Could Einstein be wrong?

Apparently the answer depends on the findings of a group at the Fermilab accelerator complex, near Chicago. Early last week physicists at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, reported that evidence from about 3 years of data and 15,000 calculations shows that the sub-atomic particles called neutrinos can actually travel faster than the speed of light. According to their data the ghost-like neutrinos, which can pass through most matter without being absorbed or otherwise affected, traveled from Geneva, Switzerland 457 miles to Gran Sasso, Italy in 60 nanoseconds less than it would take photons (light particles) to travel the same distance. These baffling results carry some astounding implications that could have a profound effect on a century’s worth of established physics. The Fermilab team is re-examining some old data from an experiment they conducted in 2007 that showed the same phenomenon and are planning to replicate the experiment and (hopefully) results using a more sophisticated GPS system and atomic clock.

As exciting and groundbreaking as this all sounds, it’s very possible that the measurements were off and nothing consequential will come from this frenzy. Or, it could be that an effect already known to physics accounts for the extraordinary results. Perhaps these cunning little neutrinos really are traveling faster than photons. Whatever the case turns out to be I, for one, am ecstatic to be alive at a time where the technology exists to be able to answer these compelling questions. A time when we question everything, especially what we know to be “true”, in a joint effort to understand the universe around us and our role in it. If Einstein was alive today to witness what could very well be the pivotal point in our understanding of physics and the universe, I’m positive that the revolutionary physicist would be enthralled at this conjecture and itching to get back to the drawing board. The great man himself said it best, “A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”.

For further reading visit:
http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2011/09/neutrinos-and-the-speed-of-light-a-primer-on-the-cern-study/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25neutrinos.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html

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Original article: Relatively Speaking…

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An Artist's Depiction of the Diamond Planet.

Australian astronomers have recently discovered a diamond planet in space on Thursday August, 25th. Before it became a diamond planet it was known as a White Dwarf.  The Diamond planet was created by radio waves coming off the planet’s sun, a rare spinning neutron star named PSR J1719-1438. Researchers reported in Science that the radio waves were let of by PSR J1719-1438 a little over every two hours and it only sent one wave at a time. These waves ate away at the planet’s surface until it was one big diamond.  Matthew Bailes at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne says that,”the evolutionary history and amazing density of the planet all suggest it is comprised of carbon,” and a little oxygen. With the strong pull of gravity the carbon crystallizes making the planet one big diamond.

The mega huge diamond is about half the size of Jupiter with the same mass, but it’s density is twenty times more than Jupiter. It’s diameter has been measured to be approximately 34,175 miles. The over-sized gem is located in the Serpens constellation, which is, from our solar system, only an eighth of the way toward the middle of the Milky Way.

Most spinning pulsars that spin at a rate faster than once every twenty milliseconds are part of a binary star system and usually only thirty percent of them are companied by other stars or planets. This specific discovery is so rare because there is only one other existing spinning pulsar with an companion the size of a planet. This discovery brings a whole new truth to the child lullaby “Twinkle, Twinkle little star.”

For Further Reading:
theweek.com/article/index/218655/a-planet-made-of-diamonds
news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/scienceshot-diamond-planet-orbits.html?ref=hp
 

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The image of the "Mysterious Lunar Impact Crater"

There has been an impact site located on the surface of the moon that is said might be the crash site of a long lost 1967 spacecraft. The space craft is called the Lunar Orbiter 2 and was sent into space to take pictures of the moons surface. The pictures were taken to help aid the Apollo missions and were specifically taken to determine possible landing sites.  The Lunar Orbiter 2 became famous for taking what is known as the “picture of the century,” a very popular picture of the moons surface.

The craft crashed on the far side of the moon out of the range of telescopes and radios, so NASA has not been able to determine exactly where the spacecraft impacted.  The reason for suspecting that the new crater on the moon might be from the 1967 spacecraft is that the crash site is located on the far side of the moon where the Orbiter 2 was sent and the shape of the crater is not that of a normal moon crater.  The crater is a butterfly shape and the image that the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a new spacecraft designed to do the same thing that the Orbiter 2 was designed to do, shows this very detail.

James Ashley wrote on an Arizona State University website that studies images from LRO, “The impact appears much too large (approximately 85 meters in diameter) to be the result of an impact from a spacecraft only a few meters tall, but with a solar incidence angle of only 12 degrees, it is difficult to see the crater rim and find out the true diameter”.  However, until scientist are able to get better crater rim measurements they will not be able to determine for certain whether or not this is in fact the Orbiter 2 crash site.

For Further Reading:
news.discovery.com/space/nasa-spacecraft-crash-site-moon-110728.html
news.yahoo.com/weird-moon-crater-may-crash-old-nasa-spacecraft-034305168.html
www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/27/167-robot-photographer-final-resting-place-discovered-crashed-on-moon-nasa/

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Full View of Vesta.

Vesta has been growing extremely popular ever since Dawn’s mission has brought back new photos.  Members of the Dawn team have been studying photos of Vesta ever since the dawn entered it’s orbit, but in a recent press conference there have been new and more detailed photos released of the hefty asteroid.  Because Vesta was found to be older than any other planet in our solar system, even earth itself, it is believed that through studying Vesta we will learn more about the early stages of planet formation.

At the conference Dawn’s chief engineer, Marc Rayman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, proclaimed, “We’re here today to say Earth, meet Vesta”.  This conference was held explicitly to explain the details of the new photos of Vesta and to share the excitement of the diverse characteristics they encountered while studying the them.  Chris Russel, chief scientist of the Dawn mission, suggested the grooves that were found on the equator of the asteroid were probably caused by a major impact that occurred a long time ago at the south pole of the asteroid.  Russel also stated that there were dark streaks lining the inside of the craters found on Vesta’s surface, something that he said he had never seen before.  Dawn is getting closer and closer to Vesta and at some point Russel says they will be close enough to determine the source of the streaks.

After the full study of Vesta is conducted, the Dawn mission will be moving on to it’s next asteroid, Ceres. Ceres is the biggest asteroid in our solar system. The study of both asteroids will be conducted all in a single mission thanks to a new technology, called ion propulsion.

For Further Reading:
www.newsscientist.com/article/dn20753-closeups-of-vesta-our-secondheaviest-asteroid.html
www.nasa.gov/dawn
 

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This new invention would end the need to slaughter animals. By extracting stem cells from a live animal, meat could be produced in a lab.  50,000 tons of meat could be produced in a period of two months just by extracting 10 stem cells from an animal and letting them multiply in a lab, according to Utrecht University researchers. This method would definitely compensate for the worlds future lack for livestock verses mouths to feed. “I don’t see any way you could rely on old-fashioned livestock in the coming decades,” said Mark Post, the professor of physiology that is behind the project.

‘In vitro’ meat has yet to be tasted and Post says that if no one comes forward to taste it then he would have to.  Scientists in 2009 from the same university grew strips of pork using the same method and admitted that it did not taste too good, but eventually test-tube meat might be are only choice. Another upside to ‘in vitro’ meat that an Oxford University study found is that apparently lab grown meat would use 98 per cent less land, 35-60 per cent less energy and produce 80-95 per cent less greenhouse gas than conventional farming.

For further reading;
www.dailymail.co.uk
abcnews.go.com
theweek.com

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Tegon's glowing pawl. Photo Illustration/Seoul National University/Reuters

There was a five step process that had to happen in order to produce Tegon. The first step was to insert a piece of DNA that controls the way a green fluorescent gene is expressed into dog cells.  After modifying the dog cells they injected them into the DNA of an immature female reproductive cell before it’s fertilization.  Step three consisted of producing an embryo using a technique called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer.  This embryo was implanted into a mother beagle. Tegon was born 60 days later with the ability to glow under UV light when given a certain antibiotic called doxycycline. The study started in 2009, but the details of the study was just released last month. Now Tegon is grown and with pups of her own. It hasn’t been made clear whether her pups inherited her glowing talents.

Tegon and her pups. (Photo from Seoul National University)

Lee’s team and many other teams such as his are certain that these studies will dramatically impact the studies of human diseases. Genetically, dogs have similar aspects to humans and Lee states that we could better understand how the Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases develop by simply substituting the glow genes with the genes that cause these diseases.

Compared to lab rats there is a little more cooperation from dogs, which makes them ideal for this type of research and apparently dogs have been used for various other research studies in the past. As you can imagine there have always been a lot of controversy involving genetically modifying cats, dogs and other animals from various animal activists groups, but the research still goes on.

For Further Reading:
discovery.com
blogs.orlandosentinel.com
csmonitor.com
 

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Original article: Genetically Modified Glowing Beagle (and Her Puppies!) [PICS]

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Ceratopsian fossil.

New evidence has been discovered supporting the theory that the cause for the extinction of dinosaurs was due to the catastrophic meteor that struck Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula around 65 million years ago.  A fossil from what is known as a ceratopsian dinosaur (most likely a Triceratops or a Torosaurus) was discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in south-east Montana.  American paleontologists found this 18 inch long horn just 13cm below the famous K-T boundary.  The fossil is said to be the youngest dinosaur bone ever found.

The K-T boundary is a layer in the earths crust that paleontologist use to identify the time period of when the meteor struck earth and up until now there has been opposing theories for the reason behind the extinction of dinosaurs. The opposing theory to the idea of the dinosaurs becoming extinct due to the meteor is that dinosaurs were extinct long before the meteor hit. This theory is based on the evidence supported by the fact that there have been no fossils ever found 10 feet below the K-T boundary (also referred to as the “Three- Meter Gap”) . The three-meter gap represents about 100,000 years and the horn was found about 5 inches (13cm) below the K-T boundary. Based on the location of the horn this suggests that the ceratopsian dinosaur was alive and well at least a few thousand years before the impact, making the theory that dinosaurs were extinct long before the meteor strike impossible to believe.  Tyler Lyson, a Yale paleontologist and the lead author of the study, now says because of this discovery the three-meter gap no longer exists, and he now refers to the gap as the “13- centimeter gap”.

For further reading:
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110715/dinosaur-discovery-hell-creek-montana-110716/
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/07/dinosaur-extinction-fossils/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/07/13/youngest-dinosaur-bone-yet-reawakens-extinction-debate/

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Original article: New Dinosaur Extinction Evidence.

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A water boatman. (Flickr/Myrioram)

A water bug that produces a very loud noise by rubbing its penis and abdomen together has just been discovered during a study by French and Scottish scientists.  Thats correct, this bug has a penis song and not only is it fascinating how this bug produces this song, but this bug has been deemed as the loudest animal on earth based on its size.  The water insect goes by the name Micronecta Scholtzi.

M. Scholtzi was said to have reached a volume of about 99.2 decibels, which is about the volume of sitting in the front row at an orchestra. The team of French and Scottish experts found that the songs of M. scholtzi reached 78.9 decibels on average, which is similar to the volume of a passing freight train. They say the reason that they haven’t already deafened the human race is because of where the Scholtzi spends most of its time… in the water. Water causes sound to lose about 99% of the volume when it transfers to the air, but that doesn’t mean that it cant be heard with the human ear. Dr. James Windmill, from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, was quoted by the BBC as saying that, “The song is so loud that a person walking along the bank can actually hear these tiny creatures singing from the bottom of the river.” The Micronecta Scholtzi has definitely proved that size doesn’t matter… only noise volume does.

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Scary Sea Monster!

Upon viewing photos of the rotting carcass Scott Baker of Oregon State University Marine Mammal Institute, Bill Perrin, from the National Marine Fisheries Service, and Bob Brownell, from the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration’s Fisheries Service agreed that there was no way it was 55ft. long.  The three biologist said that based on the grooves found on the carcasses neck it had to be a balaenopterid whale.   When the original size of 55ft was reported the biologists thought the carcass to be a fin whale, but because it doesn’t look to be 55ft. they determined that it’s probably a bryde’s whale. Because it is so rare to find a whale carcass on the coast of China the three marine biologist are hoping that someone collects samples of the tissue and bone for genetic analysis.

Despite the fowl scent of decomposition  people flocked from all over  to see the beast.  I’m sure it’s so they can see this unidentifiable sea creature for themselves just in case it’s truly an unknown sea creature. So… sea monster or whale?

For futhur reading visit:

news.yahoo.com
www.dailymail.co.uk
www.thesun.co.uk

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Spongiforma Squarepantsii. Photo by Tom Bruns.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea… in the remote forest’s of Borneo? Yes it’s true there has been a new genus discovered and named after Nickelodeon’s fun loving character Spongebob Squarepants. Mycologist Dennis E. Desjardin had to convince the editors of the journal Mycologia to name his newly found species Spongiforma Squarepantsii, because they exclaimed the name was, “to frivolous”. Desjardin told them that it was his right to name the fungi anything he wanted to because it was his discovery and they finally gave in.

Dennis E. Desjardin is a mycologist at the San Fransisco State University and was brought this mushroom by his colleagues, Kabir Peay, a former Stanford postdoctoral fellow now at the University of Minnesota, and Peter Kennedy of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., and Bruns. Peay, Bruns and Kennedy were doing research in Borneo’s Sarawak State when they came across the sponge-like mushroom. After looking at the mushroom under a microscope, Desjardin realized that the genes of this mushroom closely matched the genes of a mushroom that he discovered in Thailand two years prior. He then determined that they had to be a new genus and grouped the two with the species name Spongiforma Squarepantsii.

Spongiforma Squarepantsii derived it’s name from it’s appearance. An average mushroom’s anatomy consists of a cap and stem. The cap is primarily used to protect the fungi from drying out and the stem lifts the mushroom up off the ground in order for it to be spread easily by the wind and passing animals. However this new found species has invented it’s own means of survival by having the ability to stay moist using it’s sponge-like texture to soak up small amounts of moisture from the rain forest atmosphere.

For More Information go to:
www.sfgate.com

www.tulsaworld.com

www.physorg.com

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