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Submission + - Software Defined Satellite Soon To Be Launched (bbc.com)

Submitted by kbahey
kbahey writes: Traditionally, large satellites are configured on the ground for specific tasks that cannot be changed after launch, even if market demands evolve.

A new satellite scheduled to be launched soon, will change all that: its coverage, bandwidth, power and frequency can all be altered in orbit.

The 3.5 tonne spacecraft will be operated by Paris-based telecom operator Eutelsat, in a R&D partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA), with manufacturer Airbus acting as the prime contractor.

A company official stated that the satellite "will bring unprecedented flexibility to our customers, allowing for in-orbit payload re-configuration and taking customisation to a new level, while also opening the way to a paradigm shift in the manufacture of telecommunications satellites".

Submission + - SPAM: What can old bones tell us? Women were scolars.

Submitted by brindafella
brindafella writes: The jaw bone of a woman who died around 1000-1200AD has specks of precious lapis lazuli (mineral) in the plaque of her teeth. This indicates that this woman would have licked the brush used in preparing precious illuminated manuscripts at the women's monastery in Dalheim in western Germany. The study by researchers from German-based Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Britain's University of York showed that women, as well as men, were part of the production of the valuable manuscripts.

Submission + - Earth's core is solid, but squishier than previously thought

Submitted by brindafella
brindafella writes: Earthquakes are telling scientists more about the core of the Earth, specifically that it is squishier than previously thought (by about 2.5%.) Associate Professor Hrvoje Tkali & Thanh-Son Phm of the Australian National University have made sense of data collected by seismographs around the world, to put new numbers on the density and pressure of the core. In Science magazine, they show that the pressure is 167.4 ± 1.6 GPa in Earth’s center. For reference, standard atmospheric pressure us 101,325Pa so the centre of the Earth is around 61million times this pressure, but still 2.5% lower than expected.

Submission + - Vitamin B3 supplement stops some birth defects & miscarriages

Submitted by brindafella
brindafella writes: The landmark finding about vitamin B3, made by the Victor Chang Institute in Sydney, Australia, has been described as "the most important discovery for pregnant women since folate". The report has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "This historic discovery, which is believed to be among Australia’s greatest ever medical breakthroughs, is expected to forever change the way pregnant women are cared for around the globe. Every year 7.9 million babies are born with a birth defect worldwide and one in four pregnant women suffer a miscarriage in Australia. In the vast majority of cases the cause of these problems has remained a mystery. Until now. This breakthrough, led by Professor Sally Dunwoodie from the Victor Chang Institute, has identified a major cause of miscarriages as well as heart, spinal, kidney and cleft palate problems in newborn babies"

Submission + - Lowell Observatory pushes to name an asteroid "Travyon" (azdailysun.com)

Submitted by Flash Modin
Flash Modin writes: The observatory where Pluto was discovered is pushing to name an asteroid after a black teenager killed in a controversial confrontation in Florida last year.

William Lowell Putnam III says his family is identified with the cause of African American rights, and thus an asteroid named after Trayvon Martin is perfectly appropriate. Putnam is the sole trustee of the observatory, which was founded by Percival Lowell during his search for canals on Mars.

Astronomers at the observatory discovered the asteroid in 2000, but it has not been formally named.

Putnam has already asked the Minor Planet Center once to designate the asteroid "Trayvon," but they told him the designation was "premature." Now that there's been a verdict, the observatory is reapplying in hopes the naming body will see things different.

Submission + - Open Source Photometry Code Allows Amateur Astronomers To Detect Exoplanets

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Have access to a telescope with a CCD? Now you can make your very own exoplanet transit curves. Brett Morris, a student from the University of Maryland, has written an open source photometry application known as Oscaar. In a recent NASA Press Release, Morris writes: "The purpose of a differential photometry code – the differential part – is to compare the changes in brightness of one star to another nearby. That way you can remove changes in stellar brightness due to the Earth's atmosphere. Our program measures the brightness change of all the stars in the telescope's field of view simultaneously, so you can pull out the change in brightness that you see from the planet-hosting star due to the transit event." The program opens up exoplanet-observing to amateur astronomers and undergraduate students across the globe.
Canada

Alberta Scientists Discover Largest-Ever Cache of Dinosaur Bones 154

Posted by Soulskill from the dino-mother-lode dept.
Cryolithic writes "The largest cache of dinosaur bones ever found has been unearthed in Alberta. From the article: '... officials at the Royal Tyrrell Museum say the Hilda site provides the first solid evidence that some horned dinosaur herds were much larger than previously thought, with numbers comfortably in the high hundreds to low thousands. ... Rather than picturing the animals as drowning while crossing a river, a classic scenario that has been used to explain bonebed occurrences at many sites in Alberta, the research team interpreted the vast coastal landscape as being submerged during tropical storms or hurricanes. With no high ground to escape to, most of the members of the herd drowned in the rising coastal waters. Carcasses were deposited in clumps across kilometers of ancient landscape as floodwaters receded.'"

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