Uncategorized
- Astronomy
Black Hole Life Preserver: Don’t get sucked in without one
By temporarily counteracting a black hole's tremendous tidal forces, a proposed black hole life preserver would slightly lengthen the life and shorten the agony of anyone exploring one of these gravitational beasts.
-
19270
The idea of compensating tidal forces using a ring of compact matter isn’t quite “something no one has shown before.” A concept based on the same principles was analyzed 20 years ago by physicist Robert L. Forward, who published the details in a paper in Physical Review and his science-fiction novel Dragon’s Egg. Forward discussed […]
- Earth
Long Ride West: Many western sediments came from Appalachians
Much of the material in several thick layers of sandstone in the western United States originated in the Appalachians.
-
19339
This article suggests that the most likely transportation system of the sandstone across the continent would have been a river system. Could it have been due to tectonic movement instead? Edward B. FanUpper Marlboro, Md. Both Utah and the Appalachians are on the North American plate, so there’s no tectonic boundary between them. Sediments from […]
-
Dyslexia’s DNA Clue: Gene takes stage in learning disorder
For the first time, scientists have identified a gene that appears to influence the development of at least some cases of dyslexia.
- Physics
Hydrogen hoops give superfluid clues
Tiny rings of hydrogen molecules show signs of possible superfluid behavior, suggesting that helium might not be the only superfluid after all.
- Physics
Electrons get a crack at the nucleus
As long suspected but never before shown, electrons orbiting an atom can directly excite the atom's nucleus.
- Earth
A late arrival for platinum and gold?
An extraterrestrial source may explain why Earth's mantle holds more platinum, gold, and certain other elements than it should.
- Earth
Strange crystal birth found in mine
Deep in a Wisconsin mine, researchers have uncovered a new way for crystals to grow in nature.
- Health & Medicine
Old polio vaccine free of HIV, SIV
Three laboratories analyzing remaining samples of polio vaccine used in the late 1950s find that none contains any human or simian immunodeficiency virus, or chimpanzee DNA—making polio vaccine unlikely to be the cause of the initial HIV outbreak in central Africa.
- Health & Medicine
Stem-cell transplant works on lupus
Severe lupus can be reversed with a transplant of the patient's own bone marrow stem cells, after they're allowed to mature outside the body, and medication that neutralizes self-attacking immune cells.
- Astronomy
Ulysses makes a return trip
Just as the sun has reached the stormy peak of its 11-year activity cycle, the European Space Agency's Ulysses spacecraft has begun its second and final pass over the sun's poles.
