by confusion. Incredibly, it seems the organisers of the competition are not sure whether the ribbon used was 50 or 60 metres long, and whether any team completed the climb fast enough to win." -
What Earth Without People Would Look Like
Raynor writes "Imagine a world without people. What if every human being, all 6.5 billion of us, were suddenly abducted and the planet was left to fend for itself? The planet would heal. 'The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better,' says John Orrock, a conservation biologist. Pollution would cease being created. It would remain around for many years, CO2 taking as long as 20,000 years to be restored to it's natural level, but will decrease. Even if we were all whisked away and our nuclear reactors melted down, it would have a surprisingly little effect on the planet. Chernobyl gives hope to this end. 'I really expected to see a nuclear desert there,' says Ronald Chesser, an environmental biologist. 'I was quite surprised. When you enter into the exclusion zone, it's a very thriving ecosystem.' In the grand scheme of the world there would be little evidence of our existence at 100,000 years. The most permanent piece is the radio waves we've emitted of the last century. As the article puts it, 'The humbling — and perversely comforting — reality is that the Earth will forget us remarkably quickly.'" -
Robot Swarm Shifts Heavy Objects
holy_calamity writes "A swarm of robots has been demonstrated that can get together to transport an object too heavy for a single bot. Each robot is loaded with the same simple set of behaviors but more complex intelligence emerges from a group interacting. Two videos show the robots in action, and using a more complex behavior necessary when they're set to short sighted mode and can't see the target location from the starting point." -
Robotic Whiskers Sense Shape and Texture
An AC writes,"NewScientistTech has a story about robotic whiskers capable of sensing shape and texture in a similar way to those belonging to rats and seals. The 'bending moment,' or torque, exerted at the base of each whisker is used to extract feature information. The artificial whiskers could be used on interplanetary rovers, or allow underwater vehicles to track moving objects by their wake. Check out the slightly creepy video of them stroking a sculpted face." -
Space On a Shoestring
An anonymous reader writes, "Three engineering students from Cambridge University plan to send an unmanned craft into space for £1,000 ($1,880) and have just sent a test mission up 32 km for a lot less. Their snaps from the upper atmosphere are impressive, and were taken by a balloon equipped with off-the-shelf technology including GSM text messaging, radio communications, and an ordinary 5-megapixel camera. They now plan to use a similar craft as a launching stage to get a cheap rocket into space." There's also a video of the balloon launch. -
Full Body Dance Dance Revolution
tasty_beanburger writes "NewScientistTech has a story about a full body version of Dance Dance Revolution. It uses vision recognition to award points after assessing a player's ability to correctly mimic silhouetted dance shapes. Check out the video clip of it being demoed at SIGGRAPH 2006." -
Using Electricity to Heal
ganjadude writes to tell us that while the idea of using electricity to heal wounds was first reported 150 years ago by Emil Du Bois-Reymond, modern scientists may have found a way to practically apply this idea. From the article: "The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as corneas, in the lab. After 'wounding' these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field." -
Geographic Mapping of Emotions
datafr0g writes "New Scientist has an overview of a project that maps emotional responses to geographic locations. Emotions are read from an individual using a Galvanic Skin Response Sensor. This data is combined with that from a GPS Receiver and the results can be viewed with mapping software such as Google Earth to show where the emotional highs and lows of the day traveling were spent. Points of significance on the map could also be tagged with more info by the user, which could make the information even more useful for town planners, architects, etc. From the project site: 'Bio Mapping is a research project which explores new ways that we as individuals can make use of the information we can gather about our own bodies. Instead of security technologies that are designed to control our behaviour, this project envisages new tools that allows people to selectively share and interpret their own bio data.'" I like the concept of architecture designed with emotion in mind, but galvanic skin response might not be the most accurate way to read "emotion" -- it might show that joggers are just as happy as sunbathers. -
Athens Breeding "Super Mosquitoes"
Chemisor writes "Air pollution and cramped housing conditions in Athens, Greece, are creating a new breed of mosquitoes which are bigger, faster, and can smell humans from farther away. The super insects have color vision and detect humans from 25-30 meters, which is about 50% farther than the ordinary mosquitoe. Beating their wing 500 times a second provides them with extra speed, and the larger bodies (by 0.3ug) presumably allow larger bloodsucking capacity." And in a similar vein (har har) New Scientist had a piece about what mosquitoes like or hate about people. -
Patient Revives After 19 Years By Rewiring Brain
dylanduck writes "A study of the recovery of a man who spent 19 years in a minimally conscious state has revealed the likely cause of his regained consciousness - his brain rewired itself around the injured areas into totally novel structures. It suggests the human brain shows far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever suspected." From the article: "There were ... significant changes between scans taken just two months after the recovery, and the most recent, at 18 months. Some of the new pathways had receded again, while others seem to have strengthened and taken over as Wallis continued to improve." -
Ants Use Pedometers to Find Home
Ant writes "New Scientist (a short video clip included) reports that desert ants have an internal pedometer that keeps track of how many steps they take, according to a new study. The insects seem to rely on this system to find their way back to the nest after foraging. Other insects may also possess this pedometer-like system. Some types of ants appear to use visual cues or leave scent trails to find their way home. But desert ants have a remarkable ability to retrace their steps from their nesting site even though they travel on flat terrain that is devoid of landmarks, and any odors quickly fade in the hot temperatures." -
'Big Brother' Eyes Make Us Act More Honestly
dylanduck quotes a NewScientist.com article that says "We all know the scene: the coffee room with the 'honesty box' where you pay for your drinks — or not, because no one is watching. But researchers have discovered that merely a picture of watching eyes trebled the amount of money paid." That's a pretty deep-rooted fear of getting caught, which could be useful for crime prevention perhaps. But whose eyes?" -
Encrypted Ammunition?
holy_calamity writes "A patent has been filed for bullets with built-in encryption. Pulling the trigger sends a radio signal to the cartridge in the chamber, but the charge only goes off if the right encryption key is sent. The aim is to improve civilian firearm security." Not sure I'm quite ready to trust the average techno-gadget failure rate on something like this just yet. -
First Embryonic Stem Cell Clinical Trial Imminent
An anonymous reader writes "California-based Geron has announced that the first embryonic stem cell trial may be in the not-so-distant future. Tom Okarma, Geron's CEO, recently announced that the company will be seeking permission from the FDA to begin clinical trials. From the article: 'Geron's plan is to treat people that have acute spinal injuries with oligodendrocyte progenitor cells grown from human ESCs. Oligodendrocyte cells support neurons in the brain and spine by sheathing them in myelin, a fat that helps neurons to transmit signals.'" -
Study Says Coffee Protects Against Cirrhosis
An anonymous reader writes "Good news for those who like both coffee and alcohol. In a recent study of more than 125,000 people an Oakland, CA medical team found that consuming coffee seems to help protect against alcoholic cirrhosis. The study was done based on people enrolled in a private northern California health care plan between 1978 and 1985." From the article: "People drinking one cup of coffee per day were, on average, 20% less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. For people drinking two or three cups the reduction was 40%, and for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day the reduction in risk was 80%." -
NSA To Datamine Social Networking Sites
An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist has discovered that the NSA is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks. And it could harness advances in Internet technology -- specifically the forthcoming 'semantic web' championed by the Web standards organisation W3C -- to combine data from social networking websites with details such as banking, retail and property records, allowing the NSA to build extensive, all-embracing personal profiles of individuals." -
Physicists Create Great Balls of Fire
dylanduck writes "Talk about having fun at work. These guys have created luminous clouds of ball lightning up to 20 centimetres across and lasting up to half a second, longer and more realistic than before. There's a cool video too. They say it may even help understand how to contain the plasmas needed for nuclear fusion." -
Physicists Create Great Balls of Fire
dylanduck writes "Talk about having fun at work. These guys have created luminous clouds of ball lightning up to 20 centimetres across and lasting up to half a second, longer and more realistic than before. There's a cool video too. They say it may even help understand how to contain the plasmas needed for nuclear fusion." -
Stem Cells in the Heart?
NewScientist reports that researchers have discovered stem cells in the heart, leading them to believe that the heart can regenerate itself. From the article: "The finding raises the possibility that these cardiac stem cells could one day be manipulated to rebuild tissues damaged by heart disease - still the leading cause of death in the US and UK. Because fully developed heart cells do not divide, experts have believed the organ was unable to regenerate after injury. But, in 2003, researchers at Piero Anversa's laboratory at New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, US, discovered stem cells in the hearts of mice, and subsequently humans. However, they still did not know whether these stem cells actually resided in the heart or had merely migrated there from another tissue, such as bone marrow." -
Hydrogen Fuel Balls from a Gas Pump?
navalynt writes "New Scientist reports that the Department of Energy has filed a patent for hydrogen fuel balls. From the article 'The proposed glass microspheres would each be a few millionths of a metre (microns) wide with a hollow center containing specks of palladium. The walls of each sphere would also have pores just a few ten-billionths of a metre in diameter.' They are supposedly safe and small enough to be pumped into a fuel tank in the same manner as gasoline." -
Ship Logs Suggest Upcoming Polar Reversal
Nyerp writes "Researchers are using naval logs dating back as far as 1590 to arrive at better estimates of the decline of Earth's magnetic field. The results suggest that there may be a reversal of earth's magnetic field in about 2000 years." Also worth noting, our ancestors have lived through a number of polar reversals, and we're still here, so no need to fret! -
Bird Flu Drug Mass Production Technique Discovered
creepygeek writes to mention a New Scientist article detailing a new process for creating Tamiflu, an antiviral drug currently thought to be our best defense against the bird flu. From the article: "Making Tamiflu is slow, partly because shikimic is hard to get, but also because one step in the process involves a highly explosive chemical called an azide. As a result, Tamiflu can be made only in small batches of a few tens of litres at a time. But Elias Corey of Harvard University - who won a Nobel prize in 1990 for chemical synthesis - and colleagues have devised a new way to make the drug from two cheap, plentiful petrochemicals, acrylate and butadiene." -
Apple's All-Seeing Screen
Based on a recent patent we may be seeing a new kind of display coming from the Apple store in the near future, one that can capture images as well as display them. From the article: "The clever idea is to insert thousands of microscopic image sensors in-between the liquid crystal display cells in the screen. Each sensor captures its own small image, but software stitches these together to create a single, larger picture." -
Fake Scientific Paper Detector
moon_monkey writes "Ever wondered whether a scientific paper was actually written by a robot? A new program developed by researchers at Indiana University promises to tell you one way or the other. It was actually developed in response to a prank by MIT researchers who generated a paper from random bits of text and got it accepted for a conference." -
'Lego' Approach Thwarts Anthrax Toxin
NewScientist is reporting that scientists have discovered complex nanoscale structures that have successfully protected rats from anthrax. From the article: "The technique relies on using tiny 'peptide' molecules, stuck onto one large molecule, which bind to toxins and prevent them from causing damage. They do this in much the same way that two Lego bricks might fit together - with several studs from the binding molecule slotting into, and so blocking, the sites on a toxin molecule which are needed to cause damage." -
Fundamental Constant Possibly Inconsistent
dylanduck writes "Cosmologists have begun thinking that yet another fundamental constant of nature is, er, not constant. The constant in question is the ratio of a proton's mass to that of an electron. It governs the strong nuclear force but there's no explanation for why that ratio should be constant. If true it would provide support for string theory, which predicts extra spatial dimensions." From the article: "Researchers at the Free University in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the European Southern Observatory in Chile discovered the variation in mu. They did it by comparing the spectrum of molecular hydrogen gas in the laboratory to what it was in quasars 12 billion light years away. The spectrum depends on the relative masses of protons and electrons in the molecule." -
Device Developed To Help Socially Challenged
An anonymous reader writes "A device from MIT Media Labs that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed." From the article: "The 'emotional social intelligence prosthetic' device, which El Kaliouby is constructing along with MIT colleagues Rosalind Picard and Alea Teeters, consists of a camera small enough to be pinned to the side of a pair of glasses, connected to a hand-held computer running image recognition software plus software that can read the emotions these images show. If the wearer seems to be failing to engage his or her listener, the software makes the hand-held computer vibrate." -
Boxxet, a Tool for Automatic Webpage Generation
tkajstura writes "New Scientist is reporting on 'a new tool [called Boxxet that] offers to create websites on any subject, allowing web surfers to sit back, relax and watch a virtual space automatically fill up with relevant news stories, blog posts, maps and photos.' It uses an algorithm based on unique word count to filter an index and integrate relevant subject information into the page, called a 'Boxxet.' The tool will first be available by invitation only, opening to the general public by the end of April 2006." -
Tree Climbing Robot
galactic grub writes "New Scientist's new Tech Blog has an article about a remarkable, if slightly creepy, tree-climbing robot being developed by robotics experts from Carnegie Mellon and several other US Universities. The article comes complete with a video clip of it going up several different surfaces." -
Robotic 'Pack Mule' with Impressive Reflexes
moon_monkey writes "New Scientist has a story about a nimble, four-legged robot that can recover its balance even after being given a hefty kick." From the article: "The project is sponsored by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who want the robotic pack mule to assist soldiers in terrain too tough for vehicles. Ground-based soldiers often need to carry 40 kilograms of equipment. Raibert says the latest version of BigDog can handle slopes of 35 - a steeper gradient than one in two. The hydraulics are driven by a two-stroke single-cylinder petrol engine, and it can carry over 40 kg, about 30% of its bodyweight. The robot can follow a simple path on its own, or can be remotely controlled." -
Stealth Sharks to Patrol the High Seas
dylanduck writes ""Imagine getting inside the mind of a shark: swimming silently through the ocean, sensing faint electrical fields, homing in on the trace of a scent." That's what the Pentagon wants to do, says New Scientist. By remotely guiding the sharks' movements using a newly designed neural implant, the military hope to transform the animals into stealth spies."