Quantum fluctuations in science, space and society, from quarks to Hubble and Mars. Served up by Alan Boyle, NBC News Digital science editor. E-mail Alan, or connect via Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
The robotic K-Max helicopter shown here in a file photo is flying re-supply missions in Afghanistan, opening up the era of unmanned logistics.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
Robotic helicopters capable of ferrying 3.5 tons of cargo in a single load are at work supplying NATO troops in Afghanistan, according to a defense technology blog.
The technology will put fewer soldiers at risk flying over enemy lines on re-supply missions. That doesn't mean, however, that the military will put the helicopters directly in harm's way.
"Most of the missions will be conducted at night and at higher altitudes," Marine Capt. Caleb Joiner, mission commander, said in a news release. "This will allow us to keep out of small arms range."
While the helicopter should save lives on the battlefield, how might robotic choppers and other supply vehicles translate to civilian life? Feel free to share your wishes in the comments section below.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
The rise of the microblogging site Twitter was fueled by media attention and traditional social networks based on geographic proximity and socioeconomic similarity, a new study says.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
Developers of the next-big social networking application stand a greater chance at skyrocketing success if Hollywood stars and big media go gaga over it, according to an analysis of Twitter's meteoric rise in popularity.
Data collected on the number of users adopting the microblogging service in its early years (between 2006 and 2009) show that it first spread gradually via traditional social networks — real-world friends, work colleagues, neighbors — then took off when media stars started to gather their flocks.
"The first big run up in the number of Twitter users corresponded to the months that Ashton Kutcher was trying to be the first one to a million followers," Jameson Lawrence Toole, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and co-author of the study, told me today.
"The most number of people ever signed up for Twitter during that week," Toole said.
A visualization showing the adopting of Twitter across the United States. From late March 2006 through the early August 2009, nearly 3.5 million people signed up for twitter. 2.3 million of those users signed up in the 408 cities displayed here.
From there, Twitter's rise was unstoppable. News reporters wrote about Kutcher and Oprah and more people signed up for Twitter. More media personalities wrote their own stories about sending 140-character tweets. More people signed up. More stories, more users.
While the data isn't all that surprising, it suggests a new way for researchers to model the power of media influence in their analyses of what drives a company to success, according to Toole.
In traditional models, he said, the role of media is considered a constant across time. What the Twitter analysis illustrates is the existence of a feedback loop present in today's media. "The more people sign up, the more news articles are written, and then more people sign up," he said.
The effect has been named elsewhere as the Oprah Effect, which is particularly prevalent in book sales. Aspiring authors know that if the talk show host picks their book for her monthly book club, for example, a spot on the best seller list is almost certainly in their future.
Given the analysis of Twitter data from its early years, the power of big media stars seems to apply to Internet-based applications as well. So, if you want millions of users to use your app, make sure a big name pitches it, preferably in a quasi-viral way. That should mean success, according to the new model.
"What we can't model is if Oprah is going to pick up your Web service," Toole noted.
The studyis scheduled to appear this month in the journal PLoS One.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
Australian photographer Colin Legg captured this photograph of Comet Lovejoy's tail flaring up from the horizon just before sunrise Wednesday.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
We already know that Comet Lovejoy is a survivor, thanks to its death-defying spin around the sun last week, but now we're finding out it's a show-off as well. Here's a glorious picture of the comet's double tail, captured just before sunrise in Western Australia.
The picture is part of a must-see video sequence created by Colin Legg, who set up his camera looking southeast across the Mandurah Estuary, roughly 38 miles (60 kilometers) south of Perth. Legg has a knack for doing time-lapse photography of the night sky.
In a rushed email, Legg told me he made a last-minute decision to try taking pictures of the comet, based on reports that the tail was visible to the naked eye during morning twilight.
"Drove from Perth to Mandurah, slept in vehicle until 2:30 a.m., then set up two cameras, one for time-lapse, one for still images," he wrote. "Kept shooting till sunrise, then drove back to Perth. Hoping to do the same thing again tonight. First opportunity in almost six years to image and view a bright comet. Only visible in Southern Hemisphere while still bright. Last good comet in south was Comet McNaught. I was still shooting film back then."
The picture shows two tails: The fainter tail consists of ionized gas that is pushed almost directly away from the sun by the solar wind, while the brighter tail is made up of heavier material that more closely follows the comet's orbit. Check out this clickable Flash graphic to learn more about the anatomy of a comet.
Although the comet was shot at sunrise today, Lovejoy isn't finished just yet: "The visibility of both tails could improve in the days ahead as the comet moves away from the sun and the background sky darkens accordingly," SpaceWeather.com's Tony Phillips writes. "Early-rising sky watchers should be alert for this rare apparition."
Check out SpaceWeather.com for more of that lovely Lovejoy imagery — but first, take a look at Legg's Vimeo video, which brings the nearly full moon into the picture. Go full-screen HD for the best view:
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
A woman sends text messages on June 25, 2008 on her Blackberry phone.
By Athima Chansanchai
In a recent social experiment at a university, a group of students given the opportunity to deceive classmates using various mediums of communication were more likely to lie through texts than any other interaction that involved more direct contact with others.
They were split into groups of "brokers" and "buyers," each given real cash incentives to really get into their roles. Commissions figured prominently for brokers, while buyers' rewards were dependent on the value of their mock stock.
Here's where ethics came into play, and choices were made: Brokers had inside information about the mock stock losing its value, which buyers were not privy to until after the transaction. Once a deal was made, buyers were asked if their brokers "had employed deceit to sell their stock."
Guess what? If students didn't have to see their colleagues face-to-face, then it was more likely they were going to lie to them.
Researchers found deception in 83 percent of those who received text messages; audio chats were close behind at 71 percent. Then came face-to-face in-person contact, with 63.6 percent, and finally video chats, with 43 percent.
In an email to msnbc.com, Sauder associate professor Ronald Cenfetelli, a co-author on the paper, explained the discrepancy between video chats and face-to-face results.
It fits with the broader role that anonymity plays in lessening barriers to behaving badly. We suspect that video acts as a sort of "mirror" in enhancing a person's awareness of themselves. There is also the possibility that video is perceived to have some permanence (it is a recording that could be used for future reference).
May fit with the role video has played in protests/demonstrations.
In a statement released by the researchers, the fact that video chat seemed to be the least deceptive technique may indicate that "communicating by video heightened the brokers' awareness of being scrutinized, which suppressed their impulse to use dishonest sales tactics — the so-called 'spotlight' effect."
The research could be applied to online business transactions, especially during this holiday season. Cenfetelli said:
"With this in mind, people shopping online using websites like eBay should consider asking sellers to talk over Skype to ensure they are getting information in the most trustworthy way possible."
The Maya Long Count calendar and its connection to 2012 have long been topics of controversy.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
What is it about doomsday that draws a crowd?
Time after time, doomsayers have predicted the breakdown of society on a date certain, stirring up a buzz that builds to a crescendo and ends in a crash when doomsday doesn't come. 1844 brought the Great Disappointment, 1999 brought the Y2K alarm, 2011 brought the Rapture ruckus, and exactly a year from today, we're due for the Maya apocalypse.
If the past is any indicator, we'll be intently blogging, tweeting and indulging in black humor as the clock ticks down to Dec. 21, 2012. Then, on Dec. 22, we'll look around for the next doomsday.
It's just human nature, says Oregon State University sociologist Richard Mitchell, author of a book about survivalist trends titled "Dancing at Armageddon." Telling stories and trading tips for making it through the catastrophe that's ahead of us are pursuits that go back to ancient times.
"The attraction of all of these 'final crisis' tales is in the re-narration, the puzzling out of the details, the putting of fragmented facts into a coherent narrative," Mitchell said.
There are plenty of fragmented facts to choose from for 2012's "end of the world" narrative, including the Maya Long Count calendar, which supposedly winds down to the end of a 5,126-year-long cycle next Dec. 21. Today the city of Tapachula in southern Mexico is turning on a digital clock for the yearlong countdown, and Mayan priests are performing a ceremony at a nearby archaeological site.
They're dramatizing the doomsday date largely to drum up tourism. "If people are interested, we have to take advantage of this," Manolo Alfonso Pino, the regional tourism director for Mexico's Chiapas state, told The Associated Press.
Some of the concerns should be taken seriously — for example, heightened solar storms really can have a negative effect on power grids and communication satellites, and the link between global warming and wild weather is truly a valid topic of scientific debate. But there's no need to worry about Planet X or the LHC, and even the real concerns aren't any cause for catastrophic talk. Don Yeomans, who heads the Near Earth Object Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, addresses the 2012 hype in this video:
JPL scientist Don Yeomans provides the 4-1-1 on 2012.
Mitchell doesn't expect the hard-core prophets of doom to accept the assurances of NASA ... or, for that matter, Cosmic Log. "They don't trust the media or academia, because we do in fact pose a real threat — not to their physical well-being, but to their storytelling," he said.
Any potential for panic? Is there a danger in doomsday stories? Based on his studies of survivalists, Mitchell doubts that 2012 worries will touch off mass panic. He told me that folks who are worried about the collapse of society usually shy away from group activities. "There aren't any 'groups,' though one will pop up every once in a while, just to see and be seen," he said. "It's just a myth to suggest that groups exist, other than online mailing lists that nudge electrons back and forth. Largely, it's individual activity, if there's any activity at all."
But Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist at the University of Alabama, worries that websites and apocalyptic chatter on the Internet could create a "tipping point" for 2012 hysteria. "I think it's going to ramp up as we get closer to next December," she told me.
Guadagno's research focuses on the effect that computer-mediated communication has on social interaction and influence.
"The one thing that we have going against us is the way that information spreads online," she told me on Tuesday. "For example, yesterday half the world thought Jon Bon Jovi was dead, just because one person set up a website."
What if someone decided to go viral with the apocalypse?
"It won't take that many people to take advantage of the Internet, to basically spread a lot of misinformation and cause panic among greater numbers," Guadagno said. "Hopefully the general public will be forewarned that this is all bunk."
That's what we're here for. And we'll be here whenever the bunk hits the fan during 2012. So whatever you do, DON'T PANIC!
Update for 5 p.m. ET: The doomsday predictions have centered on Dec. 21 as the fateful date, but that's not the unanimous opinion of experts on Maya glyphs. Penn Museum's Simon Martin, for example, is among those who say that Dec. 23 rather than Dec. 21 marks the end of the Maya calendar's millennia-long baktun cycle. Actually, the discrepancy may turn out to be more than just a couple of days: Gerardo Aldana, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says conversions of the Maya calendar to the modern calendar could be off by as much as 50 to 100 years.
An exhibit at the Penn Museum, titled "Maya 2012: Lords of Time," will focus on the ancient Maya people's conceptions of the universe, including their ideas about time and the calendar. The Philadelphia show opens on May 5 and will end on ... Jan. 13, 2013.
Extra credit: After 2012, what's the next doomsday to watch for? Here are a few dates that are popping up:
2014, when the LHC is due to reach full power. Some folks believe the second decade of any century is a rough time, just because it historically has been. Nicholas Boyle, a professor specializing in German literature and history at Cambridge University (and no close relative of mine), has already written a book on that theme titled "2014: How to Survive the Next World Crisis." Not sure what that has to do with German, but OK.
2029, when futurist Ray Kurzweil expects machine intelligence to equal human intelligence.
2045, when Kurzweil foresees a global transformation dramatic enough to be classified as a "singularity."
2060, the "no-earlier-than" date for Isaac Newton's predicted doomsday.
It's interesting that these dates are all about 15 years apart. Is there a 15-year doomsday activity cycle, analogous to the 11-year solar activity cycle? That's one more thing to mull over in the comment section below.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
NASA
A photograph snapped from the International Space Station on Feb. 22 shows the lights of Israel, the West Bank and Jordan at night. The bright knot of city lights at left is Tel Aviv, leading eastward toward Jerusalem (center) and Amman (at right).
Tonight marks the start of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights — which calls to mind this glittering picture of the Middle East, captured by the International Space Station as it flew more than 200 miles above in February.
Hanukkah, which tends to come around the same time of year as Christmas, is an eight-day holiday that commemorates the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem during the revolt of the Maccabees in the second century B.C. Jewish tradition holds that there was only enough oil to light the ceremonies for one night, and yet the lamps burned for eight days — giving Jerusalem's residents enough time to prepare a fresh supply of oil.
As a remembrance of that ancient miracle, Jews will kindle lights on their menorahs for the next eight nights.
The picture from the space station shows Jerusalem as well as Tel Aviv to the west and the Jordanian capital of Amman to the east aglow with city lights. The roads connecting the cities are also lit up — suggesting the connections of trade and heritage that tie the region together. During this holiday season, let's hope that peace will shine forth in the Middle East, and that we'll turn our attention to what connects us rather than what divides us.
Today's Hanukkah greetings serve as the latest entry in our Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from space every day until Christmas. Catch up on these previous images from the calendar:
Scientists and engineers picked by the National Science Foundation for a two-month boot camp on entrepreneurship pose at Stanford University on the first day of class in October.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
Lab scientists are getting a $50,000 assist from the U.S. government to go to school and learn the entrepreneurial skills required to take their innovations into the marketplace and, perhaps, become millionaires.
"I am basically teaching them how to do eye contact and test their hypotheses outside of the lab," Steve Blank, a startup guru at Stanford University who designed and teaches the course, told me Tuesday.
It is modeled after Blank's Lean LaunchPad class, which replaces the traditional masters in business administration curriculum — balance sheets, business plans, etc. — with what Blank calls "the scientific method for entrepreneurship."
Entrepreneur training The course forces teams of researchers — an entrepreneur, principal investigator, and mentor — to network with colleagues and potential clients to test hypotheses about the market for their lab innovation.
As hypotheses fail, the teams adapt with what Blank calls a pivot, or change in the business plan. It acknowledges that startups usually go through multiple failures en route to success.
That's different than how a traditionally-trained MBA would operate in an established corporation, notes Blank, where failure would almost certainly result in the firing of an executive.
"This word pivot not only encapsulates the fact that you are going to be changing rapidly, it embraces the fact that we are going to do it without crisis. We are going to do it without firing executives," he said.
For example, a company called Arka Solutions, led by Satish Kandlikar, a mechanical engineer at the Rochester Institute of Technology, pivoted twice throughout the process.
They started with an idea they would manufacture highly efficient LED lamps, but ended up with a company that uses their technology to make heat-pipe cooling systems for LED lights as well as electronics cooling and HVAC applications.
The next Google? Before the course started, Blank thought maybe three or four of the teams would end up going forward as companies. After 8 weeks and 1,947 calls, 19 of 21 teams said they are now entrepreneurs.
None of these companies are going to be the next Google or Facebook, well-known Internet companies with eye-popping billion-dollar market valuations, Blank noted. But successful $100 million companies?
"Absolutely," he said, adding that these teams of scientists and engineers echo the original roots of Silicon Valley, which was founded by a bunch of PhDs, not MBAs.
"The National Science Foundation has started the first incubator for science and engineering from the government," he said.
Armed with his hypothesis-testing methodology to successful entrepreneurship, Blank says the teams involved in I-Corps could attract venture capital away from overly valued Internet companies.
That should come as good news to students who stuck with chemistry, biology and physics as their counterparts chased riches promised by degrees in law or business.
The National Science Foundation will be offering the I-Corps at least twice in 2012 and expanding the course to universities around the country. For more information, visit the I-Corps website.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
An artist's conception shows the ILO-X telescope demonstrator, mounted on the Moon Express lander and receiving beamed commands from its operators on Earth.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
After a wild night on top of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano, researchers report that they've successfully tested the remote-control system for a prototype telescope that could someday be looking at the cosmos from the surface of the moon.
The demonstration for the International Lunar Observatory precursor instrument, or ILO-X, came a day earlier than originally plannned, due to a wave of chilly, stormy weather that was sweeping over Hawaii. Temperatures on Mauna Kea reportedly dipped to 16 below zero Fahrenheit overnight.
"It was certainly challenging," Steve Durst, founder and director of the International Lunar Observatory Association, told me today. "We succeeded after some time in imaging celestial objects — not as many as we wanted, because of the extreme conditions."
ILO science team members were able to control the shoebox-sized, camera-equipped telescope from stations in Switzerland, California and China, with signals routed via the Internet through a mission control center at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea. Other researchers from India, Japan, Canada and Africa had been planning to participate, but they couldn't scramble quickly enough to tap into the system, Durst said.
Durst said the telescope was aimed at celestial targets including the planet Jupiter and the Pleiades star cluster, using remote-control software developed by Moon Express. The imagery was returned for processing, just as it would be during a moon mission. "That was very rewarding to see happen," said Bob Richards, the co-founder and CEO of Moon Express.
The flight version of ILO-X is destined to travel to the lunar surface aboard the Moon Express lander, which Richards and his colleagues intend to launch in 2014 to win a share of the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize. Moon Express has designed and is building the ILO-X instrument with financial support from Durst's organization.
Changing minds about the moon ILO-X's backers say it would be the first visible-light telescope permanently placed on the moon to make celestial observations. Richards said the instrument "will do what an extremely good amateur telescope could do," but he and Durst stressed that the success of the mission wouldn't be judged by the quality of the imagery alone.
"It's no Hubble," Richards said. "We're not trying to change the astronomy textbooks. We're trying to change people's minds about their place on the moon."
Moon Express
Moon Express software engineer Jake Forsberg readies the International Lunar Observatory precursor (ILO-X) for a global demonstration from the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Durst sees ILO-X as merely the precursor for bigger, more capable telescopes that could eventually be sent to the moon. For example, radio telescopes placed on the far side of the moon would be shielded from earthly interference — and even on the moon's Earth-facing side, telescopes could have a much clearer view of the cosmos than telescopes on Earth.
"There's no atmosphere to distort the images," Durst explained.
Making money on the moon? Durst is also experimenting with the idea of using the moon as a broadcasting platform, starting with ILO-X and continuing with a follow-on lunar mission known as ILO-1. "It's a catalyst for a money-making broadcast operation that we want to conduct," he told me.
Richards said flying ILO-X on the Moon Express would help "buy down the risk" for future lunar telescopes. But that's not Moon Express' only aim. The venture, co-founded by dot-com millionaire Naveen Jain, is targeting the X Prize purse as well as other lunar business opportunities. "No one has ever captured people’s fascination with the moon," Jain has been quoted as saying. "What if, say, we take a picture of your family on the moon and project it back to you? Or take DNA up there?"
Moon Express is one of several Google Lunar X Prize entrants that have made multimillion-dollar deals with NASA for access to their lunar mission development data. But the highest-profile payoff is the X Prize itself. To win the prize, the venture will have to put its lander on the moon, then send out a mini-rover to gather data and images and send it back to Earth.
With the ILO-X demonstration completed, Richards said attention will turn to preparing the ruggedized version of the telescope and other components of the lunar probe for the big flight ahead. The clock is ticking, not only for Moon Express but for more than two dozen other X Prize teams. If no one pulls off a successful lunar mission by the end of 2015, the prize expires, and the purse goes back to the sponsors at Google.
Update for 10:40 a.m. ET Dec. 20: I originally wrote that ILO-X would be the first telescope on the moon, but it's been pointed out that the Apollo 16 mission carried an instrument known as the Far Ultraviolet Camera / Spectrograph, which used a 3-inch telescope to make astronomical observations in ultraviolet wavelengths in 1972. Goes to show that there's nothing new under the sun, especially if you go beyond the visible-light spectrum. This MIT webpage tells you more about George Carruthers, who led the team that invented the Far Ultraviolet Camera / Spectrograph.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Thousands of fluorescent E. coli bacteria make up a biopixel.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
The bar of the future may have all-organic brews on tap and blinking neon signs in the window made with millions of bacterial cells that periodically glow in unison.
The same "living neon sign" technology could also be used to help brewers and other folks monitor environmental pollutants in water such as arsenic, according to research published online Sunday in the journal Nature.
The breakthrough involved attaching a fluorescent protein to bacteria engineered with biological clocks, and then synchronizing the clocks of thousands of bacteria within a colony to create a so-called biopixel.
Thousands of these biopixels, each an individual point of light like a pixel on a computer screen, are then synchronized so they all glow in unison to create a sign.
The largest signs made so far are about the size of a paperclip, according to the researchers working on the technology at the University of California at San Diego.
Path to success The work started with engineering a biological clock into a single bacterium, explained Jeff Hasty, a professor of biology and bioengineering at the university.
These engineered clocks are attached to a fluorescent protein that flashes on and off.
Next, Hasty's team synchronized all the clocks in a bacterial colony via what's called quorum sensing, which is a way bacteria communicate with each other using molecular signals.
This made it so that "an entire colony would flash in synchrony," Hasty explained to me Monday.
A single bacterial colony is 10s of microns in diameter — about the size of a pixel, hence biopixel.
"If you want to get out to the centimeter-length scale, this quorum sensing won't work because it is too slow; you would get something that looks like waves," he said.
To get over that hurdle, the team connected a gene that codes for hydrogen peroxide gas vapor to the biological clock. The gas vapor is used to communicate and synchronize the colonies.
"When the clock goes on, you get a pulse of vapor and that pulse of vapor then goes to a neighboring colony and that's what communicates the signal. And when the clock goes off, the vapor goes off," Hasty said.
In the final system, quorum sensing is used for signaling at the colony level, the gas vapor signal is used to synchronize across colonies.
Environmental sensors The researchers have turned the blinking bacteria into a sign that spells out UCSD and could, for example, get to the scale where it could spell your favorite brand of beer for display in a bar window, Hasty said.
More practical applications will come in the environmental sensor market. As a proof of concept, the team created a biosensor that detects levels of arsenic, a heavy metal, in water. The more arsenic detected, the slower the sensor blinks.
These sensors can be built in the lab for less than $100, Hasty said, and each sensor lasts for weeks at a time.
For now, the researchers are trying to figure out the limits of scale for the technology.
"How many cells can we get in a centimeter-length scale to increase the signal?" Hasty said. "And then, how much can we increase this length scale to get something that is even macroscopic?"
Imagine, for example, a giant flashing "living neon sign" hovering over the outfield seats advertising the marquee sponsor for the Colorado Rockies baseball team.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
This picture of Earth at night is based on 1994-1995 satellite data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System, which maps the location of permanent lights on the planet. The borders of North Korea are outlined in white, with Japan off to the right, China to the left and South Korea below.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
The death of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, serves as a reminder that the hard-line communist country has long been in the dark — literally. A white border highlights the dark spot known as North Korea in this visualization of our planet's city lights.
This iconic "Earth at Night" picture is based on data gathered by military satellites in 1994-1995, just after Kim inherited power from his late father, Kim Il Sung. The darkness shows how much North Korea has lagged behind its neighbors — South Korea, China, Russia and Japan — in electrification and industrial development. Updates of the data sets show that there's been no change in North Korea's city-light situation between 1992 and 2009. Check out NOAA's "Science on a Sphere" webpage for more about the "Earth at Night" satellite data project.
A different kind of satellite project shows where North Korea has made progress during the dark age of Kim Jong Il: For years, the Institute for Science and International Security has been using satellite imagery to document the state of North Korea's nuclear program. Pictures acquired from orbit over the past couple of years show new construction at the country's Yongbyon nuclear center.
Here's a recent picture of the Yongbyon site from DigitalGlobe, a commercial satellite imaging venture. ISIS says the blue roofs on a gas centrifuge plant and an adjoining building appear to be part of increased construction activity:
DigitalGlobe
This high-resolution satellite image from DigitalGlobe, acquired on Nov. 4, 2010, shows new construction at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear site. The building with a deep blue roof is thought to be a gas centrifuge plant.
"Whatever the purpose, these activities show that more is going on at Yongbyon than commonly believed," ISIS analyst Paul Brannan wrote in his latest report. The future of North Korea's nuclear program will be a top concern for the United States and its allies as they assess Pyongyang's leadership transition — and satellites will provide the key data for that assessment.
These satellite views of North Korea serve as today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which presents views of Earth from space every day from now until Christmas. Catch up on these previous entries from the calendar:
Correction for 11 p.m. ET: I mistakenly referred to "Science on a Sphere" as being provided by NASA, when it's actually provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Sorry about that! Must have been because the first time I saw the "Science on a Sphere" display was at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
Get a quick rundown on IBM's five-year, five-tech predictions.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Nothing focuses your attention on the future like a forecast, especially when it comes to the technologies that will be changing daily life in the years to come. Five years, to be exact. That's why forecasts like IBM's annual "Five in Five" are so thought-provoking, even if they're occasionally wrong.
Actually, IBM's record is pretty good: This month marks the five-year anniversary of IBM's first list of five technologies that were expected to make the most impact in five years' time. The company nailed 2006's predictions on the rise of telemedicine, location-aware mobile devices, real-time speech translation and nanotechnology. But the fifth prediction, which focused on the rise of virtual 3-D environments, hasn't worked out the way IBM expected. Sure, Second Life is still around — in fact, I'll be hosting my next "Virtually Speaking Science" show in Second Life on Jan. 4. But such virtual worlds haven't become the principal vehicle for real-world commerce ... yet.
"It's not perfect," admitted Bernie Meyerson, IBM's vice president of innovation. Sometimes the company's researchers latch onto a idea whose time has not yet come, and perhaps never will. But for the most part, "this stuff has actually panned out a lot," Meyerson said.
Is technological progress always a good thing? Not necessarily, if you're talking about key-logging software on mobile devices, or government-supported spyware. The latest predictions from IBM, issued today, have lots of potential for a dreams-vs.-nightmares debate:
1. People power will come to life: Devices will be built to capture the power generated as you jog, or ride your bike, or run water through the pipes of your home. Even the heat that builds up in your computer's circuitry could be harvested rather than going to waste. Engineers have already developed electricity-generating backpacks and shoes that could build up enough juice to power the electronic devices you carry around with you. On the other end of the scale, IBM researchers in Ireland are already working on ocean wave-power projects.
The down side? It's tricky to design devices that produce enough power to make them cost-effective — and at the same time comfortable to wear. A lot of people already feel tied down by technology. Will they be willing to pile on the extra bulk of power-generating contraptions? Will the future economics of energy justify micro-power harvesting?
2. You will never need a password again: Instead of trying to keep track of all those different passwords for your online accounts, and still worrying that someone will break in and steal your identity, we'll find ourselves actually using technologies such as iris recognition, face recognition and voice recognition to log in. "The world of biometrics is coming," Meyerson said.
The down side? It sounds a little creepy, like the world of the movie "The Minority Report," and it could be seen as another intrusion on personal privacy. Meyerson, however, argues that "you can deal with the creep-out factor" by making sure users have the freedom to opt in or opt out of biometric identity systems. The keys to your identity could be kept on your device rather than in a central repository. And using multiple methods — for example, iris plus voice — would make it astronomically unlikely that someone could crack your code. "Personally, I think the risk is far greater not doing this," Meyerson said.
3. Mind reading is no longer science fiction: This prediction isn't about psychic powers. For years, researchers have worked on ways to control robotic arms or blips on a computer by reading brain signals — and IBM thinks that technology will be ready for prime time (or drive time) within the next five years. That would be particularly good news for quadriplegics and "locked-in" patients looking for better ways to interact with the outside world. It might lead to better approaches to medical concerns ranging from autism to stroke rehabilitation. And think of the cool video games you could be playing when you just have to think something to make it so. Meyerson said companies such as Emotiv Lifesciences are already preparing the way for this brave new world.
The down side? Once you give someone direct access to your brain, wouldn't it be at least theoretically possible to eavesdrop on your innermost thoughts? "People worry about something that will interpret your brain," Meyerson said. "That's not what we're talking about here." But as long as we're talking about science fiction becoming reality, we'd better keep the dark side of the sci-fi story in mind as well.
4. The digital divide will cease to exist: IBM suggests that the cost of smartphones and online services will become so low that everyone will be plugged into the global network. "It's gotten to the point where it's cheaper to have a cell phone than to have a bank account," Meyerson said. The gap between haves and have-nots will fade away in the digital world. IBM researchers are already working to make this vision a reality. In India, they're helping to create technologies that allow even illiterate and semi-literate people to use mobile devices for basic services.
The down side? Who'll be in charge of this digital paradise for the haves? Privacy advocates might see this as a fresh cause for concern. As governments rely increasingly on digital networks to distribute services, will life become that much more difficult for those who are unable or unwilling to plug in?
5. Junk mail will become priority mail: This is the flip side of junk-mail filters. Computerized systems for filtering information will become so adept at reading your preferences that they'll become true digital assistants, presenting you with the data that you need (or want) to know while blocking the junk. In the next five years, you'll have the technology that turned the Watson supercomputer into a "Jeopardy" quiz-show champion at your fingertips. Watson might even take the initiative — for example, by putting tickets to a concert by your favorite band on hold the moment they go on sale, even before you've heard about it.
The down side? What if your personal digital assistant turns out to be a paranoid HAL 9000 instead of a helpful Watson? What if Watson goes rogue with your credit-card number? And what about the privacy concerns? Ten years from now, will the authorities be able to learn all about you by tapping into your junk-mail filter?
Are IBM's latest "Five in Five" predictions hits or misses? Visions of paradise, or another circle of hell? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below, and check out these past predictions:
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
The lights of the Florida Peninsula and the rest of the southeastern U.S. glow in this picture taken from the International Space Station on Nov. 24.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Florida's city lights shine brightly in this night view from the International Space Station — but there's a completely different kind of glow that frames the edge of our planet. It's known as "airglow," the faint greenish radiance high up in Earth's atmosphere.
You might think airglow comes from the reflected glare of city lights, but it's actually a photochemical reaction caused by the sun's ultraviolet radiation.
During the day, that radiation breaks apart molecules of oxygen and other chemicals, exciting them into a higher energy state. During the night, the molecules recombine, radiating the excess energy as light. As a result, the atmosphere glows in a thin region around 60 miles up.
The hits just keep on coming from the space station, and you can expect to see much more when the station's crew is back at its full strength of six astronauts.
Three new crew members are due to arrive this week, just in time for Christmas. In this video, space station commander Dan Burbank reflects on the new arrivals, the holidays and our "indescribably beautiful" planet:
Space station commander Dan Burbank sends season's greetings to the world.
The space station crew's sidelong glance at the Florida Keys, the Florida Peninsula and the rest of the southeastern United States was captured from orbit on Nov. 24. It's today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which highlights views of Earth from space every day from now until Christmas. Catch up on these previous gems from the calendar:
What are those strange white patterns in China's Gobi Desert? For weeks, experts have puzzled over the crazy lines that show up in satellite images.
Some of the theories have taken wild turns: Maybe they're messages directed at Earth-observing extraterrestrials, or part of a UFO development program, or the remains of ancient cities. But the leading theory is that these patterns serve a variety of purposes for the Chinese military, including calibrating satellite imaging systems and testing radar avoidance techniques. There have also been claims that these are "fractal antennas" to shield underground weapons facilities from ground-penetrating radar.
This particular crazy-quilt pattern was picked up on July 27 from an altitude of 423 miles by the Ikonos satellite, one of the spacecraft in a commercial Earth-imaging constellation operated by GeoEye. The picture is today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from space every day until Christmas.
Whatever the precise purpose of these patterns might be, it's not all that unusual for people to draw huge lines in the sand: Consider Peru's famous Nazca Lines, which were etched more than 1,500 years ago to form patterns that look like geometric shapes, insects and birds. Some of those patterns can be seen in their full form only from the air. More recently, archaeologists have puzzled over wheel-like patterns in the Middle East.
What do you think about the Gobi puzzles? Feel free to add your comments below, and check out these past entries from the Advent calendar:
What a difference two years can make, especially when you're getting ready for the 2012 Olympics. Check out our interactive graphic showing how much progress has been made on London's 500-acre Olympic Park since 2009, based on the changing imagery from the GeoEye1 satellite. And just in case the fancy before-and-after graphic doesn't work in your browser, here are the satellite pictures presented in the traditional way:
GeoEye
Construction of London's Olympic Park was in its early stages when this picture of the site was captured by the GeoEye1 satellite on Sept. 21, 2009.
GeoEye
An image captured by the GeoEye 1 satellite on Aug. 3, 2011, shows London's Olympic Park with construction well under way.
Among the most obvious changes: The Olympic Stadium has a more finished look. The Aquatics Center and Water Polo Arena have been built (to the right of the stadium). The Basketball Arena has been added to the scene (that's the squarish, white-roofed structure toward the top of the picture). The International Broadcast Center takes up much more real estate at upper left. And there's been lots of landscaping.
The GeoEye 1 satellite, operated by the Colorado-based GeoEye commercial venture, captures imagery as it races over Earth at 17,000 mph, at a height of 425 miles. That's almost twice as high as the International Space Station. You can bet that GeoEye will continue to watch over the site during the buildup to the London Games, which begin next July 27.
This time-lapse look at Olympic Park serves as today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features a view of Earth from space every day until Christmas. Check back with us on Saturday for the next picture, and catch up on the full calendar here:
Franky Zapata demonstrates the Flyboard, a jetpack-like contraption that hooks up to a personal water craft and lets you play in and above the water akin to a dolphin.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
For some of us, jetpacks represent a dreamy way to fly over traffic en route to work. For those just looking for fun, look no further than the Flyboard, a contraption that lets you zip in and out of water — and soar above it — akin to Flipper after way too much caffeine.
The device was created by French water sports racer Franky Zapata. It's essentially a board hooked up to a personal watercraft such as a Jetski via a water-sucking hose. Water shoots out through jets below the feet and hand grips to provide propulsion.
Promotional video of the Flyboard by Zapata Racing.
In the video above, Zapata shows off the Flyboard's ability to turn humans into flipping, twisting, jumping and diving dolphins. It looks like a blast, though some skill must be required not to get tangled up in the hose.
It hooks up to any personal watercraft with more than 100 horsepower and costs about $6,400 (PWC not included). While there are certainly other jetpacks on the market, this one might fit a few more budgets and spike higher on the fun-o-meter.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
The skeletal hand of an adult female Australopithecus sediba is nestled within a modern human hand. The analysis of the A. sediba bones led to what some experts called a "game-changing" view of evolution in 2011.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Do archaeologists ever get tired of delving into ancient mysteries? One of my all-time favorite articles from The Onion is the one about the archaeologist who's fed up with "unearthing unspeakable ancient evils," but in real life, you can't beat a good story about archaeology, paleontology or paleoanthropology.
I'm combining several different scientific disciplines in this end-of-year roundup of ancient mysteries. Archaeology has to do with studying the peoples of the past through an analysis of the things they've left behind, ranging from the bones of Ötzi the Iceman to the pigeon nests built in a cave near Jerusalem. Paleontology is the branch of geology that focuses on the fossil record left behind by bygone organisms, including dinosaur dung. And paleoanthropology focuses on our prehistoric ancestors and their relationships to other species.
I would add two late-breaking stories to the mix: one about the mysterious markings on the floor of an ancient complex in Jerusalem, and another about long-hidden 16-foot-wide pits in the ground near Stonehenge.
Paleontology I asked Switek to help me sort through the year's top stories in paleontology, and he was kind enough to send this recap:
"Last year the big news was that paleontologists had restored the colors of two feathered dinosaurs. This year, there doesn't seem to be any major story that competes. But that's not to say that nothing significant happened in 2011. Here's a rundown of what I thought was interesting and important.
"Dinosaur growth: Over the past few years, paleontologists have been tussling over how many dinosaur species we have collected so far. The great Triceratops-Torosaurus debate of 2010 really brought this ongoing argument into focus, and there were several 2011 papers which continued the conversation. Early in the year paleontologist Andy Farke criticized the 'Torosaurus as Triceratops' hypothesis, and a reply to his reply has just appeared. Likewise, paleontologists suggested that the hadrosaur Anatotitan and the tyrannosaur Raptorex were really just growth stages of already-known dinosaurs (the latter being similar to Tarbosaurus, a juvenile of which was also described this year)." [Here's another take on the tussle over Triceratops.]
"Dinosaur senses: Two big papers - published at about the same time - probed dinosaur senses. One focused on smell, and the other vision. Studies like these represent our broadening understanding of dinosaur biology. It's not all about naming new species." [Learn more about the smell and night vision research]
"New species: New dinosaurs are named just about every week, but there were at least two that caught my eye. One was Brontomerus - a sauropod whose name translates to "thunder thighs" - and Teratophoneus, a short-snouted tyrannosaur. (I just realized that both were found in Utah, though, so perhaps I have a bias for my adoptive state!)" [Learn more about "Thunder Thighs" as well as other ancient wonders in Utah.]
"Other paleo: I usually don't cover the really big stories - I like to root around for tales no one is telling - but a few studies from this year got my attention."
That's more than 30 tales of ancient mysteries to ponder. Which ones do you find most intriguing, or are there other tales we've missed? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
GeoEye
An image from the GeoEye1 satellite, acquired on June 7, 2009, shows the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles.
The sign, which spells out the name of the cinema world's most famous locale in 45-foot-high (14-meter-high) letters, was originally created as an advertisement in 1923 and is now protected and promoted by the Hollywood Sign Trust.
Some folks used to say that China's Great Wall was the only human-made landmark visible from outer space, but even if that was ever true, the rise of high-resolution satellite imagery has made that claim as obsolete as the silent movies. Come to think of it, far more obsolete: After all, the film with the most Golden Globe nominations this year is a new-wave silent movie titled "The Artist."
This view of Tinseltown's trademark serves as today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features views of Earth from space every day from now until Christmas. Check back on Friday for the next visual treat, and catch up on these previous calendar entries:
A worker checks out Sierra Nevada Corp.'s structural test article for its Dream Chaser spaceship at a facility in Colorado. The Dream Chaser is in the running to become a successor to NASA's space shuttle fleet.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Budget uncertainties have led NASA to change its policy on funding the development of commercial spaceships, shifting to a process that provides more flexibility but also more risk for the space agency.
More than $365 million has already been devoted to NASA's commercial crew development program, or CCDev. Congress has approved another $406 million to be paid to would-be spaceship builders, with the aim of having U.S.-made, crew-capable successors to the space shuttle fleet flying to the International Space Station by 2017.
During the first two phases of the program, the effort has been managed through a set of Space Act Agreements, which award money to the companies in stages as they reach agreed-upon milestones. For the third phase, known as CCDev3, NASA had planned to switch to a different fixed-price contracting system that would give the space agency more control over the management of the companies' development efforts. NASA was scheduled to issue a request for proposals under that system on Monday.
But because of the uncertainties surrounding the federal budget for the next couple of years, NASA has decided to stick with the Space Act arrangement, said Bill Gerstenmaier, the agency's associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "It's really tough to lock into a fixed-price contract with the number of providers that can keep us moving forward," Gerstenmaier explained during a teleconference with journalists.
The shift means NASA will have to delay its announcement for proposals until the first quarter of next year, but Gerstenmaier said he still hoped agreements could be made in mid-2012 to cover a 21-month period lasting into early 2014. Two potential spaceship providers, and perhaps more, should be able to get close to a critical design review on that timetable with NASA funding, Gerstenmaier said.
In a statement, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said the space agency is "committed to ensuring that U.S. companies are sending American astronauts into space."
"This new acquisition strategy will allow us to preserve competition as we maintain our momentum to provide a U.S.-based commercial crew launch capability at the earliest possible time," he said.
Crucial difference The crucial distinction has to do with how much control NASA will have over the designs that are produced.
"We can't actually approve their designs, we can't say we're needing a service or getting a service," but the companies at least will be able to keep making progress, Gerstenmaier said. He used the rocket-science term for "change" to describe how the process could go: "There's going to be some potential delta that has to occur when we complete this phase."
The companies involved in CCDev had initially voiced reservations about the fixed-price contract plan, out of concern that NASA could exert too much control or even cancel the program altogether in midstream. One of the CCDev companies, California-based SpaceX, issued a statement in support of today's shift.
"Given budget realities, NASA and domestic space companies need to innovate more than ever," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell was quoted as saying. "Space Act Agreements yield amazing results — we need only look at the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket, both highly advanced, all-American vehicles designed using 21st-century technology. We applaud NASA's decision to use Space Act Agreements for the next round of commercial crew and look forward to the competition."
However, U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall, the Texas Republican who heads the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, questioned the move.
"The disadvantage of using Space Act Agreements is that NASA cannot impose its safety requirements as would be possible under a normal acquisition," Hall said in a statement. "Therefore, it is vitally important that NASA and its industry partners work cooperatively to ensure the highest level of crew safety, even in the absence of safety requirements."
In a report issued today, the Government Accountability Office, Congress' independent investigative arm, mentioned fixed-price, performance-based contracts as one of the "good acquisition practices" that NASA was planning for future CCDev work. The report was drawn up before NASA's announcement.
What lies ahead CCDev funding is currently going to Blue Origin, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada as well as SpaceX for spaceship development. For the next phase, commercial ventures will have to propose a full-service system, including the launch vehicle, to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Gerstenmaier said that once the 2012-2014 design phase is done, he expected that fixed-price contracts would be drawn up for the follow-up work, such as spacecraft certification.
NASA originally planned for commercial spacecraft to start ferrying astronauts in 2016, but because Congress authorized only half as much money for the current fiscal year as the White House was seeking, NASA now says flight operations won't begin until 2017 at the earliest.
In the meantime, NASA has to purchase seats from the Russians for rides on Soyuz capsules, at a price that's due to rise to more than $60 million in 2014. Gerstenmaier said NASA will now have to negotiate with the Russians for additional seats in the 2016-2017 time frame.
Today's GAO report raised further concerns about the development timetable. It said the "critical need to transport crew to the space station beginning in 2016 requires an aggressive program schedule that may not be attainable, given NASA's experiences with past government and commercial development efforts."
NASA is also supporting the development of commercial cargo spacecraft under a separate program known as Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS. A key test flight in that program is scheduled to come in February, when SpaceX is due to launch a Dragon cargo capsule to a potential linkup with the space station. Orbital Sciences Corp., the other COTS company, is planning to begin test launches next year as well.
Update for 2:05 p.m. ET: Blue Origin issued a statement from its president, Rob Meyerson, about NASA's change of plans:
"We applaud NASA’s plans to continue using competitively awarded Space Act Agreements to accelerate the development of truly commercial crew capabilities. We believe commercial means significant private investment and competition to accelerate technologies and capabilities designed to enable a space economy, one that includes trips to the International Space Station. ...
"We suggest NASA limit its co-funding to 20 percent of any single private effort, and perhaps less. This keeps the effort predominantly a private endeavor, with the private sector having real 'skin in the game.' This level of co-funding limits the government’s role to accelerating a private marketplace, not distorting it."
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Chlaenius propeagilis is a new species of beetle from China, described in the journal Zookeys.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
Scientists are tallying up scores, or even hundreds, of newfound species — but they're also musing on how many species will be lost before they're found.
This year's count from the California Academy of Sciences demonstrates that the pace of discovery is, if anything, increasing: Researchers associated with the academy added 140 species to the big biological list, and a 42-day expedition to the Philippines could eventually add hundreds more.
Among the highlights are four new species of deep-sea sharks, six completely new genera of African goblin spiders, three new genera of barnacles and 31 new sea-slug species. This year's tally of 140 compares favorably with the count of 110 species that were added during 2010.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Academy's gallery of the latest finds:
Terry Gosliner via California Academy of Sciences
Chelidonura mandroroa is a new species of sea slug, also known as a nudibranch, from the Indo-Pacific. Nudibranchs use their vivid colors to warn predators of their toxic or unpalatable nature. This nudibranch and five other new species were described in the journal Zootaxa.
Williams and Alderslade / Calif. Academy of Sciences
Anthoptilum gowletthomesae is a new species of sea pen from Australia. It can attach to rocky surfaces.
Luiz Rocha via Calif. Academy of Sciences
Sparisoma sp. is a new species of parrotfish from Sao Tome.
Fidanza and Almeda / Calif. Academy of Sciences
Cambessedesia uncinata is a new species of subshrub from Brazil, described in Harvard Papers in Botany.
Robert Van Syoc via Calif. Academy of Sciences
Minyaspis amylaneae is a new species of barnacle from Fiji. Minyaspis is also a new genus, one of three described in the journal Zootaxa.
The folks at the California Academy of Sciences aren't the only ones taking stock of new species. Earlier this week, the WWF conservation group noted that 208 newly described species, including a "psychedelic gecko," were recorded in Southeast Asia's Mekong River region during 2010. Australian researchers say they've found more than 1,000 new species in the country's Outback, and they estimate another 3,500 are waiting to be discovered beneath the arid topsoil. They say thousands more species of small animals are probably still undiscovered in Africa and South America.
"If you start multiplying this on a global basis, there's likely to be massive diversity that will be uncovered in coming decades," Andy Austin, a biologist at the Australian Center for Evolutionary Biology and Biodiversity at the University of Adelaide, is quoted as saying.
But if all that biodiversity is just waiting to be discovered, why do we hear all this talk about a modern extinction crisis? It's because hundreds or thousands of other species are passing into oblivion every year. That was the point behind the WWF's survey of the Mekong Delta.
"While the 2010 discoveries are new to science, many are already destined for the dinner table, struggling to survive in shrinking habitats and at risk of extinction," Stuart Chapman, conservation director of WWF Greater Mekong, said in a news release. Vietnam's Javan rhino population is among the latest to bite the dust.
Another just-released study puts the issue in terms that a 6-year-old could understand: One out of every six species related to the characters in the movie "Finding Nemo" is facing extinction, according to researchers at Simon Fraser University and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Among the most threatened are the real-life kin of Squirt and Crush the marine turtles, Anchor the hammer head shark and Sheldon the seahorse.
"It's unthinkable that the characters in 'Finding Nemo' could become extinct, but this is the reality unless we pay more attention to the diversity of marine life," SFU's Loren McClenachan, the study's lead author, said in a news release. The report is due to be published in the journal Conservation Biology.
Are all these concerns leading you to lose your appetite for shark-fin soup and rhino-horn concoctions? Feel free to weigh in below with your comments on the campaign to find species and keep them from being lost.
This satellite image provided by the the DigitalGlobe Analysis Center shows the Chinese aircraft carrier Shi Lang (Varyag) sailing in the Yellow Sea. The picture was acquired Dec. 8 by DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
A commercial satellite operator says it has captured a rare image of China's first aircraft carrier as it sailed through the Yellow Sea, after going through an exercise that's the 21st-century equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack.
DigitalGlobe said the aircraft carrier showed up on a cloud-filled picture snapped on Dec. 8 by its polar-orbiting QuickBird satellite from a height of 280 miles (450 kilometers). An analyst spotted the ship while checking the image on Tuesday, said Stephen Wood, the director of the company's analysis center.
"There is something that is always indispensable about having people involved," Wood told me. The ship was identified "using a combination of the satellite imagery plus open-source material on the Internet, and geography," he said, but "at the end of the day, it still comes down to a person."
Experts have been hoping for months to get a glimpse of the aircraft carrier at sea. The former Soviet Union started building the ship, originally known as the Varyag, but never finished it. After the Soviet breakup, the Varyag ended up in the hands of the Ukrainian government. The ship was auctioned off to the Chinese in 1998. Since then, the Varyag, which has reportedly been rechristened the Shi Lang, has been under refurbishment for sea service.
"This is a ship and a story that has had legs for many years," Wood said.
DigitalGlobe
Don't feel bad if you can't spot the aircraft carrier in this wide-field version of the satellite image from QuickBird. It's in the very center of the picture.
NBC's Brian Williams reports on the DigitalGlobe satellite picture.
DigitalGlobe said this picture was taken during the carrier's second sea trial, approximately 62 miles (100 kilometers) south-southeast of the port of Dalian. Wood said the picture indicates that the ship is "moving at a decent rate of speed, which would be expected in the middle of the ocean." The U.S. military could no doubt glean more information about the Shi Lang's status, from QuickBird's pictures as well as from classified, higher-resolution imagery.
China says the Shi Lang will be used for research and training, and the project is thought to be part of the country's strategy to expand its presence as a naval power. The Chinese military is expected to build more copies of the ship in coming years. In fact, sources told Reuters in July that a second aircraft carrier was under construction.
"China's next moves have to be watched carefully, or there eventually could be a negative impact on maritime safety in Asia," Yoshihiko Yamada, a professor at Japan's Tokai University, told Reuters at the time.
QuickBird's view of the Shi Lang serves as today's offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features an image of Earth from space every day from now until Christmas. Here are the past offerings in the series:
Update for 10:45 p.m. ET: The Associated Press' Dan Elliott got in touch with a Pentagon spokeswoman, Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, who said the progress made by the Chinese on the aircraft carrier was in line with the U.S. military's expectations. A Defense Department report to Congress said the carrier could become operationally available to China's navy by the end of next year, but without aircraft. "From that point, it will take several additional years before the carrier has an operationally viable air group," Hull-Ryde told Elliott in an email.
BirdBrain Technologies / Carnegie Mellon University
A triangular gadget called the Brainlink is attached to an old Roomba vacuum cleaner. Controlled via Bluetooth connection with a smartphone or computer, the device can teach old robots new tricks. Add-on sensors, for example, teach Roomba to avoid hitting walls.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
Here's how aging robots such as the Roomba vacuum cleaner and the Robosapien toybot might gain a new life: With a triangular wireless attachment called Brainlink, any old IR-controlled bot can become your best friend again.
This gadget establishes a Bluetooth connection with an Android-based smartphone or laptop computer. You can then write and run programs that communicate with Brainlink, which in turn talks to the robot via infrared signals that mimic the signals coming from the device's remote control.
So, for example, a "joystick" app on a phone can control the Robosapien with the touch of directional buttons. In "puppet mode," the phone's accelerometer is used to control the bot – tilt the phone to the left and the robot leans to the left.
The device, which was built by a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff company BirdBrain Technologies, also comes with ports for connecting additional sensors. This might come in handy, for example, to upgrade the Roomba with proximity sensors so that it can avoid hitting walls.
The technology is aimed squarely at "people who like to hack around or for educators who want to spice up a computer science or electrical engineering class," Tom Lauwers, who heads BirdBrain Technologies, said in a news release.
That is, casual users of Roombas and Robosapiens may find their faithful old dogs more interesting and fun in an age when robot technology is growing by leaps and bounds.
To learn more about the Brainlink, check out the introductory video below.
Brainlink is a new controller that allows you to create rich programs for toy robots and home automation.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
NASA
A picture taken from the International Space Station on Aug. 18 shows Sicily and the toe of Italy's "boot" at night, from a height of 220 miles.
Tonight's the night for Scandinavian girls to don crowns of candles and lead processions through the night, in celebration of St. Lucy's Day. In some locales, sweets and gifts are passed out to children. In others, the parties go on all night.
Although it's best known as a Swedish yuletide holiday, the roots of St. Lucy's Day actually go back to Sicily, where the saint lived and died. Lucy is thought to have lived in Syracuse, a city on the island of Sicily, and suffered a martyr's death around the year 310, on Dec. 13. That date has been celebrated as her feast day since the 1300s.
St. Lucy is said to deliver gifts to good children on the night of Dec. 12-13, in the company of a donkey and an escort named Castaldo. The children are told to leave out some coffee for Lucy, some flour for the donkey, and bread for Castaldo — kind of like the milk and cookies that American kids leave for Santa Claus. Click on over to "Your Guide to Italy" for more about the traditions of St. Lucy's Day.
Candlelight processions are a big part of the St. Lucy's Day festivities, whether you're in Sweden or Sicily. This night photograph of Sicily, snapped on Aug. 18 from the International Space Station, shows the island as if it were lit up for "Santa Lucia." It's tonight's offering from the Cosmic Log Advent Calendar, which highlights views of Earth from space every day from now until Christmas. We'll serve up another visual treat on Wednesday, and in the meantime, catch up on the calendar entries you may have missed:
Media Lab postdoc Andreas Velten, left, and Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar with the experimental setup they used to produce slow-motion video of light scattering through a plastic bottle.
By John Roach, Contributing Writer, NBC News
A new imaging system that captures visual data at a rate of one-trillion-frames per second is fast enough to create virtual super-slow-motion videos of light particles traveling and scattering through space.
For reference, light particles — photons — travel about a million times faster than a speeding bullet.
While that's fast, researchers at MIT's Media Lab have developed a system for capturing data on the movement of photons through space and time and then stitching that data together in a computer to create virtual slow-motion videos.
An imaging solution allows researchers to visualize the propagation of light at an effective rate of one trillion frames per second.
In the video above, for example, a burst of laser light is seen traveling through a soda bottle and bouncing off the cap. Other videos show a ripple of laser light move across a table, over and into a tomato, and up a wall.
"What you see in the videos is an average of many pulses," Andreas Velten, a researcher in MIT's Media Lab who is leading the effort, explained to me Tuesday. "If we capture one pulse, we don't get enough information. First of all because it is too faint and second because we only see one line at a time."
The technique to create the videos relies on what's called a streak camera. The aperture — opening — of this camera is a narrow slit that provides a reasonable field of view in the horizontal direction, but very limited view in the vertical — essentially a line, or row of pixels.
"It can only see one line, but it gives you a very high frame rate — a trillion-frames-per second," Velten said. This allows the researchers to make a movie of one scan line. Several pulses of light are used to compose each scan line movie to improve image quality, he noted.
Then, a system of mirrors in front of the camera changes the field of view slightly so that a movie of the next line can be made. The process continues for each line of a scene, such as a pulse of light moving through a bottle. Then, the computer uses all this information to create the virtual slow-motion movies.
"So what you are seeing is actually an average of many pulses, but because our camera and laser are synchronized very well, all the pulses look exactly the same," Velten said. "That's basically the trick."
According to the researchers, it takes only a nanosecond — a billionth of a second — for light to scatter through a bottle, but it takes nearly an hour to collect enough data to stitch together a video.
While watching photons move through soda bottles and across tables is visually cool and educational, the technology could be used to study the properties of materials, as well in scientific and medical imaging, even "ultrasound with light," the researchers suggest.
For more on this technology, check out the video below featuring Velten and his adviser, Ramesh Raskar.
MIT Media Lab researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion frames per second. That's fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of light traveling through objects.
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
The band is getting back together: Seven years after winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize, software billionaire Paul Allen and aerospace guru Burt Rutan are teaming up with SpaceX and other top-flight rocketeers to create an air-launched orbital delivery system. They say the venture will require the construction of the largest aircraft ever flown.
Allen unveiled his new company, Stratolaunch Systems, at a Seattle news conference today. It marks his first space venture since the partnership with Rutan to build the prize-winning SpaceShipOne rocket plane, which became the first privately developed craft to reach outer space in 2004.
The Seattle native, who made his fortune as a Microsoft co-founder, said he's long dreamed of following up on SpaceShipOne's success with another revolutionary space effort. "You have a certain number of dreams in your life that you want to fulfill, and this is a dream I'm very excited about," he told journalists and VIPs at the headquarters of Vulcan Inc., which serves as the umbrella company for many of Allen's ventures.
Rutan, who retired from Scaled Composites in April at the age of 67, will serve as a board member for Stratolaunch. He said Allen was the "perfect team member and customer" when they worked on SpaceShipOne. "I'm looking forward to doing that again," Rutan said.
The new venture is significant for the revival of the Allen-Rutan partnership, with the addition of California-based SpaceX and Alabama-based Dynetics as new suppliers. It's like putting Roy Orbison and Bruce Springsteen on the same music stage.
Other players include Gary Wentz, a former chief engineer at NASA, who will serve as Stratolaunch's CEO and president; and former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, who is on the board. Griffin said the Stratolaunch air-launch system could make spaceflight more routine by removing many of the constraints associated with ground-based launches. However, getting the company off the ground will require a large investment as well as "the courage to fly through failure to get to success," Griffin said.
Allen agreed that his latest venture won't come cheap. He said he'll spend "at least an order of magnitude more than I put into SpaceShipOne." Allen's investment in SpaceShipOne was estimated at $25 to $30 million, which suggests he's prepared to put at least $250 million to $300 million into Stratolaunch.
Mothership plus rocket The Stratolaunch system would super-size the arrangement used for the SpaceShipOne launches: Scaled Composites has been tapped to build a carrier airplane that weighs more than 1.2 million pounds, with a wingspan of more than 380 feet. That tonnage rivals the weight of the Antonov An-225, which is recognized as the world's heaviest aircraft. Stratolaunch's dual-fuselage plane would be powered by six 747 engines, and would require a 12,000-foot runway for landing.
Wentz said the venture already has a contract to acquire two Boeing 747s. The engines as well as other subsystems would be used on the Stratolaunch super-carrier. However, Scaled Composites President Doug Shane told me that the 747's metal skin wouldn't go onto the plane. Instead, the new plane's wings and fuselage structure would be fabricated from advanced carbon composites.
Rutan joked that the plane was "relatively close to building, as soon as we can get a building big enough."
The plane would be capable of flying up to 1,300 nautical miles to reach its launch point. SpaceX would provide a shortened version of its Falcon 9 rocket for the next phase of Stratolaunch's route to orbit. Wentz described it as a "Falcon 4 or 5." The multistage booster would be attached to the plane using a mating and integration system developed by Dynetics, and released during the mothership's flight at 30,000 feet. After release, the 490,000-pound rocket would light up to send commercial and government payloads weighing up to 13,500 pounds into low Earth orbit.
Elaine Thompson / AP
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, right, shakes hands with former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan looks on, following a Seattle news conference to announce the creation of Stratolaunch Systems.
Griffin said the Stratolaunch system would initially serve "a thriving commercial satellite market, small to medium" — the type of market previously served by the now-retired Delta 2 rocket.
Wentz said the rocket to be developed by SpaceX would not compete with SpaceX's own Falcon 9, which can lift 23,050 pounds to low Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. Allen said "we're in a different class of payload size," and SpaceX's vice president for government sales, Adam Harris, concurred. "There's room in that [payload] class for something new," Harris told me.
Allen said the Stratolaunch system won't take on human passengers until the system's safety and reliability are fully demonstrated. But if and when it does, "we could be very competitive" with the $60 million-a-seat fee that the Russians will be charging NASA over the next few years, he said. Rutan suggested that people could make up a significant share of the payloads in the longer term. "I don't think there's any limit to the number of payloads in that category," he said.
Stratolaunch's briefing materials said more than 100 people have already been assigned to the effort in California and Florida as well as in Alabama, where the company is headquartered. Flight tests of the plane are due to start in 2015, with the rocket added to the test phase in 2016. The plane will be tested at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, but the base for launch operations has not yet been selected.
Re-entering the space race Allen and his partners say air-launched systems can send payloads into space at lower cost, with greater safety, more flexibility and faster turnaround time than ground-launched systems. That would be because the carrier airplane effectively gives the rocket a head start on its ascent to orbit, and can launch from a variety of midflight locations. But the launch industry is becoming more competitive, thanks in part to the rise of SpaceX and smaller rocket companies such as Masten Space Systems and Armadillo Aerospace.
Someday, Allen and Rutan may find themselves in competition with Virgin Galactic, which has incorporated SpaceShipOne technology into the SpaceShipTwo rocket plane and is expected to start commercial service in the next year or two. Today, however, Virgin Galactic issued a statement welcoming the new venture.
"It takes me back to the exciting conversations the three of us had in 2004 when we first started talking about commercializing SpaceShipOne technology," Virgin Galactic's founder, British billionaire Richard Branson, said in the statement. "We've come a long way since then; WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are built and flying, and we have nearly 500 private individuals and science researchers signed up and ready to fly. The potential of the industry we are leading is immense but will depend on the continuing emergence of truly safe, affordable and transformative technologies. Burt and Paul's record in that respect is unmatched. I hope that in due course, in partnership with Stratolaunch and others, we will be able to repeat the pattern that has worked so spectacularly well in the suborbital sphere, for orbital spaceflight.”
Watch the full Stratolaunch Systems news conference in Seattle.
The commercial space race may have changed over the past seven years, but Allen clearly wants to get back on the track. At the end of his autobiography, "Idea Man," he dropped a broad hint about the plans announced today. "I'm just now considering a new initiative with that magical contraption I never wearied of sketching as a boy: the rocket ship," he wrote. "Someone, after all, is going to have to get behind SpaceShipThree."
But does Allen expect to ride the Stratolaunch into space someday? During the news conference, the 58-year-old billionaire said he'd probably wait until a good number of flights have been flown. "I'm actually a really conservative guy in some aspects," he confessed.
Correction for 4:20 p.m. ET Dec. 13: I originally wrote that two failed NASA missions (Orbiting Carbon Observatory and Glory) were launched using air-launched systems — but they were actually launched from the ground, using Orbital Taurus XL rockets. Sorry about the error. I had the Orbital Pegasus XL in mind, which has recorded a string of successful launches from the air going back to 1997. The Taurus XL was derived from the air-launched Pegasus XL.
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
