Tag: featured
-
The (nuclear) alchemists of Darmstadt and the doubly magic tin-100 nucleus
An international group of researchers announced in the journal Nature that they had succeeded in creating tin-100. This experiment helps us understand how heavy elements have formed. A few minutes after the Big Bang the universe contained no other elements than the lightest; hydrogen and helium. We, the objects around us, the Earth and the…
-
It’s a wheel! It’s a wheel – a wheel on Mars!
NASA’s rover Curiosity was safely on Mars. It was a perfect landing. The novel sky-crane method had proved its detractors wrong and its designers right. What was needed then was signs that Curiosity was working as designed. NASA had said that the first pictures may be anything up to 2 hours after landing. A long…
-
Libraries Now! Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering #IFLA2012
”The victory of book has been proved. Books should be treated as people” – Peter von Bagh The World Library and Information Congress 2012, 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, will take place at the Helsinki Exhibition & Convention Centre in Helsinki, Finland. The IFLA meet- ing in 2012 is one of the most significant global gatherings highlighting…
-
Is there life on Mars? Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity go roving
The NASA rover Curiosity is expected to be landing on Mars at 3:31 am August 6, 2012 (AEST). It’s mission, lasting one Martian-year (98 Earth weeks), is of scientific significance and perhaps even of human significance. Curiosity will be fulfilling the prospecting stage of a step-by-step program of exploration, reconnaissance, prospecting and mining evidence for…
-
A brand new boson?
It’s official. As was the subject of a press conference here in Europe this morning, the LHC has discovered a new particle. Is it the much talked about Higgs boson? Evidently it’s far too early to say with certainty. But whatever it is, it’s a brand new subatomic particle, it’s consistent with a Higgs boson signature,…
-
In the year 2023, and humans are on Mars for all to see
Do you wish to become a Martizen, a citizen of Mars, anytime in the near future? If you are serious about this then Dutchman, Bas Lansdorp is your man. Bas Lansdorp is a person with an audacious ambition. Through his company, Mars One, he plans to establish the first human settlement on Mars by April…
-
Mars One: The Martian Chronicles or Big Brother Live on Mars?
This week we have seen beautiful Venus transiting directly between the Earth and the Sun, which brought plenty of the media attention, and yesterday one of the greatest science fiction writers Ray Bradbury died during Venus transit. He was best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories collection The Martian Chronicles. Both the Earth…
-
Saving Australia’s Koalas
In an emergency room at Beerwah, Queensland, the phone rings almost 100 times a day. The emergency room is one at the Australian Wildlife Hospital, providing veterinary care for sick and injured wildlife — admitting anywhere in the region of 30 different species on a daily basis — with injuries resulting from accidents, acts of…
-
The social network of solitary lizards
Burra, South Australia. Dirt roads link sparsely populated towns and communities once home to copper miners that lived in tiny dugouts along the banks of the creek. Burra is a place capsulated by hot, dry summers and cool moist winters. Across the arid place a grey-brown reptile with short limbs and a large cumbersome head…
-
Connected and Free: World Wide Web professionals at #WWW2012
This is the Part II from the highlights of the World Wide Web 2012 (#WWW2012) conference and here are some notes of mine but this time focusing on people, attendants who have been actively participating in the web professionals meeting and their impressions of the conference. Beside numerous tracks, sessions, workshops, and tutorials – the…
-
Here be Dragons
On May 11, a Dragon will mate with the International Space station. Rather than some mythical creature, this Dragon is of human artifice. The Dragon’s rendezvous and berthing with the International Space Station presages a new chapter in human exploration of space. The significance of this event is Dragon is a reusable spacecraft, developed, and…
-
These rocks just got a little bit older
Have you ever had a moment when person responds to you in a way that just makes you feel a little bit older than you did before? You comment, for example, about a music group to someone, only to be met with that incredulous stare that conveys the message to you that their parents liked…
-
Weighty thoughts on antimatter
A pulse of particles speeds into the vacuum chamber. Positrons, 20,000,000 antimatter particles, clumped in a pulse one nanosecond deep. Like a silent, angry swarm they are targeted into a porous silica target. The positrons are confined by a magnetic field, increasing their interaction with the silica. Some attract electrons and synthesize into positronium, a…
-
Space worms
We begin with a confession. There comes a time in every boy’s life that they realise, or rather they make peace with the fact, that they’ll never play professional sports. Basketball, rugby, football, hockey… the sport of choice changes, but the realisation stays the same. I mention this only as an analogy. A segue into…