Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey: Carl Sagan’s show updated with Neil Tyson.
Photo by Fox, form the video In 1980, Carl Sagan changed the face of science forever. In that year, PBS broadcast the TV series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. Sagan’s words and voice drove the show, taking the 500 million people who watched with him as he showed us the Universe, from the distant reaches of its redshifted expansion to the chemical processes as our brains create our minds. As Sagan himself said, “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” That show transformed how people saw science and also how scientists informed the public. My old friend and brilliant science communicator Neil Tyson is doing just that. I prefer not to prejudge a show too much on the trailer, but it’s hard to resist a few comments. I’m very much looking forward to this. Photo by Phil Plait (well, Neil actualy took it but it was my phone). I’ll note that some people have their doubts about this because Seth MacFarlane is involved. Photo by Phil Plait
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Navy Researchers Put Dark Lightning to the SWORD
Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Dark lightning occurs within thunderstorms and flings gamma rays and antimatter into space. (Science@NASA video) Discovered “by accident” by NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in 2010, dark lightning is a surprisingly powerful — yet invisible — by-product of thunderstorms in Earth’s atmosphere. What’s more, these gamma-ray outbursts originate at relatively low altitudes well within the storm clouds themselves. Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) are extremely intense, sub-millisecond bursts of gamma rays and particle beams of matter and anti-matter. These models also suggest that the particle beams are intense enough to distort and collapse the electric field within thunderstorms and may, therefore, play an important role in regulating the production of visible lightning. A team of NRL Space Science Division researchers, led by Dr. As a next step, Dr. Simulation of a Boeing 737 struck by dark lightning.
Creatures Lived On Land 2.2 Billion Years Ago, New Evidence Suggests
South African fossils push the rise of oxygen and life on land to hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought. Researchers at the University of Oregon have recently unearthed fossils in South Africa that present evidence of life on land 2.2 billion years ago—four times older than traditionally thought. The fossilized organisms, dubbed Diskagma buttonii, are no bigger than the size of a standard match head and were found threaded together in bunches. Though researchers are still unsure as to their biological function, the organisms most closely resemble a modern fungus called Geosiphon . The results of the study, led by geologist Gregory J. "There is independent evidence for cyanobacteria, but not fungi, of the same geological age, and these new fossils set a new and earlier benchmark for the greening of the land," Retallack says in a statement . “At last we have an idea of what life on land looked like in the Precambrian," Retallack says.
Could Life Be Older Than Earth Itself?
Applying a maxim from computer science to biology raises the intriguing possibility that life existed before Earth did and may have originated outside our solar system, scientists say. Moore’s Law is the observation that computers increase exponentially in complexity, at a rate of about double the transistors per integrated circuit every very two years. If you apply Moore’s Law to just the last few years’ rate of computational complexity and work backward, you’ll get back to the 1960s, when the first microchip was, indeed, invented. Now, two geneticists have applied Moore’s Law to the rate at which life on Earth grows in complexity — and the results suggest organic life first came into existence long before Earth itself. ANALYSIS: Clues of Life's Origins Found in Galactic Cloud The results suggest life first appeared about 10 billion years ago, far older than the Earth’s projected age of 4.5 billion years. Sharov and Gordon’s idea raises other intriguing possibilities.
Quantum Computer to Log Onto Quantum Internet
When it comes to data crunching, quantum computers will leave today's fastest processors in the dust. For starters, a quantum computer would be able to store more bits of information in its memory than there are particles in the universe. And where a conventional silicon-based computer handles one computation at a time in sequence, a quantum computer would work on millions at once. That kind of staggering power would give a single quantum computer the ability to simulate a whole world in a holographic environment, replicate biological systems to understand diseases and find cures, solve the loads of equations necessary to create extremely accurate weather forecasting and simulate how subatomic particles interact, showing fundamentally how everything in the universe works. NEWS: Quantum of Solar: Cells Get Mystery Power Boost In recent months, different groups of scientists and engineers have made important strides toward this amazing new world.
Insecticides Spreading to Wildflowers Poisons Bees
In a recent study, pollen contaminated with insecticides and fungicides poisoned honey bees and weakened the bees’ resistance to a deadly parasite. What’s more, the poisoned pollen didn’t just come from agricultural crops. In fact, many bees collected most of their pollen from wildflowers, as opposed to the fields that farmers pay beekeepers to pollinate. Previous studies have mostly focused on insecticides, particularly neonicotinoids, as a cause of the widespread death of honey bees (Apis mellifera) due to a mysterious syndrome, known as colony collapse disorder. In December, the European Union will implement a ban on three types of neonicotinoid insecticide, known as clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam, reported the BBC. NEWS: Bee Decline Threatens Entire Ecosystems However, the new study, published in PLOS ONE, suggests that banning neonicotinoids might not be enough to halt the disappearance of the bees. ANALYSIS: 25,000 Dead Bees in Target Store Parking Lot
Drinking Coffee Linked To 50 Percent Lower Risk Of Suicide
Good news for those of you already reaching for your umpteenth cup of coffee of the day. According to a new study by the Harvard School of Public Health, subjects who drank two to four cups of coffee daily were 50 percent less likely to commit suicide. This was observed in comparison to those who drink decaffeinated, very little, or no coffee. Researchers examined data from three U.S. studies evaluating coffee and overall caffeine intake every four years. This included 43,599 men enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1988-2008), 73,820 women in the Nurses' Health Study (1992-2008) and 91,005 women in the Nurses' Health Study II (1993-2007). Caffeine has long been recognized as a stimulant (not to mention its other benefits). The study's authors emphasized that the results should not be taken as a recommendation to increase caffeine intake.
