Asteroid Blast Reveals Holes in Earth's defences

As the US government ponders a strategy to deal with threatening asteroids, a dramatic explosion over Indonesia has underscored how blind we still are Movie Camera to hurtling space rocks.

On 8 October 2009 an asteroid detonated high in the atmosphere above South Sulawesi, Indonesia, releasing about as much energy as 50,000 tons of TNT, according to a NASA estimate released on Friday. That's about three times more powerful than the atomic bomb that levelled Hiroshima, making it one of the largest asteroid explosions ever observed. However, the blast caused no damage on the ground because of the high altitude, 15 to 20 kilometres above Earth's surface, says astronomer Peter Brown of the University of Western Ontario (UWO), Canada. Brown and Elizabeth Silber, also of UWO, estimated the explosion energy from infrasound waves that rippled halfway around the world and were recorded by an international network of instruments that listens for nuclear explosions.The explosion was heard by witnesses in Indonesia. Video images of the sky following the event show a dust trail characteristic of an exploding asteroid.

Sudden Impact

The amount of energy released suggests the object was about 10 metres across, the researchers say. Such objects are thought to hit Earth about once per decade. No telescope spotted the asteroid ahead of its impact. That is not surprising, given that only a tiny fraction of asteroids smaller than 100 metres across have been catalogued, says Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yet objects as small as 20 or 30 metres across may be capable of doing damage on the ground, he says.

"If you want to find the smallest objects you have to build more, larger telescopes," says Spahr. "A survey that finds all of the 20-metre objects will cost probably multiple billions of dollars." The US Office of Science and Technology Policy, which advises the White House, must develop a policy to address the asteroid hazard by October 2010 under a deadline imposed by 2008 legislation. It is likely to be influenced by a report from the National Research Council on the asteroid problem, which is expected by year's end.

By David Shiga

Amazing Russian Baby Ali Yakubov Koran/Qur'an Appears on his Skin

Ali Yakubov is a medical mystery. Doctors and family deny any person is responsible for it and that there is no one writing on the boy's skin – nevertheless, words from the holy Koran mysteriously appear on his skin.

The word Allah appeared first, on Ali's chin soon after his birth. Ali was born prematurely with a coronary heart disease and transparent skin which revealed his intestines. At the time doctors warned that he may only live 2 or 3 days. In another twist, his mother, Madiana, complained to doctors that she could ear him crying before his was born. Doctors dismissed this out of hand but Mr. Ahmedpasha Amiralaev, a chairman of the Sagida Murtuzalieva Charity admitted that by the late term even the doctors themselves admitted that it seemed to be the unborn baby that was crying.

Ali has become a religious sensation in Russia. It has been reported that new Koran Arabic script appears on the back of his legs and hands (sometimes his stomach and head) before fading after a few days. Madiana says the boy reaches upwards of 40 degrees centigrade during these appearances.

source : here

Now you can believe it or Not? If you think this is not true, now how is it getting there?

Algeripithecus was not a Human Ancestor

A creature that could fit in your hand has long been seen as the strongest evidence that humans and apes originated in Africa. But now scientists say 50-million-year-old Algeripithecus was not an ape or human ancestor and was more like today's lemurs, after all.

What's more, a new study of the 3-ounce (85-gram) fossil species could add weight to the idea that our earliest ancestors arose not in Africa but in Asia. Discovered in 1992 in what is now northern Africa, Algeripithecus is considered to be the oldest known ape ancestor on that continent. But the new analysis suggests the creature belonged to another ancient primate group, the crown strepsirhines. Crown strepsirhines, which are not in the human ancestry, gave rise to modern-day lemurs, galagos, and lorises (see a loris picture).

Oldest Human Ancestors From Asia?

Asia is the only other known region where ape ancestors have been found. Whether apes arose there or in Africa is a "hotly contested issue" in the study of ancient primates, the study says.
The Africa theory rests heavily on Algeripithecus, now apparently exposed as a non-ape ancestor. Other than Africa, Asia is the most logical ape-ancestor "birthplace," study leader Rodolphe Tabuce, of France's University of Montpellier, said in an email. But evolutionary anthropologist Blythe Williams said "absence of evidence" is not enough to lend credence to an out-of-Asia theory.

After all, no one knows what evidence may still linger beneath African ground.
"It's quite possible that we haven't looked in the right places or that the sediments that would have preserved that portion of the fossil record no longer exist," said Williams, of Duke University, who was not involved in the study. But she does agree that Tabuce and colleagues' research weakens the case for an African origin.

Toothcomb Technicality

Algeripithecus fossils were first found in 1992 by researchers from France's University of Montpellier at the Glib Zegdou site in northeastern Algeria. The French team has continued to unearth new, and more Algeripithecus fossils, notably skull fragments and jawbones, some nearly complete.
The jaw and skull of Algeripithecus lack classic features of anthropoids, which include monkeys, apes, and humans, according to the study, published in the September 9 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Instead, Algeripithecus's jawbone has a long, thin formation, which the study says is "entirely compatible" with a "toothcomb," comblike lower front teeth used for grooming—common in strepsirhines, including modern lemurs.
Despite the new evidence, Algeripithecus is still a crucial figure in early primate evolution—but instead as one of the oldest known examples of a crown strepsirhine, the study says. Duke's Williams said the study's findings are helpful for scientists tracing how apes became human. The new study, she added, does "focus our attention on Asia"—though it's impossible to say yet if apes originated there.

Source : here

A Halo Phenomena Over Moscow

And you thought rainbows were cool. A few days ago, a mysterious cloud shaped like a halo appeared over Moscow, and the buzz has yet to break.

We're the first to admit that a photograph of the heavenly cloud appears to be photoshopped. It's just so...perfect. But meterologists have spoken up and said the cloud wasn't digitally altered. However, it wasn't exactly what it appeared to be, either.

When the cloud initially formed, some UFO enthusiasts declared it to be a "true mystery." Some even compared it to the giant spaceship hovering over Earth in the movie "Independence Day." Reality quickly dashed any predictions of an alien invasion. An article from the Daily Mail explains that the "luminous ring-shaped cloud" was simply an optical effect.

An official spokesperson for Moscow's weather department said, "Several fronts have been passing through Moscow recently, there was an intrusion of the Arctic air too, the sun was shining from the west — this is how the effect was produced."

The cloud loomed last week, but the searches are still soaring. Lookups on "halo cloud" and "moscow cloud" are both booming, and a video clip has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube. You can check it out for yourself below...

Source : Buzz

Bizarre Tongue-Eating Parasite Found in the Jersey Coast

There's been a spate of amazing animal discoveries recently--the giant rat-eating plants found in the Philippines, a huge woolly rat discovered in a volcanic crater--and now, yet another creature has emerged that could be right out of a sci-fi film. It's a bizarre creature that survives by eating its hosts' tongue and then attaching itself inside the mouth.

The sea-dwelling parasite attacks fish, burrows into it, and then devours its tongue. After eating the tongue, the parasite proceeds to live inside the fish's mouth. There's a horror film waiting to be made about this thing. Surprisingly, the fish doesn't seem to suffer any severe impediment--just the loss of its tongue--and seems to have no trouble surviving with its new, far uglier tongue.

While the isopod, a kind of louse, has been known to exist for a while now, discoveries of live specimens is rare. The BBC reports that "Fishermen near the Minquiers - islands under the jurisdiction of Jersey - found the isopod, a type of louse, inside a weaver fish." So no, the tongue-eater wasn't found in that Jersey. The Jersey Shore is still tongue replacing creature-free, if you stateside Northeasterners were worried about the thing ruining your late summer vacationing.

Not that you'd have to be too concerned anyways--the isopod isn't a threat to humans in the slightest, though it's reportedly vicious, and can deliver quite a little bite. One of the fishermen who found the creature described it thus: "Really quite large, really quite hideous - if you turn it over its got dozens of these really sharp, nasty claws underneath and I thought 'that's a bit of a nasty beast'." And while it can't seriously hurt people, it evidently doesn't like them: "It doesn't affect humans other than if you do actually come across a live one and try and pick it up - they are quite vicious, they will deliver a good nip."

( http://www.treehugger.com/ )

20 Percent(%) of Our Energy Used By The Neurons (Brain)

Experiments conducted on squid brains in the early days of neuroscience created misunderstandings about the workings of the human brain that have persisted for 70 years, according to a new study. While the squid experiments did shed light on how messages are transmitted between brain cells with electrochemical signals (and led to a Nobel Prize for the experimenters), researchers are just now realizing that the results gave scientists a confused idea about the efficiency of neurons.

The story begins seventy years ago when a pair of British physiologists, Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, took the first stab at figuring out how neurons transmit electrical signals, known as action potentials. Because most neurons are small–in humans, a cubic millimeter of gray matter can contain 40,000 neurons–the duo turned to squid, which contain a giant axon, the long thin part of a neuron through which action potentials travel. Those early experiments found that transmitting the action potential along the axon was a very inefficient process that used a great deal of energy, and neuroscientists ever since have assumed that mammal brains had the same inefficient wiring.

Researcher Henrik Alle, lead author of the new study published in Science, decided to reexamine the old assumptions. “I saw this old work,” says Alle. “I thought I cannot believe personally that nature would waste such energy.” Alle figured that nature would have made the process more efficient in mammals, whose brains send a huge number of messages [NPR News].

Alle and his colleagues studied rat brains using sophisticated techniques that weren’t available to Hodgkin and Huxley, and found that rat neurons use only about a third as much energy to transmit the action potential. The researchers say we can assume that the results from rats can be applied to human brain cells. “Electrical signals found in mammalian brain cell types are very similar”, says Alle.

The difference between the cephalopod and the mammals can be explained by the movements of the positively and negatively charged ions that flow in and out of the neuron, changing its voltage and beginning the electric pulse of the action potential that moves down the axon. Hodgkin and Huxley were the first to suggest that the squid cells were inefficient because sodium ions entering the cells neutralised the effect of potassium ions leaving. This hampered the creation of a net voltage across the cell membrane. “It’s like having the accelerator and the brake on at the same time,” says Arnd Roth, a study coauthor. In rat cells, however, the process is better coordinated so that almost all the sodium ions enter before potassium ions rush out.

The results don’t change the scientific thesis that although the brain accounts for only 2 percent of our body weight, it consumed 20 percent of our energy–it just means that the energy is being used by the neurons in other ways than to generate action potentials. Researchers suspect that the bulk of energy that goes to the brain is used for keeping the brain cells alive and used in synapses, where signals are transmitted from one neuron to the next.

(http://blogs.discovermagazine.com)

Found, the coldest place on Earth That is Antarctica's Ridge A

The search for the best observatory site in the world has led to the discovery of what is thought to be the coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth, a place where no human is thought to have ever set foot. The finding was detailed on August 31 in the Publications of the Astronomical Society.
Antarctica's Ridge A, world's coldest, driest, calmest place on Earth. To search for the perfect site to take pictures of the heavens, a US-Australian research team combined data from satellites, ground stations and climate models in a study to assess the many factors that affect astronomy — cloud cover, temperature, sky-brightness, water vapour, wind speeds and atmospheric turbulence.

The researchers pinpointed a site, known simply as Ridge A that is 4.053 metres high up on the Antarctic Plateau. The study revealed that Ridge A has an average winter temperature of minus 70 degrees Celsius and an extremely low amount of water in the air.

The site is also extremely calm, which means that there is very little of the atmospheric turbulence that elsewhere makes stars appear to twinkle.

"It's so calm that there's almost no wind or weather there at all" said study leader Will Saunders, of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Australia.

All these elements combine to make the perfect recipe for an astronomical observation post: "The astronomical images taken at Ridge A should be at least three times sharper than at the best sites currently used by astronomers," Saunders said. "Because the sky there is so much darker and drier, it means that a modestly sized telescope there would be as powerful as the largest telescopes anywhere else on earth."

The site would even be superior to the best existing observatories on high mountain tops in Hawaii and Chile, Saunders said. Researchers assert that a telescope at the site could take images nearly as good as those from the space-based Hubble telescope.

Located within the Antarctic Territory claimed by Australia, the site is 89 miles from an international robotic observatory and the proposed new Chinese "Kunlun" base at Dome A, a higher point on the Antarctic Plateau.

source : google.com