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NASA Gives Up on Lost Comet Probe

Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — NASA is calling off attempts to find its Deep Impact comet probe after a suspected software glitch shut down radio communications in August, officials said on Friday.

The spacecraft was launched in January 2005 for a close-up study of Comet Tempel-1.

Crop Pests, Diseases Move to Higher Latitudes

Insects and diseases that attack food crops are moving to higher latitudes as climate change alters their habitats, according to a new study published in Nature Climate Change.

With the bulk of the world’s agricultural production today taking place in the temperate zones, the study raises questions about future food security in a warming world.

Hubble Spots 'Cosmic Caterpillar'

VOA News

The Hubble space telescope has spotted what astronomers are calling a “cosmic caterpillar.”

The object, called IRAS 20324+4057, is actually a light-year-long knot of interstellar gas and dust scientists call a “protostar.” They said the object is “in a very early evolutionary stage.”

Researchers ID Protein Linked to Circadian Rhythm

VOA News

Researchers have identified a protein that is involved in the body’s internal 24-hour clock, known as the circadian rhythm. The protein, however, appears to get disrupted in shift workers and those experiencing jet lag.  

Whales Get Sunburned Too

VOA News

Anyone who has experienced the searing pain of sunburn knows that too much sun can wreak havoc on your skin.

Turns out that our fellow mammal, the whale, can also tan and get sunburn.

A study published in ‘Scientific Reports, from the publishers of the journal Nature, reveals the sun produces an increase in pigment in the skin of whales.

Mega Canyon Discovered in Greenland

VOA News

August 30, 2013

Scientists have discovered a massive canyon hidden almost two kilometers under Greenland’s ice cap.

The canyon is at least 750 kilometers long and, according to the U.S. space agency, NASA, has the characteristics of a winding river channel. In some places the canyon is 800 meters deep, which is on a similar scale as the Grand Canyon.

NASA says the canyon was made before the ice formed over much of Greenland.

"One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped," said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in Britain and lead author of the study. "Our research shows there's still a lot left to discover."

Using radar data collected over decades, NASA and researchers from Britain and Germany were able to piece together the landscape of the canyon. A large portion of this data was collected from 2009 through 2012 by NASA's Operation IceBridge, an airborne science program studying polar ice.

One instrument in particular, the Multichannel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder, can see through massive amounts of ice to the bedrock below. The canyon appears to extend from almost the center of the island and ends beneath the Petermann Glacier fjord in northern Greenland.

Researchers think that before Greenland was covered in ice - some 4 million years ago - water flowed through the canyon as part of a massive river system. Now, researchers say the canyon “plays an important role in transporting sub-glacial melt water from the interior of Greenland to the edge of the ice sheet into the ocean.”

"It is quite remarkable that a channel the size of the Grand Canyon is discovered in the 21st century below the Greenland ice sheet," said Michael Studinger, IceBridge project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It shows how little we still know about the bedrock below large continental ice sheets."

Bamber's team published its findings Thursday in the journal Science.

Here's a video about Greenland's mega canyon:

US Scientist Operates Colleague's Brain From Across Campus

Reuters

NEW YORK — Scientists said Tuesday they have achieved the first human-to-human mind meld, with one researcher sending a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motion of a colleague sitting across the Seattle campus of the University of Washington.

The feat is less a conceptual advance than another step in the years-long progress that researchers have made toward brain-computer interfaces, in which electrical signals generated from one brain are translated by a computer into commands that can move a mechanical arm or a computer cursor - or, in more and more studies, can affect another brain.

Disabling Protein Cripples Cancer Cells

Jessica Berman

WASHINGTON — Scientists have successfully crippled aggressive cancer cells by disabling a single protein known as an ether lipid, part of a family of fatty molecules that includes cholesterol. Researchers hope to develop drugs that can be used alongside chemotherapy to treat some malignant cancers.

Ether lipids are highly elevated in aggressive cancer cells, and by disabling the enzyme responsible for their production researchers have been able to disable malignant cancer cells.

Evidence Found of Water Deep Below Lunar Surface

VOA News

New evidence has emerged indicating there is water from an “unknown source” locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon. According to the U.S. space agency, NASA, the source of the water is likely “deep beneath the surface” of the moon.

"This rock, which normally resides deep beneath the surface, was excavated from the lunar depths by the impact that formed Bullialdus crater," said Rachel Klima, a planetary geologist at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, in a statement.

Washington's Giant Panda Gives Birth, but Who's the Daddy?

Reuters

WASHINGTON — A giant panda gave birth to a cub at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington on Friday - though it's not immediately clear who the father might be.

The birth of the cub, which has not yet been named, is the third for the mother, 15-year-old Mei Xiang, who could be seen cradling the new arrival on the zoo's “Panda Cam” shortly after giving birth on Friday evening.

As Humans Change Landscape, Brains of Some Animals Change Too

VOA News

The continuing process of evolution can be measured in the skulls of small mammals.  University of Minnesota biologist Emilie C. Snell-Rood suggests that the brains of creatures like mice and bats have grown bigger as we humans have changed the landscapes where they live.

Dung Beetles Clean Air

VOA News

Dairy farms and cattle ranches are a major source of greenhouse gases, especially methane, which has a significant warming impact in the environment. It's primarily released from both ends of cows as they chew their cud, but some is also emitted from their manure. Researchers from the University of Helskinki have found that dung beetles living in these so-called cow patties may reduce those emissions.

Researchers Reveal Mysteries of Caveman Cuisine

Steve Baragona

Thank God for bad Stone Age chefs, says archaeologist Hayley Saul at the University of York.

“We like dirty pots. People who can’t cook very well," she said. "They burn food onto their pots, that’s what we’re after.”

It’s from those charred remnants of prehistoric dinners that she and her colleagues isolated the first evidence of a spice used in cooking.

They found microscopic traces of garlic mustard in crusts on 6,000-year-old pots found in Germany and Denmark.

Statistical Tool Predicts Arsenic Risk in Chinese Wells

Rosanne Skirble

About 140 million people around the world drink water contaminated with unsafe-levels of arsenic. The element is found naturally in rocks and soil, but exposure to it presents a major public health problem, especially in regions where untreated groundwater is the only reliable source of drinking water. Scientists have deployed a new statistical tool that can help predict the greatest risk of contamination.

Luis Rodriguez-Lado led the team that designed the method.  The soil scientist from University of Santiago de Compostela says the model was tested in China, where in 1994 the Chinese government declared arsenic poisoning an endemic disease.

Web-Based Apps Pose Tricky Problem for Saudi Monitors

Reuters

DUBAI — Saudi Arabia is seeking to tighten control over web-based applications that offer a freedom to communicate that is impossible for most Saudis in the real world, and may even seek to ban such apps altogether.

Saudi Arabia remains a relatively closed society; gender mixing is restricted to a tight circle of relatives and family friends, and direct criticism of the ruling family or powerful conservative clergy is frowned upon. Morality police patrol the kingdom's few public spaces such as shopping malls to enforce rigid social rules.

NASA Looks to the Future, Back at its Past

NASA administrator Charles Bolden formally introduced the space agency’s eight new astronaut candidates at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Wednesday.

The eight men and women who were picked by NASA to join the Astronaut Corps were chosen from more than 6,100 applicants after a rigorous selection process.

NASA Adds More Space Launch Platforms For Sale

Reuters

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA — While NASA considers competing bids to take over a shuttle launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, it added three mobile launch platforms to its list of excess equipment available to private industry, officials said on Tuesday.

When Judging Music, Trust Your Ears and Eyes

Even when it comes to music, seeing is believing.

In a new study at Harvard University, people were better able to identify winners of musical competitions by watching silent video clips than by actually listening to the music. Even trained musicians fared better in picking winners just by watching the competitors.

MERS virus found in Saudi Arabia bat

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus has been found in an insect- eating bat in Saudi Arabia, researchers from the United States and Saudi Arabia said Wednesday.

The discovery described in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases points to a likely animal origin for the disease but an intermediary animal is likely also involved, researchers from the Columbia University, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Ministry of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia said.