Author: Alan Boyle

SETI Institute

The Allen Telescope Array currently comprises 42 radio dishes, each 20 feet in diameter, which have been placed at the Hat Creek Observatory in California. The network could eventually knit together data from 350 dishes.

Scientists have been keeping watch for alien signals for 50 years, but haven’t heard anything. Why? Maybe we haven’t been looking long enough … maybe the aliens aren’t out there … or just maybe we’re totally missing signals that are being transmitted in a way we didn’t expect.

One thing’s for sure: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, touches upon one of the deepest questions of human existence. Here’s how the late Lee DuBridge, science adviser to presidents, put it in a famous quote: “Either mankind is the most advanced intelligence in the galaxy; or not. Either alternative is mind-boggling.”

The leading lights of SETI science reviewed 50 years of a mind-boggling quest over the weekend in San Diego at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – and previewed some way-out ideas that could become reality 50 (or 500) years from now.

…(read more)

Berkeley Lab

Wim Leemans of Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator and Fusion Research Division works on a 40-terawatt laser that could blaze a trail for a new breed of particle accelerator.

Fifty years after the first laser was demonstrated, engineers are celebrating the golden anniversary, marveling over how a once-feared “death ray” now touches almost every aspect of our lives, and setting the stage for future breakthroughs.

…(read more)

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

A Toyota Scion converted to all-electric power is plugged into California’s electrical grid during a demonstration at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.

Someday, someone will pay you to hook your car into the electrical grid. It’s one of those almost-a-sure-thing business opportunities enabled by the expected rise of plug-in vehicles. But will the payoff be worth the cost? That’s where the calculations get a little complicated.

Experts on the future of the electrical grid and plug-in electric cars came together this week in San Diego at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science to discuss their common interests.

…(read more)

	Science / AAAS / NSF
	Click for slideshow: See the winners of the 2009 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

The winning entries in an international visualization contest prove that you can see good science at work in a variety of venues, ranging from cartoon strips to art galleries.

For the past seven years, the journal Science and the National Science Foundation have co-sponsored contests to recognize the best visual depictions of scientific phenomena – ranging from photos of scientific subjects to videos and interactives that explain concepts in science and engineering.

More than 250 researchers, space industry entrepreneurs and NASA officials gathered today at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Boulder, Colo., to give a boost to the concept of doing research on private-sector spaceships.

The concept got a boost, all right: Over the next five years, more than $75 million could be committed for spending on suborbital space research.

…(read more)

Lowell Observatory file, circa 1950

Astronomer Clyde Tombaugh demonstrates how he used a device known as a blink comparator to discover Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona on Feb. 18, 1930.

Astronomers had their doubts about Pluto from the very start. At first, even its discoverer wasn’t sure where the little world fit in the planetary parade. But 80 years after it was found, Pluto has demonstrated that it’s a survivor.

NASA

During a simulated lunar operation, NASA’s Robonaut prototype welds a seam at a construction site while two moonwalking astronauts inspect completed work.

Despite the cancellation of NASA’s back-to-the-moon program, the next steps on the moon will likely be taken sometime in the next decade under human control. It’s just that the humans will be using a robot to take them. The space agency’s paradigm shift just might bring a shift to robotic telepresence as the next-best thing to walking on the moon.

BNL

Click for video: This artist’s conception shows two gold ions blasting into each other in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, leaving behind a spray of particles that includes quark-gluon plasma. Such conditions naturally existed in the universe a microsecond after the big bang. Click on the image to watch a YouTube video.

Scientists say the tiny bubbles of plasma they’ve created in a “big bang machine” are the hottest dollops of soup ever seen in the universe, reaching temperatures of several trillion degrees.

What’s more, the weird properties of that soup may help scientists create a new breed of electronic devices – and figure out why the universe didn’t blow itself up as soon as it came into being.

…(read more)

NBCOlympics.com

Click for video: The sport of curling lends itself to a discussion of physics in a video presented by NBC Learn in cooperation with the National Science Foundation. Click on the image to see the full video series.

Science and sports aficionados are using the Winter Olympics as a teachable moment, for subjects ranging from the mechanics behind a curling freeze to the meteorology behind Vancouver’s non-freeze.

The geeks and the jocks may be on opposing sides in the battle for high-school supremacy. By the time you get to the Olympic-scale level of excellence, however, geeks and jocks definitely need each other.

…(read more)

NPR: The love story behind Voyager’s Golden Record
Discovery.com: Breathable chocolate for your valentine
National Geographic: Gauging sexiness requires smarts   
Onion: NASA unveils plan to approach girl by 2018 …(read more)

J. Nichols / Univ. of Leicester / NASA / ESA

Click for video: Ultraviolet imagery of Saturn, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope a year ago, reveals the planet’s northern and southern auroras at the same time. Click on the image to watch a video from the European Space Agency.

Scientists are showing off a one-of-a-kind double aurora, spotted on Saturn by the Hubble Space Telescope. The northern / southern light display is notable not only because of its rarity, but also because it shows that the giant planet’s magnetic field is out of balance.

	Nuka Godfredsen
	An artist’s impression shows how Inuk might have looked in life 4,000 years ago.

For the first time, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of an ancient human from a long-gone culture, using the DNA from just a few tufts of 4,000-year-old hair preserved in Greenland’s permafrost.

Thanks to the rapid advance of gene-sequencing technology, researchers could tell the hair belonged to a brown-skinned man whose ancestors came to the New World from Siberia around 5,500 years ago, during a previously unknown migration. And that’s not all.

The genetic evidence suggests that the man, nicknamed “Inuk,” had the kind of eyes, teeth and even earwax associated with modern-day Asians and Native Americans … and that he might have been going bald.

One of the research team’s leaders said the technique used on Inuk’s hair could be used on other ancient samples as well, almost literally fleshing out humanity’s saga through the millennia. “I think it will be something we will see much more of in the coming five years,” said Eske Willerslev, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen.

…(read more)

PIAXP / X Prize Foundation

SSI Racing’s 2SSIC, the ZAP Alias electric car and Aptera’s three-wheeler were among the X Prize entrants on display at last month’s Detroit Auto Show.

The Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize program has added a few twists to its $10 million competition for energy-efficient motor vehicles. The competitions that matter the most won’t be held in public view, but will be conducted instead behind closed doors.

Submitted by Matt Shields / UGC

The shuttle Endeavour’s launch at 4:14 a.m. ET Monday creates a false dawn in this photo, taken by Matt Shields at the Kennedy Space Center’s visitor complex.

The night launch of a space shuttle is a wonderful sight. Sadly, it’s a sight we may never see again. But the view gets even better when you’re in space, and anyone with an Internet connection can take a virtual tour.

Discovery.com: Spaced-out Super Bowl ads 
New York Times: Will science take the field? 
Wired: How biometrics can improve Super Bowl ads 
NOLA.com: ‘Sport Science’ measures Super Bowl QBs …(read more)

Brian Lockett / Air-and-Space.com

SpaceShipOne pilot Mike Melvill holds a sign reading “SpaceShipOne, Government Zero” after the rocket plane’s first spaceflight in June 2004. NASA’s latest plans have raised fresh questions about government-run vs. commercial space ventures. Check Air-and-Space.com for more pictures of aerospace milestones.

First NASA laid out its new vision for human spaceflight, putting the moon on hold and focusing instead on new technologies and space commercialization. Then Congress weighed in. Now former astronauts, an aerospace guru and Hollywood’s hottest director are boosting the debate to a higher level.

Who’ll win the Super Bowl? There’s a market for that. The Oscars? There’s a market for that. How well will Apple’s iPad do? Yep, there’s a market for that, too. Prediction markets, which started out as a political phenomenon, are becoming routine.

M. Buie / SwRI / NASA / ESA

Click for video: Hubble Space Telescope images, taken in 2002-2003, were combined to produce these maps of Pluto. Click on the image to watch Pluto spin.

Pluto hasn’t been getting much respect lately, but today the Hubble Space Telescope’s team unveiled maps of the dwarf planet that are just a foretaste of the extreme close-up to come.

The maps spark fresh questions about the icy world that was discovered 80 years ago this month: Why has Pluto’s northern hemisphere brightened so quickly over the course of just a few years? What’s causing darker spots in the south? And why is Pluto getting redder all over?

“We think these changes are actually driven by seasonal changes,” said Marc Buie, a planetary scientist at the Colorado-based Southwest Research Institute.

Huge amounts of methane and nitrogen ice appear to be moving from one part of the world to another through Pluto’s wisp of an atmosphere. One particularly bright spot appears to be rich in frozen carbon monoxide.

So what’s the precise mechanism for the shift? “That’s a mystery,” Buie said. The complete answers might well have to wait until 2015, when NASA’s New Horizons probe swings past Pluto and its moons.

…(read more)

TheGrio

TheGrio’s “100 History Makers in the Making” include 10 scientists, engineers and environmentalists. Clockwise from top left are Charles Bolden, Tony Hansberry, Derrick Pitts, Lisa Jackson, James McLurkin, Agnes Day, Shelton Johnson, Robert Bullard, Beverly Wright and Jerome Ringo.

Black History Month is an occasion for looking back at the past achievements of African-Americans – including the discoveries made by George Washington Carver and Benjamin Banneker. But it’s also an occasion for looking ahead to future achievements – and that’s what TheGrio is doing this month with its list of “100 History Makers in the Making.”

The list includes 10 scientists, engineers and environmentalists who are making an impact even now.

…(read more)

ABC

Benjamin Linus (played by Michael Emerson) sets off a time-travel effect by pushing a wheel through a nexus of exotic energy in the ABC television series “Lost.” Physicist Sean Carroll takes readers through a more scientifically grounded exploration of time’s flow in his book, “From Eternity to Here.”

The last season of “Lost” might clear up some fictional time-travel mysteries, but the true mysteries of time can be found in a new book titled “From Eternity to Here.”

If the laws of physics are reversible, why can we change the future – but not the past? Why is it virtually impossible to unscramble an egg, or unstir the cream in our cup of coffee? Why does the arrow of time move in only one direction?