weird news – Page 11 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on September 23, 2012 by MOTW Admin

STRANGE ROCK FOUND ON MARS

The strangest thing about this rock is how alone it is. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Curiosity Rover missions are going extremely well, finding and discovering all sorts of new stuff but, here’s something a little unexpected. A strange, pyramid shaped rock out in the middle of nowhere.

NASA writes:

‘Jake Matijevic’ Contact Target for Curiosity

The drive by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity during the mission’s 43rd Martian day, or sol, (Sept. 19, 2012) ended with this rock about 8 feet (2.5 meters) in front of the rover. The rock is about 10 inches (25 centimeters) tall and 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide. The rover team has assessed it as a suitable target for the first use of Curiosity’s contact instruments on a rock. The image was taken by the left Navigation camera (Navcam) at the end of the drive.

The rock has been named “Jake Matijevic.” This commemorates Jacob Matijevic (1947-2012), who was the surface operations systems chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory Project and the project’s Curiosity rover. He was also a leading engineer for all of the previous NASA Mars rovers: Sojourner, Spirit and Opportunity.

Curiosity’s contact instruments are on a turret at the end of the rover’s arm. They are the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer for reading a target’s elemental composition and the Mars Hand Lens Imager for close-up imaging.

See more pictures from the Mars Curiosity missions at nasa.gov/mission_pages

Posted on September 22, 2012 by MOTW Admin

SCIENTISTS HAVE DEVELOPED CLEAR DIRT!

Clear soil will help researchers track how plants and other things survive in soil.

There’s a whole world of things to learn and discover about this world, some of the unanswered questions lie right below our feet so, scientists have decided to look into and see what they can find, with clear soil!

Discovery Science writes:

The clear soil was developed by theoretical biologist Lionel Dupuy at the James Hutton Institute in Dundee, Scotland. It’s is made of a synthetic material known as Nafion. The compound can be modified to mimic the chemistry of natural soils. It’s not transparent at first, but when watered in a customized liquid solution, the particles bend light, making the solution clear.

Dupuy and his colleagues used the soil to analyze how E. coli bacteria, certain strains of which can be harmful to humans, interacts with lettuce roots. By using a genetically modified version of E. coli that carried a green fluorescent protein from jellyfish, the scientists could see through the clear soil how the bacterium formed micro-colonies in the root zone.

“If we understand better the contamination route, then we can develop strategies to limit the transfer of E. coli to the food chain,” Dupuy told Inside Science. “We don’t really understand how E. coli enters the food chain, particularly for fresh produce.”

‘SUPER-EARTH’ FOUND JUST LIGHT YEARS AWAY

Gliese 163c is now the prime local for alien life!

More and more earth-like planets are found daily using high-powered telescopes all over the world but, this one, this one is the closest and most suitable for alien life as we expect to find it!

Live Science writes:

A newly discovered alien planet may be one of the top contenders to support life beyond Earth, researchers say.

The newfound world, a “super Earth” called Gliese 163c, lies at the edge of its star’shabitable zone — that just-right range of distances where liquid water could exist.

“There are a wide range of structures and compositions that allow Gliese 163c to be ahabitable planet,” Xavier Bonfils, of France’s Joseph Fourier University-Grenoble, told SPACE.com by email.

He went on to caution that several possible uninhabitable combinations exist as well. [The Top 5 Potentially Habitable Alien Planets]

A newfound super Earth

Bonfils and an international team of astronomers studied nearly 400 red dwarf stars with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), a spectograph on the 3.6-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Gliese 163c was one of two alien planets found orbiting the star Gliese 163, which lies about 50 light-years from Earth in the Dorado constellation The team found indications of a third planet as well but cannot confirm it at this time.

Weighing in at about seven times the mass of Earth, Gliese 163c could be a rocky planet, or it could be a dwarfed gas giant, researchers said.

“We do not know for sure that it is a terrestrial planet,” Bonfils said. “Planets of that mass regime can be terrestrial, ocean, or Neptune-like planets.”

Orbiting at the inner edge of the habitable zone, Gliese 163c takes 26 days to zip around its parent star, which is considerably dimmer than our sun. The second planet, Gliese 163b, has an orbital period of only nine days, while the third unconfirmed planet circles from a distance.

MEET BAXTER, THE ROBOT THAT WORKS WITH HUMANS!

Baxter is a manufacturing robot that's designed to work with human coworkers.

I keep saying the future is here folks, and some more proof has just arrived in the way of a robot that works closely with humans, literally. Read on to see what I mean.

Laughing Squid writes:

Baxter is a new manufacturing robot that is designed to work closely with human coworkers (video). Sonar and cameras allow the robot to detect humans and avoid colliding with them. The robot uses behavior-based intelligence to adapt to changing surroundings and tasks. It does not need to be programmed. Instead, humans can train the robot by moving the robot’s arms directly to demonstrate a new task.

The robot is designed to perform repetitive tasks normally done by unskilled labor. Due to its relatively low cost ($22,000), it is hoped the robot will be an alternative to offshore manufacturing. Baxter is being developed by Rethink Robots, a Boston-based firm founded by roboticist Rodney Brooks (you may remember him from the Errol Morris documentary Fast, Cheap & Out of Control). The robot is being built in New Hampshire and will be released in October.

TOOTH DECAY NO LONGER A WORRY?

Is tooth decay a thing of the past with this new invention?

A new invention from Japan could save the world from bad teeth. Scientist’s have come up with a thin sheet of film that, when applied to teeth, can prevent decay from outside forces and even cure sensitive teeth!

Yahoo News writes:

Scientists in Japan have created a microscopically thin film that can coat individual teeth to prevent decay or to make them appear whiter, the chief researcher said.

The “tooth patch” is a hard-wearing and ultra-flexible material made from hydroxyapatite, the main mineral in tooth enamel, that could also mean an end to sensitive teeth.

“This is the world’s first flexible apatite sheet, which we hope to use to protect teeth or repair damaged enamel,” said Shigeki Hontsu, professor at Kinki University’s Faculty of Biology-Oriented Science and Technology in western Japan.

“Dentists used to think an all-apatite sheet was just a dream, but we are aiming to create artificial enamel,” the outermost layer of a tooth, he said earlier this month.

Researchers can create film just 0.004 millimetres (0.00016 inches) thick by firing lasers at compressed blocks of hydroxyapatite in a vacuum to make individual particles pop out.

These particles fall onto a block of salt which is heated to crystallise them, before the salt stand is dissolved in water.

The film is scooped up onto filter paper and dried, after which it is robust enough to be picked up by a pair of tweezers.

“The moment you put it on a tooth surface, it becomes invisible. You can barely see it if you examine it under a light,” Hontsu told AFP by telephone.

The sheet has a number of minute holes that allow liquid and air to escape from underneath to prevent their forming bubbles when it is applied onto a tooth.

NASA WORKING ON WARP DRIVE

Warp Drive was made famous by the television show Star Trek.

The more time we spend in space, the more we realize we have got to get around a little faster than our current means allow. Well, we just might be moving faster, a LOT faster.

Gizmodo writes:

With our current propulsion technologies, interstellar flight is impossible. Even with experimental technology, like ion thrusters or a spaceship’s aft pooping freaking nuclear explosions, it would require staggering amounts of fuel and mass to get to any nearby star. And worse: it will require decades—centuries, even—to get there. The trip will be meaningless for those left behind. Only the ones going forward in search for a new star system would enjoy the result of the colossal effort. It’s just not practical.

So we need an alternative. One that would allow us to travel extremely fast without breaking the laws of physics. Or as Dr. White puts it: “we want to go, really fast, while observing the 11th commandment: Thou shall not exceed the speed of light.”

The answer lies precisely in those laws of physics. Dr. White and other physicists have found loopholes in some mathematical equations—loopholes that indicate that warping the space-time fabric is indeed possible.

Working at NASA Eagleworks—a skunkworks operation deep at NASA’s Johnson Space Center—Dr. White’s team is trying to find proof of those loopholes. They have “initiated an interferometer test bed that will try to generate and detect a microscopic instance of a little warp bubble” using an instrument called the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer.

It may sound like a small thing now, but the implications of the research huge. In his own words:

‘Although this is just a tiny instance of the phenomena, it will be existence proof for the idea of perturbing space time-a “Chicago pile” moment, as it were. Recall that December of 1942 saw the first demonstration of a controlled nuclear reaction that generated a whopping half watt. This existence proof was followed by the activation of a ~ four megawatt reactor in November of 1943. Existence proof for the practical application of a scientific idea can be a tipping point for technology development.’

By creating one of these warp bubbles, the spaceship’s engine will compress the space ahead and expand the space behind, moving it to another place without actually moving, and carrying none of the adverse effects of other travel methods. According to Dr. White, “by harnessing the physics of cosmic inflation, future spaceships crafted to satisfy the laws of these mathematical equations may actually be able to get somewhere unthinkably fast—and without adverse effects.”

He says that, if everything is confirmed in these practical experiments, we would be able to create an engine that will get us to Alpha Centauri “in two weeks as measured by clocks here on Earth.” The time will be the same in the spaceship and on Earth, he claims, and there will not be “tidal forces inside the bubble, no undue issues, and the proper acceleration is zero. When you turn the field on, everybody doesn’t go slamming against the bulkhead, which would be a very short and sad trip.”

SIGNS OF LIFE OFFICIALLY FOUND ON MARS?

Are these little spheres true signs of alien life?

Have we finally found signs of alien life? And on Mars of all places, the place we actually suspected we’d find something? How weird!

Gizmodo writes:

NASA claims that new mysterious spheres discovered by the Mars Opportunity rover are puzzling researchers to no end. According to Opportunity’s principal investigator, Steve Squyres of Cornell University in Ithaca, “this is one of the most extraordinary pictures from the whole mission.”

Soon after Opportunity landed, it discovered similar spheres. The scientists nicknamed them blueberries and soon they discovered that they were rich on hematite. Those were evidence of a Mars’ past full of water. But these spheres—which are 3 millimeters in diameter—are nothing like that.

Found in the Kirkwood outcrop, in the western rim of Endeavour Crater, these spherules’ composition is completely different from the old Martian blueberries. Scientists still don’t know how they got there and what they are supposed to be, says Squyres:

“They are different in concentration. They are different in structure. They are different in composition. They are different in distribution. So, we have a wonderful geological puzzle in front of us. We have multiple working hypotheses, and we have no favorite hypothesis at this time. It’s going to take a while to work this out, so the thing to do now is keep an open mind and let the rocks do the talking.”

In the image you can also see spheres that have been eroded, showing a concentric internal structure. Researchers are now conducting more tests, trying to come up with an explanation on what these may be and how they got there.

SHARK HELPS MAN LOST AT SEA FIND SAFETY

Did a 6ft shark save a man, or try to eat him?

A man lost at sea for over 15 weeks claims that a shark, ignoring its years and years and years of evolutionary instincts, decided to nudge the little wooden raft he was on to safety instead of bumping him off for a tasty treat.

Sky News writes:

A lost fisherman who drifted at sea for 15 weeks, sleeping next to his dead brother-in-law, was eventually helped to safety – by a shark.

Toakai Teitoi was stuck on a 15ft wooden boat for more than 100 days after he ran out of fuel and the vessel drifted deep into the Pacific.

The 41-year-old Kiribati policeman relived his harrowing voyage after a fishing boat eventually picked him up and took him to Majuro in the Marshall Islands.

The father-of-six told of sleeping with the body of his brother-in-law who died during the ordeal, suffering severe dehydration.

And he said it was only after the intervention of a circling shark that he was eventually rescued.

Mr Teitoi’s ordeal began on May 27 after he had flown from his home island of Maiana to the Kiribati capital of Tarawa to be sworn in as a policeman.

Instead of flying home he decided to join his brother-in-law Lelu Falaile, 52, on what was supposed to be a two-hour sea journey back to Maiana.

But after stopping to fish along the way and sleeping overnight, they woke the following day to find they had drifted out of sight of Maiana and ran out of fuel.

“We had food, but the problem was we had nothing to drink,” he said.

As dehydration took hold, Mr Teitoi, a Catholic, said he turned to prayer as it gave him strength. But Mr Falaile’s health began failing and he died on July 4.

“I left him there overnight and slept next to him like at a funeral,” Mr Teitoi said. He buried his brother-in-law at sea the next morning.

Only a day after Mr Falaile passed away a storm blew into the area and rained for several days allowing Mr Teitoi to fill two five-gallon containers with water.

“There were two choices in my mind at the time. Either someone would find me or I would follow my brother-in-law. It was out of my control.”

He continued to pray regularly and on the morning of September 11 caught sight of a fishing boat in the distance but the crew were unable to see him.

Dejected, he did what he had done most days, curling up under a small covered area in the bow to stay out of the tropical sun.

Mr Teitoi said he woke in the afternoon to the sound of scratching and looked overboard to see a six-foot shark circling the boat and bumping the hull.

When the shark had his attention it swam off.

“He was guiding me to a fishing boat. I looked up and there was the stern of a ship and I could see crew with binoculars looking at me.”

WORLD’S FIRST FILM FOOTAGE EVER IN COLOR

The world's first film footage in color dates back to 1901!

We certainly take for granted all the luxuries we have in a world today but, things were very, very different not too long ago. Something as simple as color on our tv screen seems like something that better be working right these days, although when color was first introduced to film, the world changed forever.

Check it out:

Sky News writes:

The footage, made by cinematic pioneer Edward Turner in around 1901, was found in the archives of the National Media Museum in Bradford and with the help of experts at the BFI National Archive was transformed into watchable digital files.

It includes footage of a macaw, soldiers marching through London and a group of children believed to be Turner’s young family.

Film historians had long thought Turner’s technique, which involved filming through red, green and blue filters and superimposing the frames on top of each other, was a failure.

The inventor patented his idea in 1899 with his financial backer Frederick Lee but died four years later aged 29 before he could take full advantage of it.

The museum’s curator of cinematography Michael Harvey said: “We sat in the editing suite entranced as full-colour shots made 110 years ago came to life on the screen.

“The image of the goldfish was stunning: its colours were so lifelike and subtle.

“Then there was a macaw with brilliantly coloured plumage, a brief glimpse of soldiers marching and, most interestingly, young children dressed in Edwardian finery.

“I realised we had a significant find on our hands.

“We had proved that the Lee and Turner process worked.”

The footage will go on show at the National Media Museum in Bradford from Thursday.

ANOTHER WORLD’S TALLEST: MEET ZEUS THE GREAT DANE

Zeus, a 3-year old Great Dane from Michigan is now the world's tallest dog!

On the heels of yesterday ‘World’s Tallest Mohawk’ Post, I proudly present to you another ‘World’s Tallest’, Zeus is officially the world’s tallest dog!

Yahoo News writes:

A Great Dane called Zeus who towers 2.2 metres (7 feet 4 inches) on his hind legs is named the tallest dog ever recorded in the latest Guinness Book of World Records launched on Thursday.

The giant canine from Michigan in the United States eats an entire 14-kilogram (30-pound) bag of food every day and weighs in at 70.3 kilograms, the 57th edition of the global records book says.

Measuring 1.12 metres (44 inches) from paw to withers — the point between the shoulder blades at which the official height of a four-legged mammal is judged — he is officially the tallest dog ever recorded, the volume claims.

‘Guinness World Records 2013’ says the humongous hound breaks the record of Giant George, another Great Dane who is one inch shorter.

“The most common thing people ask is: ‘Is that a dog or a horse?'” says the three-year-old’s owner Denise.

“We had to get a van to be able to transport him, oh, and if he steps on your foot he leaves bruises!”

The book — the latest edition of the world’s best-selling copyrighted series — also names Oklahoma Sam, a four-year-old American Mammoth Jackstock, as the tallest living donkey on the planet.

Measuring 1.55 metres (5 feet 1 inch) from hoof to withers, she dwarfs the average common donkey (80 centimetres, 2 feet 8 inches) and the average for her own larger breed (1.22 metres, 4 feet).

The four-year-old record-breaker lives in Watsonville, California, where she shares her one acre of land with a macaw, duck, goose and four cats.