Giant Meteor Fireball Explodes Over Northwest U.S.
from National Geographic News: A meteor zipped across the U.S. Pacific Northwest sky early Tuesday morning before exploding, possibly littering eastern Oregon with marble- to basketball-size space rocks, an expert says. Impact sites are yet to be found, according to Richard Pugh, a scientist with the Cascadia Meteorite Laboratory at Portland State University in Oregon. Pugh is coordinating a search for potential meteorites. He said 40 to 50 eyewitnesses have contacted his lab to report the fireball. ... The meteor was first spotted over Washington State moving in an east-southeast direction. "The light was bright enough to wake up people even though the shades were pulled, and then the sonic boom hit, rattling windows and making the dust fly, and the dogs crawled under the bed," Pugh said.
Wolves to Be Removed from Species List
from the Miami Herald (Registration Required): BILLINGS, Mont. (Associated Press) -- Gray wolves in the Northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species list, following a 13-year restoration effort that helped the animal's population soar, federal officials said Thursday. An estimated 1,500 wolves now roam Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. That represents a dramatic turnaround for a predator that was largely exterminated in the United States in the early 20th century. "We're confident the wolf has a secure future in the Northern Rocky Mountains," said Interior Assistant Secretary Lyle Laverty in a statement.
Researchers Sneak Up on Sleeping Whales
from Nature News: An accidental encounter with a pod of sleeping sperm whales has opened researchers' eyes to some unknown sleep behaviours of these giant sea creatures. Counter to previous assumptions, and unlike smaller cetaceans, the whales seem to enter a period of full sleep. But they also sleep for a very limited time per day, hinting that they could be the least sleep-dependent mammals known. A team led by Luke Rendell at the University of St Andrew's, UK, were monitoring calls and behaviour in sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus ) off the northern Chile coast when they accidentally drifted into the middle of a pod of whales hanging vertically in the water, their noses poking out of the surface. At least two of the whales were facing the boat, but not a single animal responded.
Massive Genetic Study Supports "Out of Africa" Theory
from National Geographic News: A massive new study of human genetic diversity reveals surprising insights into our species' evolution and migrations - including support for the theory that the first modern humans originated in Africa - scientists said [Thursday]. Researchers compared 650,000 genetic markers in nearly a thousand individuals from 51 populations around the globe - an unprecedented level of detail for a human genetic study. "You get less and less variation the further you go from Africa," said Marcus Feldman, an evolutionary biologist at Stanford University in California and a study co-author. Such a pattern fits the theory that the first modern humans settled the world in stepping-stone fashion after leaving Africa less than 100,000 years ago.
Dark Side of Solar Cells Brightens
from Scientific American: It takes power to make power - even with a solar grand plan. From the mining of quartz sand to the coating with ethylene-vinyl acetate, manufacturing a photovoltaic (PV) solar cell requires energy - most often derived from the burning of fossil fuels. But a new analysis finds that even accounting for all the energy and waste involved, PV power would cut air pollution - including the greenhouse gases that cause climate change - by nearly 90 percent if it replaced fossil fuels. ... Even taking into account the low efficiency of thin-film solar cells or the energy needed to purify silicon for the other types of PV, all proved to entail significantly fewer emissions in their entire life cycle than the fossil fuels needed to produce an equivalent amount of electricity.
Visualizations of Mathematics Create Remarkable Artwork
from Science News: Mathematicians often rhapsodize about the austere elegance of a well-wrought proof. But math also has a simpler sort of beauty that is perhaps easier to appreciate: It can be used to create objects that are just plain pretty - and fascinating to boot. That beauty was richly on display at an exhibition of mathematical art at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego in January, where more than 40 artists showed their creations. Michael Field, a mathematics professor at the University of Houston, finds artistic inspiration in his work on dynamical systems. A mathematical dynamical system is just any rule that determines how a point moves around a plane. Field uses an equation that takes any point on a piece of paper and moves it to a different spot.
Research Explains Formation of Unique Martian Fans
from the New York Times (Registration Required): To figure out an odd landscape feature on Mars, play in a big sandbox. Enlist some high school students, too. That's what some scientists at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands did, and they believe they now know how sediment deposits spilling out of the mouth of some water channels on Mars were shaped in a series of terraces that look like terraced rice paddies. But no similar natural formations have been seen in river deltas on Earth. Usually river sediments spill out in a smooth, sloping fan like the Mississippi delta. Planetary geologists have been speculating about the terraced fans since they were first spotted by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor eight years ago.
Hi-Tech Bird Tracker Breakthrough
from BBC News Online: New technology which can monitor how animals respond to change in their environment has been developed on an island off the Pembrokeshire Coast. A system of wireless sensors and GPS tracking is giving researchers a better understanding of the behaviour of manx shearwaters on Skomer Nature Reserve. Scientists at Microsoft Research say it can be adapted to study animals and ecosystems around the world. It could show how animals react to changes in climate or pollution levels. Microsoft has been working with the University of Oxford and Freie Universitat, Berlin, on the project. Last summer researchers installed wireless sensor networks in burrows on the island used by the seabirds and fixed tiny GPS tracking devices to them.
Obese Middle-Age Women Face Higher Stroke Risk, Doctors Say
from the Seattle Times: NEW ORLEANS (Associated Press) - Strokes have tripled in recent years among middle-aged women in the United States, a trend doctors blame on obesity. Nearly 2 percent of women ages 35 to 54 reported a stroke in the most recent federal health survey, from 1999 to 2004. Only about half a percent did in the previous survey, from 1988-94. The percentage is small because most strokes occur in older people. But the sudden spike in middle age and the reasons behind it are ominous, doctors said in research presented Wednesday at a medical conference. It happened even though more women in the recent survey were on medicines to control their cholesterol and blood pressure, steps that lower the risk of stroke.
Google to Test Online Medical Records Service
from the Dallas Morning News (Registration Required): SAN FRANCISCO (Associated Press) - Google Inc. will begin storing the medical records of a few thousand people as it tests a long-awaited health service that's likely to raise more concerns about the volume of sensitive information entrusted to the Internet search leader. The pilot project announced Thursday will involve 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic who volunteered to an electronic transfer of their personal health records so they can be retrieved through Google's new service, which won't be open to the general public. Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools.
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