Science & Tech News
NASA's space shuttle Endeavour launched
Washington, Feb 8: NASA's space shuttle Endeavour was launched today from the agency's Kennedy Space Center.
The shuttle has begun a 13-day flight to the International Space Station (ISS) and the final year of shuttle operations.
Endeavour's STS-130 mission will include three spacewalks and the delivery of the Tranquility node, the final major U.S. portion of the station.
Tranquility will provide additional room for crew members and many of the space station's life support and environmental control systems.
Attached to Tranquility is a cupola with seven windows, which houses a robotic control station.
The windows will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft.
After the node and cupola are added, the orbiting laboratory will be approximately 90 percent complete.
Shortly before liftoff, Commander George Zamka said, "Thanks to the great team that got Tranquility, cupola and Endeavour to this point. And thanks also to the team that got us ready to bring Node 3 and cupola to life. We'll see you in a couple of weeks. It's time to go fly."
Zamka is joined on the flight by Pilot Terry Virts and Mission Specialists Kathryn Hire, Stephen Robinson, Nicholas Patrick and Robert Behnken. (ANI)
Global warming may become global cooling this century
Monday, February 08, 2010, London: A leading analyst has claimed that global warming is set to become global cooling this century, with temperatures falling by about 0.5 degree Celsius by the year 2050.
According to a report in Daily Express, the analyst in question is Professor Michael Beenstock from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who said that theories of climate change are wrong.
He warned that climatologists have misused statistics, leading them to the mistaken conclusion global warming is evidence of the greenhouse effect.
He told London’s Cass Business School that the link between rising greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures is “spurious”, adding, “The greenhouse effect is an illusion.”
Professor Beenstock said that just because greenhouse gases and temperatures have risen together does not mean they are linked.
He claims that the real cause of rising temperatures is the sun, which he says is at its hottest for over 1,000 years, but is “beginning to stabilize”.
“If the sun’s heat continues to remain stable, and if carbon emissions continue to grow with the rate of growth of the world economy, global temperatures will fall by about 0.5C by 2050,” Professor Beenstock said.
Citing predictions by climatologists in the 1970s of a new Ice Age, Professor Beenstock said, “I predict that climatologists will look equally foolish in the years to come. Indeed, it may be already happening.”
NASA invites public to tweet their way into space
Washington, Feb 6: NASA is inviting the public to send questions for the astronauts abroad space shuttle Endeavour via Twitter and have them answered live from space.
Endeavour's mission to the International Space Station (ISS) will take off on February 7.
Astronaut Mike Massimino will be accepting questions for the crew from the public via his Twitter account until Thursday, Feb. 11.
Massimino will be a shuttle Capcom, or spacecraft communicator, at NASA's Mission Control in Houston during Endeavour's flight.
On Feb. 11, Massimino will host an interactive event with the crew from his console in Mission Control.
He will ask the astronauts as many submitted and live questions as practical during the 20-minute event.
The shuttle will be docked to the station during the live question and answer session. The event with Endeavour's crew will be broadcast live on the Web and NASA Television.
The public is invited to start tweeting questions for Endeavour's crew to Massimino's Twitter account, @astro_Mike, or add the hashtag #askastro to their tweets.
The time and day of the Twitter session are subject to change due to mission priorities.
Endeavour's 13-day STS-130 mission will include three spacewalks and the delivery of the Tranquility node, the final module of the US portion of the station.
Tranquility will provide additional room for crew members and many of the space station's life support and environmental control systems.
Attached to Tranquility is a cupola, which houses a robotic control station and has seven windows.
The windows will provide a panoramic view of Earth, celestial objects and visiting spacecraft.
After the node and cupola are added, the orbiting laboratory will be approximately 90 percent complete. (ANI)
CO2 negatively affecting environment of world's oceans
Washington, Feb 6: A scientist has said that the increasing acidity of the world's oceans and its growing threat to marine species are definitive proof that the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) that is causing climate change is also negatively affecting the marine environment.
The statement has been made by Antarctic marine biologist Jim McClintock, professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Biology, who has spent more than two decades researching the marine species off the coast of Antarctica.
"The oceans are a sink for the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is absorbed by oceans, and through a chemical process hydrogen ions are released to make seawater more acidic," said McClintock.
"Existing data points to consistently increasing oceanic acidity, and that is a direct result of increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere; it is incontrovertible," he said.
"The ramifications for many of the organisms that call the water home are profound," he added.
A substance's level of acidity is measured by its pH value; the lower the pH value, the more acidic is the substance.
According to McClintock, data collected since the pre-industrial age indicates the mean surface pH of the oceans has declined from 8.2 to 8.1 units with another 0.4 unit decline possible by century's end.
A single whole pH unit drop would make ocean waters 10 times more acidic, which could rob many marine organisms of their ability to produce protective shells - and tip the balance of marine food chains.
"There is no existing data that I am aware of that can be used to debate the trend of increasing ocean acidification," said McClintock.
McClintock said that the delicate balance of life in the waters that surround the frozen continent of Antarctica is especially susceptible to the effects of acidification.
"The impact on the marine life in that region will serve as a bellwether for global climate-change effects," he said.
"The Southern Ocean is a major global sink for carbon dioxide. Moreover, there are a number of unique factors that threaten to reduce the availability of abundant minerals dissolved in polar seawater that are used by marine invertebrates to make their protective shells," he added.
"In addition, the increased acidity of the seawater itself can literally begin to eat away at the outer surfaces of shells of existing clams, snails and other calcified organisms, which could cause species to die outright or become vulnerable to new predators," he explained. (ANI)
Genetic variant linked to ageing in humans identified
London, Feb 8: An international team of scientists has identified certain genetic variants that appear to cause biological ageing in humans.
After analysing more than 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome, the research team discovered variants located, near a gene called TERC.
According to British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiology at the University of Leicester Professor Nilesh Samani, there are two forms of ageing - chronological ageing i.e. how old you are in years and biological ageing whereby the cells of some individuals are older (or younger) than suggested by their actual age.
"There is accumulating evidence that the risk of age-associated diseases including heart disease and some types of cancers are more closely related to biological rather than chronological age," Nature magazine quoted Samani as saying.
"What we studied are structures called telomeres which are parts of one's chromosomes. Individuals are born with telomeres of certain length and in many cells telomeres shorten as the cells divide and age. Telomere length is therefore considered a marker of biological ageing.
"In this study what we found was that those individuals carrying a particular genetic variant had shorter telomeres i.e. looked biologically older.
"Given the association of shorter telomeres with age-associated diseases, the finding raises the question whether individuals carrying the variant are at greater risk of developing such diseases," Samani added.
Professor Tim Spector from King's College London and director of the TwinsUK study, who co-led this project said the variants identified lies near a gene called TERC which is already known to play an important role in maintaining telomere length.
"What our study suggests is that some people are genetically programmed to age at a faster rate. The effect was quite considerable in those with the variant, equivalent to between 3-4 years of 'biological aging" as measured by telomere length loss," Spector said.
"Alternatively genetically susceptible people may age even faster when exposed to proven 'bad' environments for telomeres like smoking, obesity or lack of exercise - and end up several years biologically older or succumbing to more age-related diseases," Spector added.
The findings appear in Nature Genetics. (ANI)
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