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Impact on Jupiter Observed by Amateur Astronomers->

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes "Space Weather has the story of a bright impact observed on Jupiter, they also have video (WMV file) from one of the amateur sky watchers — pay attention, it goes by quick! From the article:

The nature of the impactor is presently unknown. It might have been an asteroid or a comet. In either case, a dark and cindery debris field is expected to develop around the impact point; that's what has happened in the aftermath of previous Jupiter impacts. Professional and amateur astronomers are encouraged to monitor Jupiter in the hours ahead, and stay tuned for updates.

"
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Science

Forensic Astronomer is an Awesome Job Title->

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes "New Scientist's CultureLab blog has an interesting post about Donald Olson (Physicist, Texas State University) the preeminent Forensic Astronomer in the world and how he figured out which astronomic event Walt Whitman described in his poem "Year of Meteors (1859-60)". Turns out it was a meteor procession. From the post:

Meteor processions are exceedingly rare. A lot of astronomers probably don't even know the term. We only know of four of them [the one in 1913 being the most recent]. Meteor processions happen when an Earth-grazer fragments early in its passage and you see multiple fireballs travelling majestically and slowly across the sky in a nearly horizontal path, from horizon to horizon. While a typical meteor may be visible from a fraction of a second to one or two seconds, a meteor procession can last for up to a minute [for a single observer].

The investigation centered around a Thomas Church painting."
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Space

Forensic Astronomer Solves Walt Whitman Mystery 44

Posted by kdawson
from the signs-and-portents dept.
New Scientist has a piece on the uncommon art of forensic astronomy. Texas State University physicist Donald Olson has solved the mystery of Walt Whitman's meteor poem, thanks to clues found in an 1860 painting by Frederic Church. "Before we were done we had collected 300 records of observations [of the event]. I think this may be the most observed, and most documented, single meteor event in history. From the Great Lakes to New England, every town that had a newspaper wrote about that meteor. ... So we've got one of America's greatest landscape artists, Frederic Church, watching the meteor from Catskill, and we've got one of America's greatest poets, Walt Whitman, watching the meteor from New York City." The field of forensic astronomy may have gotten its start more than 30 years before, when art historian Roberta Olson argued convincingly that the lifelike comet in Giotto's "Adoration of the Magi" in Padua, Italy, in fact depicted Halley's Comet in its visitation of 1301.
Science

We are Neandertals, some of us anyway-> 1

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes "John Hawks, on his personal blog, has an excellent (and lengthy) write up on two pieces of research on the Neandertal genome that will be published in this week's Science.

From the article...
"Richard Green and colleagues report on the genome, demonstrating very convincingly that present-day people have Neandertal ancestors. It is not entirely obvious when and where the gene flow between Neandertals and other ancient populations happened — whether it was associated with the dispersal of most of our ancestry from Africa, or whether it may have been earlier. The gene flow was not limited to Europe, and evidence for Neandertal ancestry occurs in East Asian and Australasian populations.""
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NASA

13 Things that Saved Apollo 13->

Submitted by philcheesesteak
philcheesesteak writes "Nancy Atkinson of Universe Today writes "2010 is the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13, and Universe Today had the chance to talk with Woodfill about his role in Apollo 13, a mission which many believe should have ended fatally for astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert. But it didn't, and the mission has come to be called a "successful failure."
The article lists 13 factors, from the crew itself to system failure circumstances to duct tape, that Woodfill believes to have conspired to allow the safe return of the Apollo 13 crew."
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Science

Don't Steal Fossils!->

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes "New Scientist has an interesting expose of Nate Murphy, an amateur fossil hunter in Montana and his rise to relative fame and subsequent fall. Short version: Stealing fossils is bad, doing it poorly is incredibly stupid and harms the science. Mr. Murphy has some very impressive finds including a very rare so-called "mummified" dinosaur (not mummified in the Egyptian sense, but quickly fossilized to preserve soft tissue features including stomach contents). Too bad the questionable legality of the finds has held up the science bonanza that some of these fossils represent."
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Space

Buzz Aldrin takes NASA to task on ARES-1X->

Submitted by Omomyid
Omomyid writes "Buzz has an post over on HuffPo arguing for a better direction in Rocket development for deep-space exploration. He lays bare the smoke and mirrors of the recent Ares-1X launch and proposes
1. Outsourcing ISS ferry services to private firms
2. Dumping the Ares program
3. Developing a true deep-space rocket via competition between NASA and anyone else who wants to play (hey, did he mention he's got a rocket design in mind? yeah, yeah he did)
Buzz is always outspoken, but then again he's been there, done that and he's got the credentials to be taken seriously."
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Science

Ardipithecus ramidus described (finally)->

Submitted by
Omomyid
Omomyid writes "I wasn't actually aware that Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus but apparently he has (I remember the original flurry of interest back in the 90's when it was announced), but now Dr. White and others have assembled a nearly complete skeleton of the 4.4mya specimen and the descriptions being carried by the NY Times and AP are intriguing. Ramidus is clearly differentiated from the other Great Apes and also more primitive than A. afarensis (Lucy) providing a nice linkage backwards to the last shared ancestor between humans and chimpanzees. According to the NY Times, a whole passel of papers will be published in tomorrow's Science magazine describing A. ramidus."
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Medicine

Artificial Heart Recipient Has No Pulse 465

Posted by Soulskill
from the just-a-low-pitched-hum dept.
laggist writes "A heart patient in Singapore has been implanted with an artificial heart that pumps blood continuously, allowing her to live without a pulse. From the article: '... the petite Madam Salina, who suffers from end-stage heart failure, would not have been able to use the older and bulkier models because they can only be implanted in patients 1.7m or taller. The 30-year-old administrative assistant is the first recipient here to get a new artificial heart that pumps blood continuously, the reason why there are no beats on her wrist.'" The story is light on details, but an article from last year in MIT's Technology Review explains a bit more about how a pulse-less artificial heart works.

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. -- Lily Tomlin