Scientists

NASA gets close-up views of large hurricane on Saturn

Washington: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first close-up, visible-light views of a behemoth hurricane swirling around Saturn's North Pole. In high-resolution pictures and video, scientists see the hurricane's eye is about 2,000 kilometres wide, 20 times larger than the average hurricane eye on Earth.

Thin, bright clouds at the outer edge of the hurricane are travelling 150 meters per second. The hurricane swirls inside a large, mysterious, six-sided weather pattern known as the hexagon. "We did a double take when we saw this vortex because it looks so much like a hurricane on Earth," said Andrew Ingersoll, a Cassini imaging team member at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

"But there it is at Saturn, on a much larger scale, and it is somehow getting by on the small amounts of water vapour in Saturn's hydrogen atmosphere," said Ingersoll. Scientists will be studying the hurricane to gain insight into hurricanes on Earth, which feed off warm ocean water.

Although there is no body of water close to these clouds high in Saturn's atmosphere, learning how these Saturnian storms use water vapour could tell scientists more about how terrestrial hurricanes are generated and sustained....more    

Scientists may have detected dark matter particle

Washington: For the first time, scientists, including an Indian-origin physicist, have observed concrete hints of a particle behind the elusive dark matter that is believed to hold the cosmos together but has never been directly observed. The international Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment involving Texas A&M high-energy physicist Rupak Mahapatra reported a WIMP-like signal at the 3-sigma level, indicating a 99.8 per cent chance - or, in high-energy...  

Chinese scientists create world's lightest material

Beijing: Chinese scientists have developed the world's lightest substance - carbon aerogel - with a density only one sixth of that of the air. Scientists at Zhejiang University produced the solid material which has a density of only 0.16 mg/cubic centimetre, breaking the previous record of the world's lightest material held by graphite aerogel. The graphite aerogel was developed by German scientists last year with a density of 0.18 mg/cubic...  

Scientists close to tracking down 'dark matter' in the universe

Geneva: Scientists said on Wednesday they may be close to tracking down the mysterious "dark matter" which makes up more than a quarter of the universe but has never been seen. A final identification of what makes up the enigmatic material would solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics and open up new investigations into the possibility of multiple universes and other areas, said researchers. Members of an international...  

Kudankulam to begin power production in April

New Delhi: Power production by the first unit of the Kudankulam atomic plant will start in April 2013, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy said on Wednesday. He said that the second unit would start production by October 2013. Narayanasamy told reporters in New Delhi that Indian and Russian scientists had checked the parameters of the plant and the system was working well. "All parameters are...  

French scientists claim 'functional cure' for HIV

Paris: After the news of a baby girl who was effectively cured of HIV in the US, a new study reports a functional cure for adults with HIV/AIDS, who were treated very early. Scientists in France said they selected 14 patients, who were treated within 10 weeks of being infected with HIV. They received treatment for three years but after that, the patients did not need antiretroviral treatment anymore. The...  

God particle: Confirmation is 'achingly close'

Physicists in Italy said on Wednesday they are achingly close to concluding that what they found last year was the Higgs boson, the elusive "God particle." They need to eliminate one last remote possibility that it's something else. The long theorized subatomic particle would explain why matter has mass and has been called a missing cornerstone of physics. ...  

I was targeted may be because I am a Muslim: Terror suspect former DRDO scientist

Aijaz Ahmed Mirza was released from the Bangalore central jail on Tuesday. ...

Facebook, Google tech gurus to design cancer research mobile game

Anyone with a smartphone and five minutes will be able to investigate vital data at the same time as playing a mobile game. ...  

Russian scientists recover meteor fragments

Scientists have found more than 50 tiny fragments of a meteor that exploded over Russia's Ural Mountains, and preliminary tests are turning up information about its contents. ...  

In a rarity, a meteorite hits Russia, an asteroid misses Earth by 17000 miles

An asteroid half the size of a football field passed closer to Earth than any other known object of its size on Friday, the same day an unrelated and much smaller space rock blazed over central Russia, creating shock waves that shattered windows and injured 1,200 people. ...  

Newly discovered asteroid to pass close by Earth today

A newly discovered asteroid about half the size of a football field will pass nearer to Earth than any other known object of its size on Friday, giving scientists a rare opportunity for close-up observations without launching a probe. ...  

Scientists find why it is so hard to say sorry

While apologising can lessen feelings of guilt and help restore a wrongdoer's image, declining to do so can have even more powerful psychological benefits, according to a new study. ...  

'Moons similar to Pandora in 'Avatar' may hold alien life'

Moons similar to the one depicted in Hollywood flick 'Avatar' may be among the most common places to find alien life, scientists believe. Astronomers came to the conclusion after identifying up to 15 new planets orbiting the life-friendly 'habitable zones' of stars. ...  

US: Scientists solve mystery behind human itching

Scientists have discovered nerve cells that deal solely with itching sensations in humans, a breakthrough which can lead to effective treatments for pain relief. The new findings are also important because they provide a target for new gen-next anti-itch medications. ...  

Scientists map how brain organises everything we see

Scientists have created the first ever map of how the brain organises the thousands of images that come flooding in through our eyes every day. ...  

Hawaiian Islands may vanish from world map: Scientists

The Hawaiian Islands in the North Pacific are dissolving from within and at some point in the future they might fall off the map completely, geologists claim. Researchers discovered that the mountains found on Oahu (Koolau and Waianae), Hawaii's third largest island, are being eroded from within by groundwater. ...  

Human cloning possible within 50 years: Scientist

London: Scientists may progress to human cloning within half a century, a top British scientist who won this year's Nobel prize for medicine has predicted. The advancement could help parents who lose their children in accidents to clone "copies" to replace them. Sir John Gurdon, whose work on cloning frogs in the 1950s and 60s led to the later creation of Dolly the sheep by Edinburgh scientists in 1996, said...  

IQ tests cannot measure true intelligence: Study

Toronto: Measuring a person's intelligence quotient or IQ by a singular, standardised test is "highly misleading", scientists have claimed after conducting the largest online intelligence study on record. The landmark study which included more than 100,000 participants asked respondents to complete 12 cognitive tests tapping memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities, as well as a survey about their background and lifestyle habits. The study by researchers from Western University in...  

Scientists decode why Rudolph has a red nose

London: Scientists have unravelled the mystery behind the glowing red nose of Rudolph, the lead reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh on Christmas Eve. Scientists say Rudolph's nose shines so brightly because it is richly supplied with red blood cells which help to protect it from freezing and to regulate brain temperature. This superior 'nasal microcirculation' is essential for pulling Santa's sleigh under extreme temperatures, the 'Daily Mail' reported. Tiny blood cells...