A New World Lives: April 2016

Saturday, April 30, 2016

TECH NEWS: COURT EXPANDS FBI ALONG POWERS

The US Supreme Court has approved a rule change that could allow law enforcement to remotely search computers around the world.

Microsoft is forcing people to use its Bing search engine with the Cortana digital assistant in Windows 10.

Billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has sold all his shares in Apple over concerns about the technology firm's prospects in China.

Hackers have stolen login data for more than seven million members of the Minecraft site Lifeboat.

This is a comparison of an adult Rapetosaurus, a baby Rapetosaurus and a human.

Credit: Kristi Curry Rogers

Long-necked sauropod dinosaurs include the largest animals ever to walk on land, but they hatched from eggs no bigger than a soccer ball.

When I went searching for information on dragons, the biggest thing I found was a "documentary" by National Geographic. I did a little digging and found that

Sleeping dragon (Pogona vitticeps) — Image captionA dozing Australian bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps)

Lizards share sleep patterns with humans, according to scientists.

Image copyrightAIRBUS DS

Image caption

The rover known as Bridget enters the "cave" at the Airbus simulation "Mars yard"

UK astronaut Tim Peake has performed a challenging remote control experiment on the International Space Station.

This is a genetic variant SNPrs11031006 (FSHB).

Credit: Twinning GWAS Consortium

Twinning has fascinated human beings over the centuries. Twins are relatively common and occur more than 1 time per 100 maternities.

SCIENCE TODAY: SLEEPLESS SLUGS ON RISE, SAYS EXPERT

Media captionThe slug invasion that could devastate your garden

Last year's wet summer, followed by one of the warmest winters on record, has helped to create a generation of sleepless slugs, wildlife experts have warned.

An undated artist's rendering made available by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on 28 March 2016 shows the Japanese Astro-H satellite that was launched on 17 February 2016 to observe black holes and galaxy clusters. — Image captionThe agency said it was highly likely that two solar arrays had broken off their bases

20 Things you might not have know about this killer weapon.

The AK-47 created by Kalashnikov. He made the AK-47 that killed many but he didn't die by it. Here are the facts:

Excessive empathy can impair understanding as a new study conducted by psychologists from Würzburg and Leipzig has established.

Credit: © ibreakstock / Fotolia

SCIENCE DAILY: DO BEARDED DRAGONS SLEEP?

Sleeping bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps).

Credit: MPI f. Brain Research/ S. Junek

Behavioural sleep is ubiquitous among animals, from insects to man. In humans, sleep

A human heart cell that was chemically reprogrammed from a human skin cell.

Credit: Nan Cao, PhD, Gladstone Institutes

In a major breakthrough, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes transformed skin cells into heart cells and brain cells using a combination of chemicals.

People who regularly consume yogurt or buttermilk have a greater diversity of gut bacteria.

Credit: © BillionPhotos.com / Fotolia

As mice, like all mammals, age, the regenerative capacity of certain organs (such as the liver and kidneys) and muscles (including the heart) diminishes. The effects of Nicotinamide riboside (NR) can only be described as restorative. (stock image)

Credit: © jonnysek / Fotolia

Dental Microwear Texture Analysis, the method employed in this study, involves the examination and analysis of microwear features on dental surfaces at a sub-micrometer scale.

Credit: Sireen El Zaatari

SCIENCE TODAY: BRAIN'S ATLAS OF WORDS REVEALED

Scientists in the US have mapped out how the brain organises language.

Billionaire Elon Musk is planning to send his Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018.

Revealed for the first time in all its glory - the main mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope, which will be launched in 2018.

Main comparison — Image captionA more definitive shape emerges in the newly processed images

Supporting evidence that the Beagle-2 probe is sitting intact on the surface of Mars has come from a new imaging technique developed by UCL scientists.

The slime mold Physarum polycephalum (diameter: around 10 centimeters), made up of a single cell, was here cultivated in the laboratory on agar gel.

Credit: Audrey Dussutour (CNRS)

3D render of DNA structure. One of the main advantages of using DNA to engineer molecular thermometers is that DNA chemistry is relatively simple and programmable.

Credit: © DigitalGenetics / Fotolia

Everyone has felt the butterflies and experienced the lust-filled daydreams associated with finding a new person attractive and intriguing, but how do you know when it’s real love?

Sarmientosaurus head posture, brain & eye (WitmerLab): Digital renderings of the skull and reconstructed brain endocast and eye of the new titanosaurian dinosaur species Sarmientosaurus musacchioi. At left is the skull rendered semi-transparent in left side view, showing the relative size and position of the brain endocast (in blue, pink, yellow, and red) and the inferred habitual head posture. At center is the isolated brain endocast in left side view, and at right is a left/front view of the skull showing the reconstructed eyeball and its associated musculature. Scale bar equals five centimeters.

Credit: WitmerLab, Ohio University

This artist's concept shows the distant dwarf planet Makemake and its newly discovered moon. Makemake and its moon, nicknamed MK 2, are more than 50 times farther away than Earth is from the sun.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Parker (Southwest Research Institute)

Peering to the outskirts of our solar system, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second brightest icy dwarf planet -- after Pluto -- in the Kuiper Belt.

The moon -- provisionally designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK 2 -- is more than 1,300 times fainter than Makemake. MK 2 was seen approximately 13,000 miles from the dwarf planet, and its diameter is estimated to be 100 miles across. Makemake is 870 miles wide. The dwarf planet, discovered in 2005, is named for a creation deity of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island.

The Kuiper Belt is a vast reservoir of leftover frozen material from the construction of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago and home to several dwarf planets. Some of these worlds have known satellites, but this is the first discovery of a companion object to Makemake. Makemake is one of five dwarf planets recognized by the International Astronomical Union.

The observations were made in April 2015 with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Hubble's unique ability to see faint objects near bright ones, together with its sharp resolution, allowed astronomers to pluck out the moon from Makemake's glare. The discovery was announced today in a Minor Planet Electronic Circular.

The observing team used the same Hubble technique to observe the moon as they did for finding the small satellites of Pluto in 2005, 2011, and 2012. Several previous searches around Makemake had turned up empty. "Our preliminary estimates show that the moon's orbit seems to be edge-on, and that means that often when you look at the system you are going to miss the moon because it gets lost in the bright glare of Makemake," said Alex Parker of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado, who led the image analysis for the observations.

A moon's discovery can provide valuable information on the dwarf-planet system. By measuring the moon's orbit, astronomers can calculate a mass for the system and gain insight into its evolution.

Uncovering the moon also reinforces the idea that most dwarf planets have satellites.

"Makemake is in the class of rare Pluto-like objects, so finding a companion is important," Parker said. "The discovery of this moon has given us an opportunity to study Makemake in far greater detail than we ever would have been able to without the companion."

Finding this moon only increases the parallels between Pluto and Makemake. Both objects are already known to be covered in frozen methane. As was done with Pluto, further study of the satellite will easily reveal the density of Makemake, a key result that will indicate if the bulk compositions of Pluto and Makemake are also similar. "This new discovery opens a new chapter in comparative planetology in the outer solar system," said team leader Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

The researchers will need more Hubble observations to make accurate measurements to determine if the moon's orbit is elliptical or circular. Preliminary estimates indicate that if the moon is in a circular orbit, it completes a circuit around Makemake in 12 days or longer.

Determining the shape of the moon's orbit will help settle the question of its origin. A tight circular orbit means that MK 2 is probably the product of a collision between Makemake and another Kuiper Belt Object. If the moon is in a wide, elongated orbit, it is more likely to be a captured object from the Kuiper Belt. Either event would have likely occurred several billion years ago, when the solar system was young.

The discovery may have solved one mystery about Makemake. Previous infrared studies of the dwarf planet revealed that while Makemake's surface is almost entirely bright and very cold, some areas appear warmer than other areas. Astronomers had suggested that this discrepancy may be due to the sun warming discrete dark patches on Makemake's surface. However, unless Makemake is in a special orientation, these dark patches should make the dwarf planet's brightness vary substantially as it rotates. But this amount of variability has never been observed.

These previous infrared data did not have sufficient resolution to separate Makemake from MK 2. The team's reanalysis, based on the new Hubble observations, suggests that much of the warmer surface detected previously in infrared light may, in reality, simply have been the dark surface of the companion MK 2.

There are several possibilities that could explain why the moon would have a charcoal-black surface, even though it is orbiting a dwarf planet that is as bright as fresh snow. One idea is that, unlike larger objects such as Makemake, MK 2 is small enough that it cannot gravitationally hold onto a bright, icy crust, which sublimates, changing from solid to gas, under sunlight. This would make the moon similar to comets and other Kuiper Belt Objects, many of which are covered with very dark material.

When Pluto's moon Charon was discovered in 1978, astronomers quickly calculated the mass of the system. Pluto's mass was hundreds of times smaller than the mass originally estimated when it was found in 1930. With Charon's discovery, astronomers suddenly knew something was fundamentally different about Pluto. "That's the kind of transformative measurement that having a satellite can enable," Parker said.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington, D.C.

SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY

SCIENCE DAILY: NEARVY MASSIVE STAR EXPLOSION 30 MILLION YEARS AGO EQUALED DETONATION OF 100 MILLION SUNS

A giant star that exploded 30 million years ago was one of the closest to Earth in recent years to go supernova, say astrophysicists at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. It was visible as a point of light in the night sky. This image of Supernova 2013ej shows the star at peak explosion.

Credit: Govinda Dhungana, SMU

Indian students shout slogans during a protest against the latest incidents of rape in New Delhi, India, Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015 — Image captionThe recent cases of rapes have prompted public displays of anger and grief

India's telecommunications ministry has said all mobile phones sold in the country from 2017 must include a panic button.

Google car — Image captionGoogle wants self-drive cars with no steering wheels or pedals

Google has formed a coalition with carmakers and taxi-hailing companies to help steer the regulations needed to make self-drive cars a reality.

A worker checks an iPhone, file picture — Image captionApple says it has received 5,000 requests for help gain access to iPhone data in 2015

The US government has dropped a case against Apple that sought to compel the company to provide access to an alleged New York drug dealer's locked iPhone.

Gaming platform Steam now sells rentals of Lionsgate films.

Steam, the digital gaming platform, has started offering Hollywood film rentals to users after signing a deal with production studio Lionsgate.

Spam in email inbox — Image captionPhishing mails get opened about 30% of the time, suggests the report

Cyber-thieves are sticking to email as their preferred way to trick victims into falling for scams, suggests a report.

Image captionOut with the old: Facebook employees see the old Sun Microsystems logo when they head home

Sun Microsystems was a Silicon Valley giant.

Comedy duo Dean Dobbs and Jack Howard — Image captionDean Dobbs and Jack Howard are two of the popular YouTube stars on the new service

Online talent firm Fullscreen has launched its own subscription video platform to rival YouTube's offering.

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Saturday, April 30, 2016

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Wednesday, April 27, 2016