Tuesday, July 31, 2012

FOXNews.com: China announces plans for moon landing in 2013

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China announces plans for moon landing in 2013
Jul 31st 2012, 20:39

China has announced plans to send an unmanned rocket to the moon in 2013, an effort to further the country's ambitious space program -- but Beijing faces serious competition to plant the next flag on the moon.

The official China News Service said that the Chang'e Three orbiter will carry out surveys on the surface of the moon, according to a report on Reuters -- catching up to a U.S. achievement from 45 years ago.

The communist country tested a new rocket engine Sunday that uses liquid oxygen and kerosene, which will power future missions to the moon, according to news reports.

If successful, China's probe would be the first craft to land on the moon as part of a mission since the Soviets managed it in the 1970s. The country also said it plans to land a man on the moon, a feat only achieved by the United States, most recently in 1972, the AFP noted.

"I think it's well within China's capability and budget," Chen Lan, an independent space analyst, told the AFP of next year's planned mission.

Neither the Russians nor the U.S. is currently capable of landing a man on the moon. Since the end of the space shuttle era, NASA's has focused its eyes on a new spacecraft for manned exploration of space, the Orion multipurpose vehicle, which won't be ready until 2017 at the earliest.

But China will nonetheless face stiff competition from a growing private space industry in the U.S. and elsewhere. The industry has its eyes on the moon and the cash that can be extracted from rocks and craters.

Astrobotic Technology announced plans in May for an ice prospecting robot, Polaris, to be launched to the Moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket like the one that successfully lifted this spring from Cape Canaveral. That vehicle is set to launch in 2015, the company said.

Moon Express has announced plans to piggyback on private space cargo flights, using them to carry its lunar landers and mining platforms to the moon.

"People ask, why do we want to go back to the moon? Isn't it just barren soil?" Jain told FoxNews.com last year. "But the moon has never been explored from an entrepreneurial perspective."

And a host of other companies from a variety of countries are competing for a $30 million prize from Google to reach the moon's surface, a competition called the Lunar X Prize.

One country no longer in the battle: Russia, which has said manned missions are no longer a priority.

Indeed, the country recently sold four 1970s-era Soviet Almaz program three-crew capsules and two Russian Salyut-class 63,800-pound space station pressure vessels to spaceflight firm Excalibur Almaz, which plans to sell about 30 seats between 2015 and 2025, for $150 million each.

Green cheese indeed.

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FOXNews.com: Air Force approves design of newer, bigger space fence

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Air Force approves design of newer, bigger space fence
Jul 31st 2012, 15:36

This is no white picket design.

A network of radar sites in the Southern United States called a "space fence" tracks approximately 2,000 bits of space debris orbiting the Earth at incredible speeds, whizzing objects about as big as a dishwasher or refrigerator that pose a serious threat to spacecraft or space stations.

The problem: There's more like 200,000 objects out there, and the fence erected in 1961 can't track the tiny ones.

"You take a couple-inch long bit of debris travelling at 17,000 mph and it can pack quite a wallop," Scott Spence, director of Raytheon's Space Fence Program, told FoxNews.com.

The current fence consists of three transmitters and six receivers that act as an early warning system for potential collisions in outer space, keeping satellites intact, protecting astronauts aboard the international space station, and generally keeping the peace. But it can't effectively track the 198,000 other tiny bits of junk orbiting the planet.

"Clearly, there's a need to track smaller objects at much higher altitudes," he said.

'You take a couple-inch long bit of debris travelling at 17,000 miles per hour and it can pack quite a wallop.'

- Scott Spence, director of Raytheon's Space Fence Program

So the Air Force wants to mend its fence in space.

Last week the agency approved a working prototype version of a new space fence Raytheon hopes to build: a much taller, stronger model based on two large, S-band radars that will be constructed somewhere along the equator or in the planet's southern hemisphere.

Though working, the prototype is a smaller, less powerful version of the final project Raytheon hopes to build. (Lockheed Martin is also competing.)

"Space debris threatens systems we depend on every day, including satellites that power navigation, weather and critical infrastructures," said David Gulla, vice president of Global Integrated Sensors in Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) business.

"By building a working space fence prototype and employing innovative approaches Raytheon brought to the table, we demonstrated to the U.S. Air Force a cost-effective system that can track a multitude of small objects in space."

The Air Force maintains a catalog of all those whizzing objects, run out of the Joint Space Command Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. In December, the Air Force will award a final contract for the fence, which it hopes to have up and operating in 2017.

No word on what color they'll paint this one.

Raytheon's Space Fence Infographic

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FOXNews.com: 50-mile landslides spotted on Saturn's icy moon Iapetus

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50-mile landslides spotted on Saturn's icy moon Iapetus
Jul 31st 2012, 13:30

Long landslides spotted on Saturn's moon, Iapetus, could help provide clues to similar movements of material on Earth. Scientists studying the icy satellite have determined that flash heating could cause falling ice to travel 10 to 15 times farther than previously expected on Iapetus.

Extended landslides can be found on Mars and Earth, but are more likely to be composed of rock than ice. Despite the differences in materials, scientists believe there could be a link between the long-tumbling debris on all three bodies.

"We think there's more likely a common mechanism for all of this, and we want to be able to explain all of the observations," lead scientist Kelsi Singer of Washington University told SPACE.com.

Rock-hard ice

Giant landslides stretching as far as 50 miles (80 kilometers) litter the surface of Iapetus. Singer and her team identified 30 such displacements by studying images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. [Photos: Latest Saturn Photos from NASA's Cassini Orbiter]

Composed almost completely of ice, Iapetus already stands out from other moons. While most bodies in the solar system have rocky mantles and metallic cores, with an icy layer on top, scientists think Iapetus is composed almost completely of frozen water. There are bits of rock and carbonaceous material that make half the moon appear darker than the other, but this seems to be only a surface feature.

'We have [landslides] on Iapetus, Earth and Mars. Theoretically, they should be very similar.'

- Kelsi Singer of Washington University

Ice on Iapetus is different from ice found on Earth. Because the moon's temperature can get as low as 300 degrees Fahrenheit (150 degrees Celsius), the moon's ice is very hard and very dry.

"It's more like what we experience on Earth as rock, just because it's so cold," Singer said.

Slow-moving ice creates a lot of friction, so when the ice falls from high places, scientists expected that it would behave much like rock on Earth does. Instead, they found that it traveled significantly farther than predicted.

How far a landslide runs is usually related to how far it falls, Singer explained. Most of the time, debris of any type loses energy before traveling twice the distance it fell from. But on Iapetus, the pieces of ice move 20 to 30 times as far as their falling height.

Flash heating could be providing that extra push.

Faster and farther

Flash heating occurs when material falls so fast that the heat doesn't have time to dissipate. Instead, it stays concentrated in small areas, reducing the friction between the sliding objects and allowing them to travel faster and farther than they would under normal conditions.

"They're almost acting more like a fluid," Singer said.

On Iapetus, falling material has a good chance of reaching great speeds because there are a number of great heights to fall from. The moon hosts a ring of mountains around its bulging equator that can tower as high as 12 miles (20 km), and the longest run-outs discovered are associated with the ridge and with impact-basin walls.

Scientists think that the landslides are relatively recent, and could have been triggered by impacts in the last billion years or so.

"You don't see a lot of small craters on the landslide material itself," Singer said, although the surrounding terrain boasts evidence of bombardment. Over time, landscapes tend to be dotted by falling rocks, so the less cratered a surface is, the younger it is thought to be. [Photos of Saturn's Moons]

Resting on the ridges and walls, the material gradually becomes more unstable. Close impacts could set them off, but powerful, distant impacts reverberating through the ice could also send them tumbling.

The research was published in the July 29 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.

Connecting ice and rock

Differences in gravity, atmosphere and water content make landslides seen on Iapetus difficult to duplicate in the laboratory. But the fact that they happen on different types of worlds makes it more likely that the mechanism triggering the extended slide is dependent on things unique to either environment.

"We have them on Iapetus, Earth and Mars," Singer said. "Theoretically, they should be very similar."

Singer pointed out the implications for friction within fault lines, which produces earthquakes. As plates on Earth move, the rocks within a fault snag on each other, until forces drag them apart. But sometimes, the faults slip farther than scientists can explain based on their understanding of friction. If flash heating occurs within the faults, it could explain why the two opposing faces slide the way they do, and provoke a better understanding of earthquakes.

In such cases, flash heating would cause minerals to melt and reform, producing an unexpected material around the faults. Some such materials have been identified at the base of long landslides on Earth.

"If something else is going on, like flash heating, or something making [the material] have a lower coefficient of friction, this would affect any models that use the coefficient of friction," Singer said.

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FOXNews.com: Ancient warrior king statue discovered in Turkey

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Ancient warrior king statue discovered in Turkey
Jul 31st 2012, 12:15

A newly discovered statue of a curly-haired man gripping a spear and a sheath of wheat once guarded the upper citadel of an ancient kingdom's capital.

The enormous sculpture, which is intact from about the waist up, stands almost 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, suggesting that its full height with legs would have been between 11 and 13 feet (3.5 to 4 m). Alongside the statue, archaeologists found another carving, a semicircular column base bearing the images of a sphinx and a winged bull.

The pieces date back to about 1000 B.C. to 738 B.C. and belong to the Neo-Hittite Kingdom of Patina in what is now southeastern Turkey. They were found at what would have been a gate to the upper citadel of the capital, Kunulua. An international team of archaeologists on the Tayinat Archaeological Project are excavating the ruins.

'The two pieces appear to have been ritually buried.'

- University of Toronto professor of archaeology Tim Harrison

The Neo-Hittites were a group of civilizations that arose along the eastern Mediterranean after the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1000 B.C. When the statues were carved, the area was emerging from the Bronze Age and entering into the Iron Age.

The male sculpture boasts a beard and inlaid eyes made of white and black stone. He wears a crescent-shaped pectoral shield on his chest and lion-head bracelets on his arms. On his back, a long inscription records the accomplishments of Suppiluliuma, the name of a king of Patina already known to have banded together with Syrian forces in 858 B.C. to face an invasion by Neo-Assyrians. [Top 10 Battles for the Control of Iraq]

The column base stands about 3 feet (1 m) tall, with a diameter of 35 inches (90 centimeters). The column likely stood against a wall, as only the front is decorated with carvings of a winged bull flanked by a sphinx.

The presence of such statues was common in Neo-Hittite royal cities, the researchers said. The newly discovered carvings would have guarded a passageway of gates to the heart of the city.

"The two pieces appear to have been ritually buried in the paved stone surface of the central passageway," Tayinat Project director Tim Harrison, a professor of archaeology at the University of Toronto, said in a statement.

The passageway and gates seems to have been destroyed in 738 B.C., when Assyrian forces conquered the Neo-Hittite city. The area then appears to have been paved over and turned into a courtyard. Archaeologists have also uncovered smashed Neo-Hittite slabs and pillars as well as two carved life-size lions.

Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Monday, July 30, 2012

FOXNews.com: Weather station temperature claims are overheated, report claims

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Weather station temperature claims are overheated, report claims
Jul 30th 2012, 20:24

The temperature record from stations across the U.S. has been systematically overinflated due to faulty data manipulation and "encroaching urbanity" -- locations near asphalt, air conditioning and airports -- according to a new study. And if correct, it calls into question just how hot our planet is getting.

Global warming believer-turned-skeptic Anthony Watts, a former TV meteorologist, posted a new report online questioning the reliability of weather stations in the U.S. Historical Climatology Network, a 120-year-old weather system that forms one tent pole of climate measurements. As the country has evolved, building urban metropolises and airports and pouring parking lots, the weather stations haven't moved -- and poorly cited stations are spoiling the data.

"The best stations get adjusted up to the level of the worst stations," Watts told FoxNews.com. "It's like making a temperature smoothie. You put all these different fruits in to represent different qualities of stations and you run it through a blender and you get a milk shake."

That problem of poorly cited stations is well established. A sensor in Marysville, Calif., sits in a parking lot at a fire station next to an air conditioner exhaust and a cell tower. One in Redding, Calif., is housed in a box that also contains a halogen light bulb, which could emit warmth directly onto the gauge.

Watts cherry-picked the well-sited stations and studied their data; his results show the planet warming at just 0.155 degrees Celsius per decade, rather than the 0.309 C per decade cited by the government.

"I believe global warming is real. No doubt about it. Not a bit of doubt," Watts told FoxNews.com. "However, I don't think it's catastrophic, or as bad as it's been portrayed."

'I believe global warming is real. No doubt about it. However, I don't think it's catastrophic, or as bad as it's been portrayed.'

- Anthony Watts

Skeptic-turned-believer Richard Muller -- a University of California-Berkeley professor -- posted a new study online Saturday with equally sweeping conclusions. Muller's Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) study also say the planet is warming -- and concludes it's solely because of man's actions.

On the basic fact of warming, the two scientists seem to agree. On the details? Not so much.

"Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real," Mueller announced via an op-ed in the New York Times. "Humans are almost entirely the cause," he wrote.

Muller's study analyzed 250 years of temperature records. It concludes that the rise in average world land temperature is approximately 1.5 degrees C in the past 250 years and about 0.9 degrees in the past 50 years, a far steeper rate of change than Watts cites.

"Solar activity was not a major contributor, but there was a match to carbon dioxide," he told FoxNews.com.

Muller's team has completely re-analyzed the data from the surface station network. His analysis highlights several cold snaps that coincide directly with volcanic activity, further proof that his study is accurate, he said.

"I never imagined we would see [volcanoes] so clearly," he said. "The fact that we can go back to the 1700s and see it so clearly gives us added confidence" in the temperature record.

Many skeptics take issue with what they call systemic data manipulation. For example, climate blogger Steve Goddard told FoxNews.com that "adjustments" made in the past to climate data have merely conflated the problem Watts uncovered.

"They started making what they called corrections after the year 2000, which turned the U.S. temperature trend from completely flat to fairly steep warming. That's what Anthony was questioning. The corrections were changing the temperature record," Goddard said.

Several large adjustments hadn't been documented at all, boosting readings by as much as 1.5 degrees over older measurements.

"It's hard to tell exactly what they're doing at this point," he said.

Muller's study attempts to correct for the quality of the data, in a transparent, repeatable fashion scientists should appreciate. Much of that data should be simply thrown out, Watts said.

"This affects the raw data, and there is no adjustment procedure in place to fix this," he said. "BEST tries to solve it, and I applaud them for the attempt. But without knowing the history of the station, even their methodology doesn't deal with it," he told FoxNews.com.

There's no "hockey stick" shape in Muller's new graph, though it does ape that shape. But noted Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann said he agreed with it anyway.

"[It] demonstrates what scientists have known with some degree of confidence for nearly two decades: that the globe is indeed warming, and that this warming can only be explained by human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations," Mann wrote on his Facebook page.

Indeed, both studies conclude that the planet is warming. But the degree and cause of that warming remains a volatile issue.

"I think we would like to at least settle the scientific issues so we can move on to the more continuous political issues," Muller told FoxNews.com.

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FOXNews.com: Curiosity Rover will sleuth for water on Mars

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Curiosity Rover will sleuth for water on Mars
Jul 30th 2012, 16:40

NASA's newest Mars rover, Curiosity, has a tall task ahead of itself when it lands Aug. 6 on the Red Planet.

The rover, part of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, will aim to search for signs that Mars is, or ever was, habitable. Since one of the key requirements of habitability is thought to be the presence of liquid water, Curiosity will seek signs of water buried beneath the Martian surface.

To do this, the rover will shove neutrons underneath the planet's surface in hopes that the particles bump against hydrogen, one of the two types of atoms that make up water molecules. Neutrons are subatomic particles that have no electrical charge. When a neutron hits a hydrogen atom, the neutron will slow to a near-stop because the two particles are about the same size.

"The goal is in about 20 minutes of pulsing and returning and detecting the signal, [the rover] can build up a fairly good understanding of how much water there is below the surface," said Ashwin Vasavada, MSL's deputy project scientist. [11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do]

Neutrons have already been used on Mars to find what are believed to be ice reservoirs. In 2002, a high-energy neutron detector aboard the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft found robust evidence of hydrogen on the higher latitudes of the Red Planet, lurking just underneath the surface.

From space, it's much easier to use neutrons to seek out water because high above a planet, there are many neutrons, Vasavada said. Closer to the surface, neutrons are so few and far between that MSL must carry its own artificial neutron generator.

Provided by the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) experiment onboard Curiosity will blast 10 million neutrons into the surface with every pulse. These pulses will only take an instant: typically one microsecond, or a millionth of a second. Curiosity can send these pulses out up to 10 times per second.

Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover is supposed to land on Mars, is not expected to have vast tracts of water underground. Maps of the area show possible sulphates and clays in the lowlands.

As for water, NASA expects the landing site will have "hydrated minerals," meaning minerals that have water molecules or hydrogen-oxygen ions stitched into the mineral's crystal fabric. NASA says these minerals can "tenaciously retain water" from a past time when water may have been more abundant on Mars.

Water might also be present in a transient form that changes with the Martian seasons, such as soil moisture that can increase or decrease according to the surrounding humidity.

DAN can also help researchers understand the "water cycle" on Mars and compare it with what occurs on Earth. Our planet recycles its water in a continuum between the atmosphere and bodies of water such as oceans, lakes and underground reservoirs.

DAN will try to map out the Martian water cycle in conjunction with Curiosity's cameras and its weather station, which can capture properties such as humidity, wind speed, and temperature.

Figuring out where the water goes will help scientists understand how the Martian climate works. With a little analysis, this knowledge may just make the search for life a bit easier.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or SPACE.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+.

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FOXNews.com: Company seeks FDA approval for personal DNA test

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Company seeks FDA approval for personal DNA test
Jul 30th 2012, 16:57

Genetic test maker 23andMe is asking the Food and Drug Administration to approve its personalized DNA test in a move that, if successful, could boost acceptance of technology that is viewed skeptically by leading scientists who question its usefulness.

23andMe is part of a fledgling industry that allows consumers to peek into their genetic code for details about their ancestry and future health. The company's saliva-based kits have attracted scrutiny for claiming to help users detect whether they are likely to develop illnesses like breast cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer's.

The biology of how DNA variations actually lead to certain diseases is still poorly understood, and many geneticists say such tests are built on flimsy evidence.

For years, the Silicon Valley company has resisted government regulation, arguing that it simply provides consumers with information, not a medical service. But now company executives say they are seeking government approval - and the scientific credibility that comes with it.

"It's the next step for us to work with the FDA and actually say, `this is clinically relevant information and consumers should work with their physicians on what to do with it,' " said CEO and co-founder Anne Wojcicki, who is married to Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Google and Brin have invested millions in the privately held company, which is based in Mountain View, Calif.

Wojcicki says the shift in strategy reflects the growing scope of the company's test kit, which now measures the risks of developing more than 115 different diseases.

23andMe said Monday it submitted an initial batch of seven health-related tests to the FDA for review. The company plans to submit 100 additional tests in separate installments before the end of the year. Tests involving family history and nonmedical traits will not be reviewed, since they don't fall under FDA oversight.

Even some of the harshest critics of the genetic testing industry say 23andMe is taking the right approach.

Dr. James Evans of University of North Carolina said he considers much of the information reported by 23andMe, "relatively useless," and "in the realm of entertainment." He believes patients benefit more from pursuing a healthy lifestyle than parsing the potential risks of developing various diseases.

But as test makers begin analyzing larger portions of genetic code, there are rare cases when the findings may help doctors identify patients with a higher risk of treatable health problems, such as aneurysms or colon cancer.

"I think we've now entered an era where these direct-to-consumer offerings are beginning to have real medical relevance, and therefore I am in favor of them being done within some regulatory context," said Evans, a professor of genetics and medicine at UNC's Medical School.

The move may also give 23andMe a competitive edge over rivals like deCODE Genetics and Navigenics, which market similar tests. Those companies did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

"We really want to take a leadership role in this industry," said 23andMe's chief legal officer, Ashley Gould. The company says more than 150,000 people worldwide have used its test, which sells for $299 online.

The FDA already regulates a variety of genetic tests administered by health care providers, such as those given to pregnant women to detect cystic fibrosis in a developing fetus.

But it remains to be seen whether the FDA will endorse 23andMe's commercial approach, which sidesteps doctors by sending results directly to consumers. 23andMe and its peers believe there is a mainstream market for personalized genetic information, though it is still very much a niche field.

23andMe executives point out that they first contacted the FDA in 2007, before launching their product. The agency did not take an interest in the technology until 2010, when it issued letters to several testing companies, stating that their products are considered medical devices and must be approved as safe and effective.

Washington's pressure on the industry intensified a month later, when federal investigators issued a scathing report saying that companies like 23andMe produced misleading information of little to no use.

An undercover investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that four genetic testing companies delivered contradictory predictions based on the same person's DNA, which often contradicted the patient's actual medical history.

Proponents of genetic testing say 23andMe's bid for FDA approval is an important step in regulating an emerging application for genetic information.

"Many consumers are going to want to know this information, and you don't need a hospital to obtain it, so it's important to make sure it's well regulated," said Dr. Eric Lander, president and director of the Broad Institute, a genomic research center affiliated with Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I think 23andMe is taking a very forward-leaning step."

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FOXNews.com: Like the Tower of Pisa, Rome's Colosseum is starting to lean

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Like the Tower of Pisa, Rome's Colosseum is starting to lean
Jul 30th 2012, 17:34

If the Venerable Bede (673-735), the Anglo-Saxon monk and the first English historian who wrote these words (later translated by the poet Lord Byron), heard the news today, he might indeed believe that the end of the world was near.

According to Rome's authorities, the symbol of the Eternal City is in need of support as its south side is 16 inches lower than the north.

The leaning Colosseum might require the kind of structural intervention that straightened the Tower of Pisa.

"The concrete foundation on which the Colosseum rests is like a 42-foot-thick oval doughnut. There could be a stress fracture inside it," Giorgio Monti, from the department of structural engineering at Rome's La Sapienza University, told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

ANALYSIS: Rome Still Intact Despite Earthquake Prediction

The crack in the base below the 2,000-year-old arena may explain why the north and the south side of the monument are no longer horizontally aligned.

"If our doubts are confirmed, we are dealing with two structurally different monuments. At that point, it would be necessary to reunite them," Rossella Rea, the director of the Colosseum, said.

Rea has asked experts from Rome's Sapienza University and the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering (IGAG) to carry a scientific study on the phenomenon over the next year.

Marking one of the busiest intersections in the city, the Flavian Amphitheater (the Colosseum's proper name) is continuously rocked by vibrations from heavy traffic and a nearby underground metro.

PHOTOS: Leaning Tower of Pisa Stands Tall

"Following the worrying news, we have begun collecting signatures to support the request for a vast pedestrian area in the streets surrounding the Colosseum and the Roman Forum," the environmental group Legambiente said in a statement.

According to Rea, the same sort of restoration work that saved the Leaning Tower of Pisa more than a decade ago might be needed.

Like the Tower of Pisa, which has been tilting since its construction in 1173, the Colosseum has been built on problematic soil.

The iconic symbol of imperial Rome was built in A.D. 72 by the Flavian emperor Vespasian on the marshy bed of a drained lake. It was opened in A.D. 80 by Vespasian's son Titus with a festival that lasted 100 days and included gladiatorial combats, fights with wild beasts and naval battles for which the arena was flooded.

HOWSTUFFWORKS: Will the Leaning Tower of Pisa ever fall?

Over the centuries the Colosseum has survived three major earthquakes and disastrous fire. As the emperor Honorius prohibited the bloody gladiatorial combats in 404, the building fell into disuse and decay.

Medieval Romans used it as a garbage dump and a stone quarry for the construction of such buildings as Saint Peter's Basilica.

Today the monument receives over five million visitors a year.

A three-year restoration project will be presented tomorrow by the culture minister Lorenzo Ornaghi.

During the massive restoration, which should begin in December, the monument will remain open to tourists.

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FOXNews.com: Singing the blues: August will be a blue moon month

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Singing the blues: August will be a blue moon month
Jul 30th 2012, 17:00

The month of August brings us not one, but two full moons. The first will kick off the month on Wednesday (Aug.1), and will be followed by a second on Aug. 31.

Some almanacs and calendars assert that when two full moons occur within a calendar month, the second full moon is called a "blue moon."

The full moon that night will likely look no different than any other full moon. But the moon can change color in certain conditions. 

After forest fires or volcanic eruptions, the moon can appear to take on a bluish or even lavender hue.  Soot and ash particles, deposited high in the Earth's atmosphere, can sometimes make the moon appear bluish. Smoke from widespread forest fire activity in western Canada created a blue moon across eastern North America in late September 1950. In the aftermath of the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991 there were reports of blue moons (and even blue suns) worldwide. [Infographic: Blue Moons Explained]

Origin of the term

The phrase "once in a blue moon" was first noted in 1824 and refers to occurrences that are uncommon, though not truly rare. Yet, to have two full moons in the same month is not as uncommon as one might think.  In fact, it occurs, on average, about every 2.66 years.  And in the year 1999, it occurred twice in a span of just three months. 

For the longest time no one seemed to have a clue as to where the "blue moon rule" originated.  Many years ago in the pages of Natural History magazine, I speculated that the rule might have evolved out of the fact that the word "belewe" came from the Old English, meaning, "to betray."  "Perhaps," I suggested, "the second full Moon is 'belewe' because it betrays the usual perception of one full moon per month." 

But as innovative as my explanation was, it turned out to be completely wrong.

More mistakes

It was not until that "double blue moon year" of 1999 that the origin of the calendrical term "blue moon" was at long last discovered.  It was during the time frame from 1932 through 1957 that the Maine Farmers' Almanac suggested that if one of the four seasons (winter, spring, summer or fall) contained four full moons instead of the usual three, that the third full moon should be called a blue moon. 

But thanks to a couple of misinterpretations of this cryptic definition, first by a writer in a 1946 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine, and much later, in 1980 in a syndicated radio program, it now appears that the second full moon in a month is the one that's now popularly accepted as the definition of a blue moon.    

This time around, the moon will turn full on Aug. 31 at 9:58 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (6:58 a.m. Pacific Standard Time), making it a blue moon.

However, there is an exception: for those living in the Kamchatka region of the Russian Far East as well as in New Zealand, that same full moon occurs after midnight, on the calendar date of Sept. 1. So in these regions of world, this will not be the second of two full moons in August, but the first of two full moons in September. So, if (for example) you reside in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky or Christchurch, you'll have to wait until September 30 to declare that the moon is "officially" blue.

Blue Moon/New Moon

While we've assigned the name blue moon to the second full moon of the month, it seems that we have no such name for the second new moon of the month.  Nonetheless, these opposing phases seem to be connected with each other. For if two new moons occur within a specific month, then in most cases, four years later, two full moons will also occur in that very same month. 

As an example, there were two new moons in August 2008. Now, four years later, August 2012 will be graced with two full moons.

The next time we will see two full moons in a single month comes in July 2015 (July 1 and 31). But if you still have a calendar leftover from last year, check the month of July. 

You'll find that there were two new moons on the 1st and the 30th.

Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York.

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FOXNews.com: Curiosity Rover will sleuth for water on Mars

FOXNews.com
FOX News Network - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Curiosity Rover will sleuth for water on Mars
Jul 30th 2012, 16:40

NASA's newest Mars rover, Curiosity, has a tall task ahead of itself when it lands Aug. 6 on the Red Planet.

The rover, part of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission, will aim to search for signs that Mars is, or ever was, habitable. Since one of the key requirements of habitability is thought to be the presence of liquid water, Curiosity will seek signs of water buried beneath the Martian surface.

To do this, the rover will shove neutrons underneath the planet's surface in hopes that the particles bump against hydrogen, one of the two types of atoms that make up water molecules. Neutrons are subatomic particles that have no electrical charge. When a neutron hits a hydrogen atom, the neutron will slow to a near-stop because the two particles are about the same size.

"The goal is in about 20 minutes of pulsing and returning and detecting the signal, [the rover] can build up a fairly good understanding of how much water there is below the surface," said Ashwin Vasavada, MSL's deputy project scientist. [11 Amazing Things NASA's Huge Mars Rover Can Do]

Neutrons have already been used on Mars to find what are believed to be ice reservoirs. In 2002, a high-energy neutron detector aboard the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft found robust evidence of hydrogen on the higher latitudes of the Red Planet, lurking just underneath the surface.

From space, it's much easier to use neutrons to seek out water because high above a planet, there are many neutrons, Vasavada said. Closer to the surface, neutrons are so few and far between that MSL must carry its own artificial neutron generator.

Provided by the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Dynamic Albedo of Neutrons (DAN) experiment onboard Curiosity will blast 10 million neutrons into the surface with every pulse. These pulses will only take an instant: typically one microsecond, or a millionth of a second. Curiosity can send these pulses out up to 10 times per second.

Gale Crater, where the Curiosity rover is supposed to land on Mars, is not expected to have vast tracts of water underground. Maps of the area show possible sulphates and clays in the lowlands.

As for water, NASA expects the landing site will have "hydrated minerals," meaning minerals that have water molecules or hydrogen-oxygen ions stitched into the mineral's crystal fabric. NASA says these minerals can "tenaciously retain water" from a past time when water may have been more abundant on Mars.

Water might also be present in a transient form that changes with the Martian seasons, such as soil moisture that can increase or decrease according to the surrounding humidity.

DAN can also help researchers understand the "water cycle" on Mars and compare it with what occurs on Earth. Our planet recycles its water in a continuum between the atmosphere and bodies of water such as oceans, lakes and underground reservoirs.

DAN will try to map out the Martian water cycle in conjunction with Curiosity's cameras and its weather station, which can capture properties such as humidity, wind speed, and temperature.

Figuring out where the water goes will help scientists understand how the Martian climate works. With a little analysis, this knowledge may just make the search for life a bit easier.

Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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FOXNews.com: Flags from Apollo moon landing still standing, photos reveal

FOXNews.com
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Flags from Apollo moon landing still standing, photos reveal
Jul 30th 2012, 14:00

An enduring question ever since the manned moon landings of the 1960s has been: Are the flags planted by the astronauts still standing?

Now, lunar scientists say the verdict is in from the latest photos of the moon taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC): Most do, in fact, still stand.

"From the LROC images it is now certain that the American flags are still standing and casting shadows at all of the sites, except Apollo 11," LROC principal investigator Mark Robinson wrote in a blog post today (July 27). "Astronaut Buzz Aldrin reported that the flag was blown over by the exhaust from the ascent engine during liftoff of Apollo 11, and it looks like he was correct!"

Each of the six manned Apollo missions that landed on the moon planted an American flag in the lunar dirt.

Scientists have examined images of the Apollo landing sites before for signs of the flags, and seen hints of what might be shadows cast by the flags. However, this wasn't considered strong evidence that the flags were still standing. Now, researchers have examined photos taken of the same spots at various points in the day, and observed shadows circling the point where the flag is thought to be. 

'It is now certain that the American flags are still standing.'

- NASA investigator Mark Robinson

Robinson calls these photos "convincing."

"Personally I was a bit surprised that the flags survived the harsh ultraviolet light and temperatures of the lunar surface, but they did," Robinson wrote. "What they look like is another question (badly faded?)."

Most scientists had assumed the flags hadn't survived more than four decades of harsh conditions on the moon.

"Intuitively, experts mostly think it highly unlikely the Apollo flags could have endured the 42 years of exposure to vacuum, about 500 temperature swings from 242 F during the day to -280 F during the night, micrometeorites, radiation and ultraviolet light, some thinking the flags have all but disintegrated under such an assault of the environment," scientist James Fincannon, of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, wrote in the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal.

In recent years, photos from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have also shown other unprecedented details of the Apollo landing sites, such as views of the lunar landers, rovers, scientific instruments left behind on the surface, and even the astronauts' boot prints. These details are visible in photos snapped by the probe while it was skimming just 15 miles (24 kilometers) above the moon's surface.

LRO launched in June 2009, and first captured close-up images of the Apollo landing sites in July of that year. The $504 million car-size spacecraft is currently on an extended mission through at least September 2012..

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Sunday, July 29, 2012

FOXNews.com: Massive 'vampire' star systems fill the cosmos

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Massive 'vampire' star systems fill the cosmos
Jul 29th 2012, 12:01

A surprising number of massive stars in our Milky Way galaxy are part of close stellar duos, a new study finds, but most of these companion stars have turbulent relationships — with one "vampire star" sucking gas from the other, or the two stars violently merging to form a single star.

Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile studied massive O-type stars, which are very hot and incredibly bright. These stars, which have surface temperatures of more than 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (30,000 degrees Celsius) live short, violent lives, but they play key roles in the evolution of galaxies.

The researchers discovered that more than 70 percent of these massive stars have close companions, making up so-called binary systems in which two stars orbit each other.

While this percentage is far more than was previously expected, the astronomers were more surprised to find that majority of these stellar pairs have tumultuous relationships with one another, said study co-author Selma de Mink, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

'If 70 percent of massive stars are behaving like this, we really need to change how we view these stars.'

- Study co-author Selma de Mink

"We already knew that massive stars are very often in binaries," de Mink told SPACE.com. "What is very surprising to us is that they're so close, and such a large fraction is interacting. If a star has a companion so close next to it, it will have a very different evolutionary path. Before, this was very complicated for us to model, so we were hoping it was a minority of stars. But, if 70 percent of massive stars are behaving like this, we really need to change how we view these stars." [Top 10 Star Mysteries]

Studying stellar behemoths

Type O stars drive galaxy evolution, but these stellar giants can also exhibit extreme behavior, garnering the nickname "vampire stars" for the way they suck matter from neighboring companions.

"These stars are absolute behemoths," study lead author Hugues Sana, of the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said in a statement. "They have 15 or more times the mass of our sun and can be up to a million times brighter."

These massive stars typically end their lives in violent explosions, such as core-collapse supernovas or gamma-ray bursts, which are so luminous they can be observed throughout most of the universe.

For the new study, the astronomers analyzed the light coming from 71 O-type stars — a mix of single and binary stars — in six different star clusters, all located roughly 6,000 light-years away.

The researchers found that almost three-quarters of these stars have close companions. Most of these pairs are also close enough to interact with one another, with mass being transferred from one star to the other in a sort of stellar vampirism. About one-third of these binary systems are even expected to eventually merge to form a single star, the researchers said.

The results of the study indicate that massive stars with companions are more common than was once thought, and that these heavyweights in binary systems evolve differently than single stars — a fact that has implications for how scientists understand galaxy evolution.

"It makes a big difference for understanding the life of massive stars and how they impact the whole universe," said de Mink.

Big stars with a big impact

Type O stars make up less than 1 percent of the stars in the universe, but they have powerful effects on their surroundings. The winds and shocks from these stars can both trigger and halt star formation processes, the researchers said.

Over the course of their lives, culminating in the supernova explosions that signal their death, these massive stars also produce all the heavy elements in the universe. These elements enrich galaxies and are crucial for life.

But for massive stars in close binary systems, the interactions between the pair impact the evolution of both stars.

With vampire stars, the lower-mass star sucks fresh hydrogen from its companion, substantially increasing its mass and enabling it to live much longer than a single star of the same mass would, the researchers explained. The victim star, on the other hand, is left with an exposed core that mimics the appearance of a much younger star.

These factors could combine to give researchers misleading information about galaxies and the stars within them.

"The only information astronomers have on distant galaxies is from the light that reaches our telescopes," said Sana. "Without making assumptions about what is responsible for this light, we cannot draw conclusions about the galaxy, such as how massive or young it is. This study shows that the frequent assumption that most stars are single can lead to wrong conclusions."

The researchers report their findings in the July 27 issue of the journal Science.

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Saturday, July 28, 2012

FOXNews.com: Apple discussed investing in Twitter

FOXNews.com
FOX News Network - We Report. You Decide. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Apple discussed investing in Twitter
Jul 28th 2012, 14:10

Apple Inc. held discussions with Twitter Inc. more than a year ago about taking a strategic investment in the short-messaging service, according to a person familiar with the talks.

People familiar with the matter said there are no current formal investment or acquisition discussions between the companies.

News of the investment talks was first reported by the New York Times.

Since the discussions between Twitter and Apple ended, the landscape has shifted for many fast-growing Web start-ups, both public and private. Facebook Inc. had a rocky initial public offering in May, and its shares are now down more than a third below their IPO price.

Valuations of other high-profile tech companies, including Groupon Inc. and Zynga Inc. also continue to fall to earth -- developments that have made investors question rich valuations placed on consumer-Internet start-ups such as Twitter.

People close to Twitter have said the San Francisco company is ahead of 2012 revenue projections laid out last year. Twitter has largely ruled out acquisitions as it builds its business for a potential initial public offering in a year or so.

Twitter's most recent round of private investment valued at the company at $8.4 billion, while eMarketer Inc. projects the company will pull in less than $300 million from its advertising business. People familiar with the company said this is the year for Twitter to prove it can be a big business.

The prior investment discussions continue Apple and Twitter's tight ties, which are driven by common enemies and the relationships between executives at both companies.

Apple -- having largely missed out on the social media trends roiling the Web -- has woven Twitter into Apple devices such as the iPhone and, more recently, the Mac computer. For example, starting with the latest iPhone operating system, people who use the iPhone can log into their Twitter account once and then from many apps -- including websites, and YouTube--and tap one button to post links or photos on Twitter.

Recently, Apple has met with a number of social media start-ups to discuss product ideas, according to people familiar with the matter.

Click for more from WSJ.com

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FOXNews.com: Why do we keep going back to Mars?

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Why do we keep going back to Mars?
Jul 28th 2012, 04:00

The huge NASA rover speeding toward an Aug. 5 landing on Mars may be the most capable and complex Red Planet explorer ever launched, but it's far from the first.

The 1-ton Curiosity rover — which will search for evidence that Mars is, or ever was, capable of supporting microbial life — represents humanity's 40th effort to explore the Red Planet over the last half-century.

The huge number of attempted Mars missions may seem surprising, especially since many of our solar system's other planets and moons remain relatively unstudied. But the Red Planet keeps calling us back — and for good reason, experts say.

"Mars is such a compelling scientific target," said Scott Hubbard of Stanford University, the former "Mars Czar" who restructured NASA's Red Planet program after it suffered several high-profile failures in the late 1990s.

"You can get to it every 26 months, and it's the place in the solar system most likely to have had life emerge," Hubbard told SPACE.com. "If you add that to Mars being also the most logical ultimate target for human exploration, I think that Mars will continue to be part of the space exploration portfolio." [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars]

Fifty years of Mars exploration

'It's the place in the solar system most likely to have had life emerge.'

- Former "Mars Czar" Scott Hubbard

The Mars exploration era began in October 1960, when the Soviet Union launched two probes four days apart. The spacecraft, known in the West as Marsnik 1 and Marsnik 2, were designed to perform flybys of the Red Planet, but neither even reached Earth orbit.

The United States got in the game in 1964, launching the Mariner 3 spacecraft on an intended Mars flyby. The mission failed, but Mariner 4 succeeded, cruising past the Red Planet in July 1965 and sending 21 photos back to Earth.

The nation built on that accomplishment, sending a series of orbiters, landers and rovers to Mars over the following five decades.

Notable NASA successes include the Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions, which sent orbiters and landers toward the Red Planet in 1975; the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed in January 2004; the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which arrived at the Red Planet in 2006; and the Phoenix lander, which discovered subsurface water ice in 2008.

But failure remains a regular part of Mars exploration. NASA setbacks include the Mars Polar Lander and Mars Climate Orbiter, two missions that were lost upon arrival at the Red Planet in late 1999. And none of the 19 Mars efforts the Soviet Union/Russia has launched over the years achieved its goals in full.

Overall, the success rate for Mars missions is south of 50 percent.

"Mars wins most of the time," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, told reporters earlier this month.

Too interesting to ignore

Scientists are deeply interested in Mars partly because of its perceived past potential to host life as we know it. The Red Planet is cold, dry and desolate today, but Spirit and Opportunity have found plenty of evidence that it was once far warmer and wetter.

"When you look at geology, atmospheres, chemistry, and so forth and rack up your reasons to explore, anything that has to do with the possible origins of life on another world is always the first among equals," Hubbard said. "It's such a fundamental question. It goes to this 'Are we alone?' uber-question, or super-question."

Mars is not the only solar system body that may have been capable of supporting life at some point. For example, organisms might thrive today in the subsurface oceans of Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, some scientists say.

But these two ice-covered bodies are much farther away from Earth than Mars is, meaning they'd be much more difficult — and expensive — to reach. So the Red Planet's proximity is another big reason why so many spacecraft have visited it over the years. (Planetary alignments make Mars missions feasible every 26 months, and a probe can get there in eight months or less.)

Mars' status as a prime target for future human colonization also helps drive more robotic missions to the Red Planet, Hubbard said. After all, a thorough understanding of the planet — including whether or not it ever hosted life — is necessary before sending astronauts there.

"If Mars already has life, you have to understand the effects on humans," McCuistion said in April. "So this is a critical question — not just the innate human question of 'Are we alone?' but also safety of humans on the surface of the planet."

Finally, NASA's long history at Mars has built up momentum that helps push future missions along. NASA structures its planetary exploration efforts in stages, Hubbard said. Flybys come first, followed by orbiters, then landers and/or rovers. A sample-return mission is the last step in this robotic chain.

"We are now at the phase of Mars exploration where, as the National Academies have said, we're ready to do a sample return," Hubbard said.

By contrast, "we are just now getting to the point of doing a flyby of our poor little dwarf planet Pluto," he added, referring to NASA's New Horizons mission, which is slated to cruise past Pluto in July 2015.

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