Captured: Deepest view of space yet

WASHINGTON: Astronomers have observed deeper into space than ever before and identified seven new galaxies that formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, including one that may be the oldest to date.

Using Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers uncovered a population of seven primitive galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, when the universe was less than 4% of its present age.

The deepest images to date from Hubble yield the first statistically robust sample of galaxies that tells how abundant they were close to the era when galaxies first formed, Nasa said.

The Hubble's observations support the idea galaxies assembled continuously over time and also may have provided enough radiation to reheat, or re-ionize , the universe a few hundred million years after the theorized big bang.

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Aerobic exercise makes brain smarter

AUCKLAND: The physical benefits of regular exercise are well documented. Now researchers in a New Zealand university say that people who routinely perform aerobic exercises are also smarter than those who do not.

Hayley Guiney and Liana Machado from the University of Otago, New Zealand unearthed evidence that highlights the importance of physical activity and its role in improving cognitive function throughout life.

A certain amount of mental deterioration is expected with advancing age. But aerobic exercise benefits cognitive function such as switching between tasks, and selective attention and working memory, the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review reports.

Review of studies by researchers consistently found that fitter individuals scored better in mental tests than their unfit peers.

Scores in mental tests also improved among those who were assigned to an aerobic exercise regimen, compared to those told to do stretch and tone classes, according to an Otago statement.

Both the updating of working memory and the volume of information which could be held was better in fitter individuals or those who followed an aerobic exercise regime.

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Twin NASA probes to crash into the moon to learn more

WASHINGTON: NASA's twin lunar-orbiting spacecraft, that have allowed scientists to learn more about the internal structure and composition of the Moon, will end their gravity-mapping mission in a spectacular way next week.

Ebb and Flow, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission probes, are being sent purposely into the lunar surface because their low orbit and low fuel levels preclude further scientific operations.

The duo's successful prime and extended science missions generated the highest resolution gravity field map of any celestial body. The map will provide a better understanding of how Earth and other rocky planets in the solar system formed and evolved, NASA said in a statement.

"It is going to be difficult to say goodbye," said GRAIL principal investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

"Our little robotic twins have been exemplary members of the GRAIL family, and planetary science has advanced in a major way because of their contributions," Zuber said.

The mountain where the two spacecraft will make contact is located near a crater named Goldschmidt. Both spacecraft have been flying in formation around the Moon since January, 2012.

The first probe to reach the Moon, Ebb, also will be the first to go down. Flow will follow Ebb about 20 seconds later.

Both spacecraft will hit the surface at 1.7 kilometers per second. Ebb and Flow will conduct one final experiment before their mission ends. They will fire their main engines until their propellant tanks are empty to determine precisely the amount of fuel remaining in their tanks.

This will help NASA engineers validate fuel consumption computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.

"Our lunar twins may be in the twilight of their operational lives, but one thing is for sure, they are going down swinging," said GRAIL project manager David Lehman of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

"Even during the last half of their last orbit, we are going to do an engineering experiment that could help future missions operate more efficiently," Lehman said.

Because the exact amount of fuel remaining aboard each spacecraft is unknown, mission navigators and engineers designed the depletion burn to allow the probes to descend gradually for several hours and skim the surface of the Moon until the elevated terrain of the target mountain gets in their way.

"Such a unique end-of-mission scenario requires extensive and detailed mission planning and navigation," said Lehman.

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Slower you grow, the longer you live

LONDON: Your lifespan is affected by the rate at which your body expands early in life, claim scientists, adding that if your growth in childhood is slow you may live longer. Bodies which grow quickly accumulate greater tissue damage, with life-shortening results, a study showed.

A team from Glasgow University looked at growth patterns in stickleback fish and altered the growth rate of 240 fish by exposing them to cold or warm spells, putting them ahead or behind their normal growth schedule, the Daily Mail reported.

Researchers found the fish got back on track once their environmental temperature was returned to normal, but the change in growth rate affected their rate of ageing. The slow-growing fish lived for around 30% longer than the stickleback's two-year average, with a lifespan of nearly 1,000 days.

The lifespan of the fast-growing fish was 15% shorter than normal.

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Scientists discover mini Nile river on Saturn's moon Titan

WASHINGTON: Nasa scientists have spotted the longest extraterrestrial river system ever - on Saturn's moon Titan - and it appears to be a miniature version of Earth's Nile river.

The river valley on Titan stretches more than 400 kilometres from its "headwaters" to a large sea, a Nasa Jet Propulsion Laboratory statement said.

In comparison, the Nile river on Earth stretches about 6,700 kilometres.

Images by Nasa's Cassini mission have revealed for the first time a river system this vast and in such high resolution anywhere other than Earth.

Titan is known to have vast seas - the only other body in the solar system, apart from Earth, to possess a cycle of liquids on its surface.

However, the thick Titan atmosphere is a frigid one, meaning liquid water couldn't possibly flow. The liquids on Titan are therefore composed of hydrocarbons such as methane and ethane, Discovery News reported.

"Though there are some short, local meanders, the relative straightness of the river valley suggests it follows the trace of at least one fault, similar to other large rivers running into the southern margin of this same Titan sea," said Jani Radebaugh, a Cassini radar team associate at Brigham Young University, Utah.

"Such faults - fractures in Titan's bedrock - may not imply plate tectonics, like on Earth, but still lead to the opening of basins and perhaps to the formation of the giant seas themselves," Radebaugh said.

In Titan's equatorial regions, images from Cassini's visible-light cameras in late 2010 revealed regions that darkened due to recent rainfall. Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer confirmed liquid ethane at a lake in Titan's southern hemisphere known as Ontario Lacus in 2008.

"Titan is the only place we've found besides Earth that has a liquid in continuous movement on its surface," said Steve Wall, the radar deputy team lead, based at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"This picture gives us a snapshot of a world in motion. Rain falls, and rivers move that rain to lakes and seas, where evaporation starts the cycle all over again. On Earth, the liquid is water; on Titan, it's methane; but on both it affects most everything that happens," Wall said.

The radar image taken on September 26, 2012 shows Titan's north polar region, where the river valley flows into Kraken Mare, a sea that is, in terms of size, between the Caspian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea on Earth.

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Delaying childbirth can lower breast cancer risk

WASHINGTON: Delaying childbirth by 15 years after menarche may lower the odds of an aggressive form of breast cancer by 60 percent, says a new study.

"We found that the interval between menarche and age at first live birth is inversely associated with the risk of triple-negative breast cancer," said Christopher I. Li, member of Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, who led the study.

The study involved more than 1,960 Seattle-area women between the ages of 20 and 44, 1,021 with a history of breast cancer and 941 without, the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment reports.

While relatively uncommon, triple-negative breast cancer is a particularly aggressive subtype of the disease that does not depend on hormones such as estrogen to grow and spread.

This type of cancer, which accounts for only 10 percent to 20 percent of all breast cancers, does not respond to hormone-blocking drugs such as Tamoxifen, according to a Fred Hutchinson statement. sv The study by Li and colleagues is the first to look at how the interval between first menstrual period and age at first birth is related to the risk of this particular type of breast cancer.

The study also confirmed several previous studies that have suggested that breast-feeding confers a protective effect against triple-negative disease.

"Breast-feeding is emerging as a potentially strong protective factor against one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer," Li said.

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Planning a holiday for 2? How about trip to Moon

PTI Dec 8, 2012, 06.59AM IST

(Golden Spike plans to sell…)

WASHINGTON: A private venture launched by former Nasa executives plans to send people to the Moon by 2020, costing $1.5 billion for two. The company, Golden Spike claims to have generated "real interest" in space agencies in Asian and European countries.

Golden Spike plans to sell each Moon mission for about $1.5 billion - a relative bargain, said the company's president and CEO Alan Stern, a former director of Nasa's Science Mission Directorate, Space.com reported.

"We're selling to nations, corporations and individuals. Get in line - and I think it's going to be a long one," he said. "We have spoken to space agencies from both Asian and European countries and found real interest," Stern said.

The missions are being targeted at countries without their own space agencies or that can't afford to launch people to the Moon independently, as well as scientific organizations and even private individuals looking to take the trip of a lifetime.

Stern and Golden Spike's chairman of the board of directors, Gerry Griffin, a former Apollo flight director and Nasa Johnson Space Center director, announced their plans on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the last launch to the Moon, Apollo 17, which lifted off on December 7, 1972.

The company's leaders have not yet chosen a launch vehicle or space capsule to transport their passengers; Stern expects to make the final selections in 2014.

Golden Spike will likely use existing or already-under-development rockets and spacecraft. However, the company will need to commission its own lunar lander and specially designed spacesuits.

The company has been in the works, and under wraps, for two and a half years, Stern said.

Each moon expedition will involve four separate launches: two launches to get the lunar lander into orbit, and two more to transport crew and cargo. Golden Spike's leaders hope to fly regular missions throughout the 2020s.

The venture doesn't have a long list of wealthy backers. "We're going to make our business run on sales," Stern said. The project does have the support of an advisory board made up of scientists, aerospace company leaders, movie producers, and dignitaries.

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Did volcanoes in India kill dinosaurs?

PTI Dec 10, 2012, 05.45AM IST

NEW YORK: Volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps near modernday Mumbai, and not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs about 65-million-years ago, according to a new study.

Research suggests that tens of thousands of years of lava flow from the Deccan Traps may have spewed poisonous levels of sulphur and carbon dioxide and caused the mass extinction through the resulting global warming and ocean acidification.

The findings are the latest volley in an ongoing debate over whether an asteroid or volcanism killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago in the mass dieoff known as the K-T extinction.

Proponents of the Alvarez hypothesis argue that a giant meteorite impact at Chicxulub, Mexico, around 65 million years ago released toxic amounts of dust and gas, blocking out the Sun to cause widespread cooling, choking the dinosaurs and poisoning sea life. The meteorite impact may also have set off volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis.

The new research "really demonstrates that we have Deccan Traps just before the mass extinction, and that may contribute partially or totally to the mass extinction," said Eric Font, a geologist at the University of Lisbon.

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Planning a holiday for 2? How about trip to Moon

PTI Dec 8, 2012, 06.59AM IST

(Golden Spike plans to sell…)

WASHINGTON: A private venture launched by former Nasa executives plans to send people to the Moon by 2020, costing $1.5 billion for two. The company, Golden Spike claims to have generated "real interest" in space agencies in Asian and European countries.

Golden Spike plans to sell each Moon mission for about $1.5 billion - a relative bargain, said the company's president and CEO Alan Stern, a former director of Nasa's Science Mission Directorate, Space.com reported.

"We're selling to nations, corporations and individuals. Get in line - and I think it's going to be a long one," he said. "We have spoken to space agencies from both Asian and European countries and found real interest," Stern said.

The missions are being targeted at countries without their own space agencies or that can't afford to launch people to the Moon independently, as well as scientific organizations and even private individuals looking to take the trip of a lifetime.

Stern and Golden Spike's chairman of the board of directors, Gerry Griffin, a former Apollo flight director and Nasa Johnson Space Center director, announced their plans on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the last launch to the Moon, Apollo 17, which lifted off on December 7, 1972.

The company's leaders have not yet chosen a launch vehicle or space capsule to transport their passengers; Stern expects to make the final selections in 2014.

Golden Spike will likely use existing or already-under-development rockets and spacecraft. However, the company will need to commission its own lunar lander and specially designed spacesuits.

The company has been in the works, and under wraps, for two and a half years, Stern said.

Each moon expedition will involve four separate launches: two launches to get the lunar lander into orbit, and two more to transport crew and cargo. Golden Spike's leaders hope to fly regular missions throughout the 2020s.

The venture doesn't have a long list of wealthy backers. "We're going to make our business run on sales," Stern said. The project does have the support of an advisory board made up of scientists, aerospace company leaders, movie producers, and dignitaries.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More

Did volcanoes in India kill dinosaurs?

PTI Dec 10, 2012, 05.45AM IST

NEW YORK: Volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps near modernday Mumbai, and not an asteroid, may have killed the dinosaurs about 65-million-years ago, according to a new study.

Research suggests that tens of thousands of years of lava flow from the Deccan Traps may have spewed poisonous levels of sulphur and carbon dioxide and caused the mass extinction through the resulting global warming and ocean acidification.

The findings are the latest volley in an ongoing debate over whether an asteroid or volcanism killed off the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago in the mass dieoff known as the K-T extinction.

Proponents of the Alvarez hypothesis argue that a giant meteorite impact at Chicxulub, Mexico, around 65 million years ago released toxic amounts of dust and gas, blocking out the Sun to cause widespread cooling, choking the dinosaurs and poisoning sea life. The meteorite impact may also have set off volcanic activity, earthquakes and tsunamis.

The new research "really demonstrates that we have Deccan Traps just before the mass extinction, and that may contribute partially or totally to the mass extinction," said Eric Font, a geologist at the University of Lisbon.

22.10 | 0 komentar | Read More