Robot armies to 'explore alien worlds'

Scientists are on track to create robots that command other robots, a development that will make it possible to explore the alien worlds by armies of flying, driving and sailing humanoids.

Lead researcher Wolfgang Fink, of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), has been developing software that would let a robotic explorer act independently and as part of a team. He said we are on the brink of a great paradigm shift in planetary exploration, and the next round of robotic explorers will be nothing like what we see today.

"The way we explore tomorrow will be unlike any cup of tea we've ever tasted," underlined Fink, whose work is published in the journal Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine and in the Proceedings of the SPIE. Fink envisages the cybernetic adventurers mapping the land and seascapes of Saturn’s moon, Titan. Robotic airships and satellites will fly above the surface of the distant world, commanding squadrons of wheeled rovers and floating robot boats, a development that will transform planetary exploration.

The robot would select priorities for exploration and anticipate and handle problems on their own, according to a report in the Science Daily.

"We are departing from traditional approaches of a single robotic spacecraft with no redundancy that is Earth-commanded to one that allows for having multiple, expendable low-cost robots that can command themselves or other robots at various locations at the same time," said Fink, director of Caltech's Visual and Autonomous Exploration Systems Research Laboratory.

Presently, robotic exploration relies on single robots controlled from Earth. "In the future, multiple robots will be in the driver's seat," with an orbiter and a robotic dirigible balloon giving bird’s-eye views of the planetary surface and sending the information down to teams of rovers, as well as lake landers on partly liquid-covered planets like Titan.

"We are basically heading toward making robots that command other robots," he was quoted as saying by the Science website.

According to the researcher, it will be possible that an entire fleet of robots will be autonomously commanded at once. "This armada of robots will be our eyes, ears, arms and legs in space, in the air, and on the ground, capable of responding to their environment without us, to explore and embrace the unknown," the scientist said.

"It's sort of like commanding a small army of robots operating in space, in the air and on the ground simultaneously," underlined Fink.

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Scientists disprove earliest apelike human ancestor

In a new research, scientists have disproved the theory that the 50-million-year-old fossil of an “apelike” creature, discovered in 1992 in what is now northern Africa, was the earliest human ancestor, which adds weight to the idea that our earliest ancestors arose in Asia, not in Africa.

The ancient Algeripithecus has long been seen as the strongest evidence that humans and apes originated in Africa.

Now, according to a report in National Geographic News, a new study of the 3-ounce (85-gram) fossil species has determined that Algeripithecus was nothing like an ape, after all.

Discovered in 1992 in what is now northern Africa, Algeripithecus is considered to be the oldest known ancestor of apes on that continent.

But, the new analysis suggests the creature belonged to another ancient primate group, the crown strepsirhines.

Crown strepsirhines, which are not related to humans, gave rise to modern-day lemurs, galagos, and lorises.

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, according to the study.

The Africa theory rests heavily on Algeripithecus, now apparently exposed as a non-ape.

Other than Africa, Asia is the most logical ape “birthplace,” said study leader Rodolphe Tabuce, of France’s University of Montpellier.

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 apelike features, such as distinct teeth, according to the study.

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 said.

According to evolutionary anthropologist Blythe Williams, the study’s findings are helpful for scientists tracing how apes became human.

The new study does “focus our attention on Asia”—though it’s impossible to say yet if apes originated there, she

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Natural calamities are occurences, events or phenomenon that happen in nature of their own accord or because of man (the use of celltowers, vehicles also cause damage to air) so these may occur.

Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, landslides, fires, spontaneous tree limbs falling, winds, hurricanes, tornadoes, ice storms...

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Astronauts to grow vitamin A-rich carrots in space

A new study has indicated that astronauts will soon have their own gardens aboard the International Space Station (ISS), with the ability to grow vitamin A-rich carrots in space.

The study, by researchers from Tuskegee University in Alabama, targeted at finding a way to incorporate natural and fresh antioxidants into the diets of astronauts while travelling in space.

They grew 18 different varieties of hydroponic carrots using two different methods of nutrient delivery.

Growing carrots hydroponically cultivates the vegetables by placing the roots in liquid nutrient solutions rather than in soil.

Among all foods, carrots have the highest carotenoid content.

They also contain a natural pigment known for provitamin A and have been associated with protection against cancer, cardiovascular diseases, cataracts and macular degeneration as well as enhancing the immune response.

Astronauts can be exposed to elevated levels of radiation, which might put them at risk for some types of cancer.

Researchers believe that the addition of unprocessed carrots to their diets may help reduce the negative effects of radiation and cancer development.

The hydroponically grown carrots were issued nutrients in two different methods.

One method is the nutrient film technique (NFT), in which the roots were exposed to a nutrient solution within a plastic film trough.

The second method is the microporous tube membrane system (MTMS), in which nutrient tubes were embedded into Turface—a material similar to crushed clay— where the carrots were planted.

All carrots were harvested 70 days after planting. They were tested for moisture, fat and carotene content as well as colour and texture.

Consumer testing also occurred to test the acceptability of the hydroponic carrots.

This group evaluated colour, crunchiness, sweetness, fibrousness, blandness and overall preference of the 18 different carrot types grown using NFT and MTMS.

The study concluded that hydroponic carrots grown using the MTMS method were most appealing to consumers due to their colour and more carrot-like appearance.

According to lead researcher AC Bovell-Benjamin, “The Nevis-F carrot cultivar grown using the NFT method had the highest carotenoid content and acceptability among consumers, and therefore, it will be the most likely choice for inclusion in NASA’s food system.”

ANI

Asteroid should be next small step for man in space

An expert panel appointed by US President Barack Obama has recommended bypassing the Moon in favour of an asteroid for future manned missions in space.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the target for future space missions would be an as yet-unidentified asteroid - one of the countless ancient pieces of debris from the dawn of the solar system that still circle the sun.

It might measure just 500 yards across, with a surface area no greater than the Vatican City.

That stop would be a stepping stone towards the ultimate goal of landing a man on Mars, the report suggested.

Thomas Jones, a science author and former NASA Shuttle astronaut, who has conducted a series of spacewalks, is an enthusiastic cheerleader for “mission asteroid”.

“It’s exciting and exhilarating, and also very promising for scientific research as asteroids are the raw materials for our planets, left over from the time when the solar system was formed,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.

Jones listed the advantages of switching our attention to asteroids, which have almost no gravitational field and are likely to be rich in minerals.

Raw materials such as water, nitrogen and phosphorus could be extracted and transported much more easily than any recovered from the Moon, where gravity is much greater.

These resources could be crucial for supporting onward missions to Mars.

Setting foot on an asteroid may be more complex than landing on the lunar surface.

A specially designed landing craft would be required which would in effect “dock” with the asteroid - slowly approaching its surface until it touches, then firing harpoon-type tethers into the ground to hold it in contact, like tent pegs, in the almost weightless environment.

Such a step may not just be a matter of human exploration but also of human survival as scientists believe it is only a matter of time, even if that is measured in millennia, before one such space object will be found to be on a collision course with Earth.

A strike by a medium-sized asteroid could wipe out mankind, so the information that would be garnered by landing on one would be crucial to developing a method of diverting one in the future.

Jeff Foust, an aerospace analyst and commentator, predicted that man might be able to visit an asteroid by the mid-2020s, aim for a mission to one of the Martian moons about 2030 and then a few years later aim for the holy grail of space exploration - a trip to the Red Planet itself.

ANI

Killer algae may be guilty of world’s greatest mass extinctions

A new theory has suggested that the seemingly lowly algae may be the killer behind the world’s great species mass extinctions.

Today, just about anywhere there is water, there can be toxic algae.

The microscopic plants usually exist in small concentrations, but a sudden warming in the water or an injection of dust or sediment from land can trigger a bloom that kills thousands of fish, poisons shellfish, or even humans.

According to James Castle and John Rodgers of Clemson University, the same thing happened during the five largest mass extinctions in Earth’s history.

In their research, each time a large die off occurred, they found a spike in the number of fossil algae mats called stromatolites strewn around the planet.

“If you go through theories of mass extinctions, there are always some unanswered questions,” Castle said.

“For example, an impact – how does that cause species to go extinct? Is it climate change, dust in the atmosphere? It''s probably not going to kill off all these species on its own,” he added.

But as the nutrient-rich fallout from the disaster lands in the water, it becomes food for algae.

They explode in population, releasing chemicals that can act as anything from skin irritants to potent neurotoxins.

Plants on land can pick up the compounds in their roots, and pass them on to herbivorous animals.

If the theory is right, it answers a lot of questions about how species died off in the ancient world. It also raises concerns for how today''s algae may damage the ecosystem in a warmer world.

“Algae growth is favored by warmer temperatures,” Castle said. “You get accelerated metabolism and reproduction of these organisms, and the effect appears to be enhanced for species of toxin-producing cyanobacteria,” he added.

He added that toxic algae in the United States appear to be migrating slowly northward through the country’s ponds and lakes, and along the coast as temperatures creep upward.

Their expanding range portends a host of problems for fish and wildlife, but also for humans, as algae increasingly invade reservoirs and other sources of drinking water.

ANI

Look for pollution trails to find aliens!

Future astronomers in the hunt for alien life forms on planets would be better off looking for pollution trails, as they would indicate the presence of technology.

During most of the 20th century, our television transmission antennas leaked a lot of their energy into space.

More recently, they have begun to be supplanted by satellites that beam their transmissions at the ground, as well as by cable.

Inquisitive aliens searching for signs of intelligent life on Earth may soon have to look elsewhere.

But, light pollution from cities might still give us away.

"Observed over interstellar distances, they would reveal to the observer the presence of a technology," according to a team of astronomers led by Jean Schneider of the Paris Observatory at Meudon, France.

Now, according to a report in New Scientist, scientists suggest that we should look for a similar glow on alien planets.

But, it wouldn't be easy. Even if all the electricity we generate was used to produce light, it would still be thousands of times fainter than the glint of sunlight reflected from Earth's surface.

To reliably detect even this massive amount of artificial light on a planet orbiting a relatively nearby star - say 15 light years away - would require an array of telescopes with a combined light-collecting area of 1.5 square kilometres, Schneider's team calculated.

Our presence on Earth also leaves other traces that could be observed from afar.

The chemicals known as CFCs strongly absorb infrared light at characteristic wavelengths, making them detectable in the atmosphere even when present at concentrations of only parts per trillion.

CFCs do not form naturally, so detecting them on a world orbiting another star would be good evidence of alien technology.

"CFCs are a very interesting idea to look for advanced civilizations," said Lisa Kaltenegger of Harvard University.

But an exceptionally sensitive telescope would be needed to pick them up - more sensitive even than NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder and the European Space Agency's Darwin mission, the most ambitious space telescopes now being planned.

According to Kaltenegger, it may be feasible "in the far future with a flotilla of infrared telescopes in space".

So, looking for CFCs might be a way to look for other civilisations - if aliens make the same mistakes we did.

Other artificial compounds, including less damaging substitutes for CFCs, also have characteristic infrared fingerprints, according to Jim Kasting of Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

"There's a whole host of things we make industrially as solvents, cleaners and refrigerants - they certainly have absorption lines. If you had a big enough telescope, you could detect them," he added.

ANI

Unseen Under Sea

Huge asteroid crashing off Indian coast may have wiped out dinos

A massive asteroid crashing off the western coast of India, creating the planet's largest known crater 40 km across, may have obliterated dinosaurs 65 million years ago, an Indian American has found.

Most of the crater lies submerged on India's continental shelf, in the area known as Bombay High. The impact appears to have sheared or destroyed much of the 48 km-thick granite layer in the western coast of India.

Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech University and his team took a close look at the massive Shiva basin, a submerged depression west of India that is intensely mined for its oil and natural gas. Some complex craters are among the most productive hydrocarbon sites on the planet.

"If we are right, this is the largest crater known on our planet," Chatterjee said. "A bolide of this size, perhaps 40 km in diameter, creates its own tectonics."

In contrast, the object that struck Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and is commonly thought to have killed the dinosaurs, was between eight and 10 km wide.

It's hard to imagine such a cataclysm. But if the team is right, the Shiva impact vaporised earth's crust at the point of collision, leaving nothing but ultra-hot mantle material to well up in its place.

The cataclysmic impact from outer space possibly triggered the nearby Deccan Traps volcanic eruptions that once covered much of western India. What's more, the impact broke the Seychelles islands off of the Indian tectonic plate, and sent them drifting toward Africa.

The geological evidence is dramatic. Shiva's outer rim forms a rough, faulted ring some 500 km in diameter, encircling the central peak, known as the Bombay High, which would be nearly five km higher than the ocean floor, said a Texas Tech release.

"Rocks from the bottom of the crater will tell us the telltale sign of the impact event from shattered and melted target rocks. And we want to see if there are breccias, shocked quartz, and an iridium anomaly," Chatterjee said. Asteroids are rich in iridium, and such anomalies are thought of as the fingerprint of an impact.

Chatterjee, who did his B.Sc and M.Sc in Geology from Kolkata's Jadavpur University in 1962 and 1964 and Ph.D from Calcutta University in 1970, will present his study at this month's annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon.

Bureau Report

2012 doomsday prediction nothing but a hoax

A NASA scientist has said that the prophecy by the ancient Mayans that the world might end in the year 2012, is nothing but a hoax, which is only helping the promoters of the conspiracy theory to rake in huge profits.

NASA scientist David Morrison’s concise summary of the claims and the scientific response to the widespread Internet belief that December 21, 2012, will be doomsday for planet Earth, determines that the whole thing is nothing but a hoax.

For several months, NASA and many astronomers have received increasingly worried letters and e-mails from members of the public about the possibility, widely touted on the Internet that the world will end in 2012.

Many mechanisms for doomsday are being proposed, including a collision with a fictional planet called Nibiru, deadly activity on the surface of the Sun that lashes out at Earth, alignments with the center of our galaxy, and many more.

David Morrison has coined the term “cosmophobia” - fear of the cosmos - for these concerns, and has seen a huge increase in the phenomenon this year.

Dr. Morrison, a world-renowned expert on the solar system (and asteroid impacts), also serves as the public scientist for NASA’s “Ask an Astrobiologist” service, where he answers questions for the public.

He has received so many questions about 2012 and the end of the world, that he felt he had to investigate and set the record straight.

One of his most interesting findings is that the distributors of the science fiction motion picture “2012”, to be released this November, are purposely feeding the flames of the Internet panic, in what is called a viral marketing campaign.

They have created fake science websites and encouraging people to search for “2012” on the Web, all for the sake of some publicity for the movie, the findings indicate.

Also, most of the sites based on the 2012 theory are full of nonsense and misunderstanding, often by people who have written books on coming disaster that they are trying to sell, the findings reveal.

ANI

Electromagnetic "black hole" that sucks in surrounding light created

Scientists have build a device that can create an electromagnetic "black hole" that sucks in surrounding light, a method which may lead to an entirely new way of harvesting solar energy to generate electricity.

A theoretical design for a table-top black hole to trap light was proposed earlier this year by Evgenii Narimanov and Alexander Kildishev of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Their idea was to mimic the properties of a cosmological black hole, whose intense gravity bends the surrounding space-time, causing any nearby matter or radiation to follow the warped space-time and spiral inwards.

Narimanov and Kildishev reasoned that it should be possible to build a device that makes light curve inwards towards its centre in a similar way.

They calculated that this could be done by a cylindrical structure consisting of a central core surrounded by a shell of concentric rings.

The key to making light curve inwards is to make the shell''s permittivity increase smoothly from the outer to the inner surface.

This is analogous to the curvature of space-time near a black hole.

At the point where the shell meets the core, the permittivity of the ring must match that of the core, so that light is absorbed rather than reflected.

Now, according to a report in New Scientist, Tie Jun Cui and Qiang Cheng at the Southeast University in Nanjing, China, have turned Narimanov and Kildishev''s theory into practice, and built a "black hole" for microwave frequencies.

It is made of 60 annular strips of so-called "meta-materials", which have previously been used to make invisibility cloaks.

Each strip takes the form of a circuit board etched with intricate structures whose characteristics change progressively from one strip to the next, so that the permittivity varies smoothly.

The outer 40 strips make up the shell and the inner 20 strips make up the absorber.

"When the incident electromagnetic wave hits the device, the wave will be trapped and guided in the shell region towards the core of the black hole, and will then be absorbed by the core," said Cui. "The wave will not come out from the black hole," he added.

In their device, the core converts the absorbed light into heat.

Such a device could be used to harvest solar energy in places where the light is too diffuse for mirrors to concentrate it onto a solar cell.

An optical black hole would suck it all in and direct it at a solar cell sitting at the core.

"If that works, you will no longer require these huge parabolic mirrors to collect light," said Narimanov.

ANI

Arctic ice cap to disappear in 20-30 years

The Arctic ice cap will disappear completely in summer months within 20 to 30 years, a polar research team said as they presented findings from an expedition led by adventurer Pen Hadow.

It is likely to be largely ice-free during the warmer months within a decade, the experts added.

Veteran polar explorer Hadow and two other Britons went out on the Arctic ice cap for 73 days during the northern spring, taking more than 6,000 measurements and observations of the sea ice.

The raw data they collected from March to May has been analysed, producing some stark predictions about the state of the ice cap.

"The summer ice cover will completely vanish in 20 to 30 years but in less than that it will have considerably retreated," said Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the polar ocean physics group at Britain's prestigious Cambridge University.

"In about 10 years, the Arctic ice will be considered as open sea."

Starting off from northern Canada, Hadow, Martin Hartley and Ann Daniels skied over the ice cap to measure the thickness of the remaining ice, assessing its density and the depth of overlying snow, as well as taking weather and sea temperature readings.

Across their 450-kilometre (290 mile) route, the average thickness of the ice floes was 1.8 metres (six feet), while it was 4.8 metres when incorporating the compressed ridges of ice.

"An average thickness of 1.8 metres is typical of first year ice, which is more vulnerable in the summer. And the multi-year ice is shrinking back more rapidly," said Wadhams.

"It's a concrete example of global change in action.

"With a larger part of the region now in first year ice, it is clearly more vulnerable. The area is now more likely to become open water each summer, bringing forward the potential date when the summer sea ice will be completely gone."

Doctor Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature's international Arctic programme, said the survey painted a sombre picture of the ice meltdown, which was happening "faster than we thought".

"Remove the Arctic ice cap and we are left with a very different and much warmer world," he said.

Loss of sea ice cover will "set in motion powerful climate feedbacks which will have an impact far beyond the Arctic itself," he added.

"This could lead to flooding affecting one quarter of the world's population, substantial increases in greenhouse gas emission from massive carbon pools and extreme global weather changes."

"Today's findings provide yet another urgent call for action to world leaders ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December to rapidly and effectively curb global greenhouse gas emissions."

Bureau Report

World’s biggest snake lived in first “modern” rain forest 60 mln yrs ago

A new study has suggested that the world’s biggest snake lived in the earliest known “modern” rain forest some 60 million years ago.

According to a report in National Geographic News, the study is based on more than 2,000 fossil leaves recently discovered in Colombia’s Cerrejon coal mine-the same place where scientists had found fossils of Titanoboa cerrejonesis earlier this year.

Many of the newfound plant fossils are of palm, legume, and flowering species that still dominate South America’s rain forests, according to study team member Scott Wing, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

“That was kind of surprising,” Wing said. “What we’re seeing here is the first modern rain forest that we have any record of,” he added.

Based on the fossil leaves, scientists think Titanoboa’s rain forest was a few degrees warmer and contained fewer plant species than the modern version.

This lower diversity could be evidence that the ancient forests were still recovering from the catastrophic event that killed off the dinosaurs some five million years earlier, according to the scientists.

The team thinks that a dino-killer asteroid may have struck several hundred miles away from Colombia, in what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Such an impact could have triggered forest fires and worldwide climate change.

In fact, pollen fossils from before the impact show that South America’s dino-era forests were dramatically different from the tropical rain forests Titanoboa called home.

The plant species that existed alongside the world’s largest snake were so successful that many of them survived to the modern day.

ANI

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