Gizmorama
February 28, 2011
------------------------------------------------------------
John Wayne 4-Disc DVD Collection Under $10
http://pd.gophercentral.com/u/1579/c/186/a/474
------------------------------------------------------------
Good Morning,
Today, details on the final mission of space shuttle Discov-
ery. Read up on the details of the mission and Discovery's
retirement plan in the first article.
Also, for all of you--like me--who are wondering what exac-
tly that massive Hadron Collider in Switzerland does, an
explanation is in order with an update on operations, which
is featured in the last article. National Geographic say
"...its purpose is simple but ambitious: to crack the code
of the physical world; to figure out what the universe is
made of..." The 'god particle' that is referred to in the
article is the summation of the collider's work; it is to
unify both categories of physics, quantum and macro. With
a bit of research, you would be amazed at the technology!
Until Next Time,
Erin
Questions? Comments? Email me at: mailto:gizmo@gophercentral.com
Email your comments
P.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the new
Gizmorama forum. Check it out here...
http://gizmorama.gophercentral.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Shuttle Discovery on final flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's space shuttle Discovery lifted
into space Thursday on its final mission, 11 days that will
crown a busy and eventful 27 years of duty, officials said.
Discovery launched at 4:53 p.m. EST from Launch Pad 39A at
NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the space agency
said. A last-minute glitch in a range-safety computer almost
threatened to abort the launch but was fixed just minutes
before lift-off, SPACE.com reported. NASA said a record
crowd, estimated at 40,000, watched to orbiter's launch. "For
those watching, get ready to witness the majesty and the
power of the shuttle Discovery as she lifts off one more
time," mission commander Steve Lindsey radioed from the crew
cabin minutes before launch. Crew members include Lindsey,
pilot Eric Boe and mission specialists Alvin Drew, Michael
Barratt, Nicole Stott and Steve Bowen. Bowen replaces astro-
naut Tim Kopra, scratched from the flight after being injured
in a bicycle accident Jan. 15. Kopra is a U.S. Army colonel
who was a space station flight engineer on a 2009 Discovery
flight. Discovery will deliver critical supplies to the
International Space Station, including hardware, a storage
module and a humanoid robot assistant called Robonaut 2, a
first in space. Two spacewalks are also planned to perform
routine station maintenance, NASA said. After it returns to
Earth, Discovery will take up residence at the Smithsonian
Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington,
The Washington Post said.
Fossil in China said to show first legs
BEIJING - Scientists say an ancient fossil found in China
dubbed the "walking cactus" is not a plant but the first
creature to walk on bendable, jointed legs. Dating back about
520 million years, the fossilized thumb-sized, worm-like ani-
mal has been named Diania cactiformus in honor of its spiky
look, ScienceDaily.com reported Thursday. Jianni Liu of
Northwest University in Xi'an, China, says the creature prob-
ably scurried along the bottom of shallow seas. Its 10 pairs
of long, sturdy legs surprised Liu when she first saw it, she
says. "I fell in love with this strange guy," she says.
"Later when I observed it carefully under the microscope, I
realized it was not only a funny one but an important one."
Its 10 legs appear to have carried a hard, outer covering of
armor and joints that let them bend, features that would make
the species the earliest known to have a hardened outer
covering and also the first to have jointed legs, Liu says.
Today those features distinguish the arthropods, including
crustaceans, insects and spiders. "The significance of the
find is that arthropods are, in terms of species, the most
successful group on the planet," Liu says. "The secret of
their success seems to be their legs."
Sun's magnetic mysteries probed
SHEFFIELD, England - British scientists say they've dis-
covered that massive magnetic waves emanating from giant
holes on the surface of the sun come from deep inside the
star. Researchers at the University of Sheffield say the
large, dark regions, which look like holes on the surface,
mark areas where the sun's magnetic field breaks through
from the boiling interior and rises into the very hot solar
atmosphere. The largest of these dark regions are often
called sunspots and have been studied since their discovery
as early as 364 BC, a university release said Thursday.
The researchers studied a magnetic region of the sun much
smaller than a sunspot, although still many times greater
than the size of the United Kingdom. They found that the
magnetic hole they observed, which is also known as a pore,
is able to channel energy generated deep inside the sun and
that the magnetic field emerging through the pore is more
than 1,000 times stronger than the magnetic field of the
Earth. The say their research could unveil secrets of the
solar corona -- the outermost, mysterious and least under-
stood layer of the sun's atmosphere -- with temperatures
often a thousand times hotter than the surface. Why the
temperature of the sun's atmosphere increases further away
from the center of energy production, which lies under the
surface, is a great mystery of astrophysics, they say. "This
is a fascinating new discovery in line with a number of dis-
coveries made in recent years by the team," Sheffield resear-
cher Robertus von Fay-Siebenburgen said. "Analyzing these
waves may bring us closer to understanding the physical
mechanisms in the atmosphere of a star."
Hunt for the 'God Particle' to continue
GENEVA, Switzerland - Europe's Large Hadron Collider will
either prove the existence of the so-called "God Particle"
within two years or it probably doesn't exist, scientists
say. Researchers say a plan to shut down the particle accel-
erator at the end of 2012 for a major refit has been put off
because it is performing so well, Britain Daily Telegraph
reported. The delay will give scientists another year to
continue experiments with the collider running at half
power before it is shut down for 15 months, after which it
will be restarted at full power, the newspaper said. Curren-
tly the machine is running at 3.5 TeV (trillion electron
volts) but is designed to operate at a maximum of 7 Tev.
Even at half power, some scientist say they may have enough
data by the end of the year to either confirm or reject
theories about the Higgs Boson, dubbed the "God Particle"
because of its central, fundamental importance to core
theories of physics. If the "Higgs" is not found, physicists
say they may have to reassess the "Standard Model," the the-
ory of subatomic structure that ranks as one of physics'
greatest achievements Failing to confirm the Higgs boson
could be more intriguing than finding it, some scientists
say. "If we don't see it, we will be very excited, because
it means that there's something very brand-new," LHC resear-
cher Nicholas Hadley from the University of Maryland said.
------------------------------------------------------------
Check out Viral Videos on the Net at EVTV1.com
http://www.evtv1.com/
EVTV1.com