News Bytes Of the Week—Robot Race to the Moon

A green planet gone bad—relax, it's just a video game

A planet in near ecological ruin is in desperate need of alternative energy sources, including solar, water and wind. Obvious parallels with today's Earth aside, this predicament describes the PowerUp sci-fi multiplayer online game recently launched by IBM, not a company typically associated with gaming. PowerUp emerged from the TryScience initiative (sponsored by IBM, the New York Hall of Science and the Association of Science-Technology Centers), whose goal is to get children interested in conservation as well as engineering, science and technology. They aim to use video games as the medium for that message, an approach that Electronic Arts Inc. has likewise pursued with its recent SimCity Societies release. In PowerUp, players are encouraged, for example, to ride over rugged mountains in buggies, build solar towers or search through junk yards to find parts to repair wind turbines. The twist is that this crippled society had already solved its energy problems through the use of sun, water and wind power, only to become complacent and abandon these green technologies. Talk about science fiction!

Whoops, the sun may vaporize Earth after all

British researchers report they've revamped their calculations of Earth's fate during the sun's predicted death, starting about 6.5 billion years from now—and it's not looking good. Their earlier thinking was that as the sun expanded into a red giant, it would shed considerable mass in the form of solar wind, which would weaken its pull on Earth enough for the planet's orbit to enlarge, thereby avoiding destruction, if not a good charring. Now they say one tiny factor was overlooked: the fact that the sun's wispy but expansive outer atmosphere would exert a drag on our mother world, causing it to plunge into the raging red monster and be vaporized. You might think there's nothing to be done, but it ain't necessarily so: They optimistically note that if we could orchestrate a near miss between Earth and a large asteroid once every 6,000 years, we could gradually nudge our planet's orbit far enough out to stay intact and even habitable. Or we could jump ship to another planet. Just a thought. (uk.arXiv.org)

GOOGLE'S MOONSHOT: The winner of the Google Lunar X PRIZE will be the first team to successfully land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 1,640 feet (500 meters), and transmit video, images and data back to Earth.
iStockphoto; Copyright Dan Barnes

Robots race to the moon for $20-million prize

The race to be the first to land a robot probe on the moon—and collect the $20 million grand prize attached to that feat—has tightened significantly as 10 teams announced they will contend for the Google Lunar X PRIZE. Entrants include Astrobotic Technology, Inc. (made up of engineers from the University of Arizona, Carnegie Mellon University and Raytheon Missile Systems Co.), Quantum3 Ventures (a private Washington, D.C., enterprise formed last month), LunaTrex (a consortium of aerospace companies, along with the University of Dayton in Ohio) and FREDNET (a multinational team of systems, software and hardware developers whose approach includes the use of open-source software and the Internet). The winner will be the first team to successfully land a privately funded spacecraft on the moon, rove on the lunar surface for a minimum of 1,640 feet (500 meters), and transmit video, images and data back to Earth. The grand prize will drop to $15 million if no one successfully completes the mission by the end of 2012, and the competition will be terminated if the teams come up empty by the end of 2014. The moon's rising, but the clock's ticking.

Where can an earthworm go to find good, clean dirt?

Earthworms eat poop spread on agricultural fields as fertilizer, and end up with heavy loads of disinfectants, fragrances and even pharmaceuticals. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey collected worms from three fields—a soybean field with sewage sludge spread on top, a cornfield fertilized with swine manure, and another soy field with no applications of either in seven years. Of the 28 contaminants in the sewage field soil, 25 showed up in the worms, including tributyl phosphate (a flame retardant), trimethoprim (an antibiotic) and the disinfectant triclosan—a pollution trifecta. It is unclear what effects, if any, these chemicals are having on the worms—or how they might be moving up the food chainbut the worms carried them at much higher concentrations than the surrounding soil, suggesting that the creatures are retaining the substances. And the problem is not confined just to those fields that get the sewage treatment. The researchers found that some of the same compounds, such as triclosan, showed up in all three fields, indicating that they might linger in the soil for years or find their way into farm fields through nearby septic systems or runoff. (USGS; Environmental Science & Technology)

G marks the spot, or sometimes not

If the elusive G spot is for real, then not all women seem to have it equally. MDs used ultrasound to scan the private parts of 20 women, nine of whom reported they experience so-called vaginal orgasms (without direct clitoral stimulation), whereas the rest of whom said no dicetry something else. The mind-blowing climax: the vaginal O group had on average a thicker urethrovaginal space—an area separating the urethra from the front wall of the vagina—where the G spot is alleged to reside and, if it can be found, trigger orgasms. Surveys have indicated that 70 percent of women don't get off during intercourse, which some interpret as a dysfunction (read: male inadequacy). The new finding, to be published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, adds to evidence that says: nope, it's just plain ole physiology.

Gray wolf becomes fair game

The gray wolf—Canis lupus—will no longer enjoy the protection of the federal government's Endangered Species Act in the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. The roughly 1,500 wolves in this area of the northern Rockies had been protected for a (lucky?) 13 years but now face the wrath of Idaho Governor C. L. "Butch" Otter (R) who vowed, "I'm prepared to bid for that first ticket to shoot a wolf myself" as well as to cull 80 percent of the 650 or so wolves in his state via hunting or other means. But wolf-lovers, such as the lawyers at Earthjustice (founded in 1971 as part of the Sierra Club), plan to sue the feds to protect the wolves from aggressive state management plans. "The enduring hostility to wolves still exists," Earthjustice attorney Doug Honnold told the Associated Press. Howl! (USA Today)

NASA images spark life on Mars speculations

REAL OR ILLUSION? The image has set the Internet abuzz that there really is life on Mars.

JUST LIKE US: The NASA images show a woman-like figure.

SO FAR: An arrow points towrds the woman-like figure.

London: Life on Mars? Well, bizarre images have emerged showing a mystery female figure walking down a hill on the arid planet.

The photo of what looks like a naked woman with her arm outstretched was among several taken on the red planet and sent back to Earth by NASA's Mars explorer Spirit, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed website.

Though no official confirmation has come from NASA whether the figure is an alien or an optical illusion caused by a landscape on Mars, it has set the Internet abuzz that there really is life on Mars.

As one enthusiast put it on the website, "These pictures are amazing. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what appears to be a naked alien running around on Mars."

The news of the mystery woman on Mars came just days after a team of French scientists claimed to have discovered proof that the red planet possesses high-level dense clouds of dry ice, which scud across its orange sky.

Using data obtained by the OMEGA spectrometer on board ESA's Mars Express, the team found the existence of the ice clouds which sometimes become so dense that they throw quite dark shadows on the dusty surface of the red planet.

"This is the first time that carbon dioxide ice clouds on Mars have been imaged and identified from above. This is important because the images tell us not only about their shape, but also their size and density."

"Previously, we had to rely on indirect information. However, it is very difficult to separate the signals coming from the clouds, atmosphere and surface," according to lead scientist Franck Montmessin of the Service d'Aeronomie at University of Versailles.

Wiring diagrams

The difference between a schematic diagram and a wiring diagram is the amount of
detail included. In a schematic diagram, the interconnection of the components is
shown, but the actual values of the components are not necessarily indicated.
You might see a diagram of a two-transistor audio amplifier, for example, with resistors
and capacitors and coils and transistors, but without any data concerning the
values or ratings of the components. This is a schematic diagram, but not a true wiring
diagram. It gives the scheme for the circuit, but you can’t wire the circuit and make it
work, because there isn’t enough information.
Suppose you want to build the circuit. You go to an electronics store to get the
parts. What sizes of resistors should you buy? How about capacitors? What type of transistor
will work best? Do you need to wind the coils yourself, or can you get them ready
made? Are there test points or other special terminals that should be installed for the
benefit of the technicians who might have to repair the amplifier? How many watts
should the potentiometers be able to handle? All these things are indicated in a wiring
diagram, a jazzed-up schematic. You might have seen this kind of diagram in the back of
the instruction manual for a hi-fi amp or an FM stereo tuner or a television set. Wiring
diagrams are especially useful and necessary when you must service or repair an electronic
device.

Oscilloscopes

Another graphic meter is the oscilloscope. This measures and records quantities that
vary rapidly, at rates of hundreds, thousands, or millions of times per second. It creates
a “graph” by throwing a beam of electrons at a phosphor screen. A cathode-ray tube,
similar to the kind in a television set, is employed.
Oscilloscopes are useful for looking at the shapes of signal waveforms, and also for
measuring peak signal levels (rather than just the effective levels). An oscilloscope can
also be used to approximately measure the frequency of a waveform. The horizontal
scale of an oscilloscope shows time, and the vertical scale shows instantaneous voltage.
An oscilloscope can indirectly measure power or current, by using a known value of resistance
across the input terminals.
Technicians and engineers develop a sense of what a signal waveform should look
like, and then they can often tell, by observing the oscilloscope display, whether or not
the circuit under test is behaving the way it should. This is a subjective kind of
“measurement, “ since it is qualitative as well as quantitative. If a wave shape “looks
wrong,” it might indicate distortion in a circuit, or possibly even betray a burned-out
component someplace.

BLATHERSKITE

A noisy talker of blatant rubbish; foolish talk or nonsense.

This is actually a Scots word, really a pair of words, known from the seventeenth century on. These days, though, it’s more American than either British or Scots. That came about through one of those curious accidents of linguistic history that make the study of etymology such fun.

Both halves of the word seem to be from Old Norse. Blether is a Scots word meaning loquacious claptrap, which comes from Old Norse blathra, to talk nonsense; it exists in various forms now, such as blather or blither (if you call someone a blithering idiot, as people in Britain often did in my youth, you’re using the same word, though most of the meaning had by then been leached out of it). Skate (skite, as Australians and New Zealanders will know it) is more problematic, but is the Scots word for a person held in contempt because of his boasting, which may derive from an Old Norse word meaning to shoot (and, if true, is probably the origin of the American skeet, as in skeet shooting, so that phrase actually means “shoot shooting”).

Blatherskite is first recorded in an old Scots ballad called Maggie Lauder, attributed to Francis Sempill (or Semple) and dated about 1643, still well known today. There are various transcriptions of the first verse, one being:

Wha wadnae be in love
wi’ bonnie Maggie Lauder?
A piper met her gaun tae Fife
and speirt what was’t they ca’d her.
Right dauntingly she answered him,
“Begone ye hallanshaker.
Jog on your gate ye blether skyte,
my name is Maggie Lauder”.

A rough translation into modern English is:

Who wouldn't be in love
with beautiful Maggie Lauder?
A piper met her going to Fife
and asked what people called her.
Discouragingly she answered him,
“Go away, you vagabond!
Be on your way, you talkative boaster,
my name is Maggie Lauder”.

The song was pleasantly risqué (the piper, for instance, explains how all the girls swoon when he blows his chanter) and was very popular with the American side in the War of Independence. This introduced bletherskate, later blatherskite, to the American vocabulary, where it has remained ever since, albeit hardly on everyone’s lips daily.

LEECHCRAFT

The art of healing.

Leeches have in earlier times been widely used in medicine as a way to remove “bad blood” from patients and to restore the balance of the humours or bodily fluids. After a century and a half in which they fell almost totally out of use, they are returning in some specialised areas, a practice called hirudotherapy, a term formed from hirudo, the Latin name for the little beasts.

So it would be reasonable to assume that that’s where leechcraft comes from. But this is a case where language trips us up. There have been two meanings for leech in English. The other one, long defunct, refers to a doctor or healer, from Old English læce, of Germanic origin.

Though it’s hardly an everyday word, you stand a good chance of coming across it in modern works of fantasy, to which it lends the necessary feeling of ancientness or otherworldliness, as in the late André Norton’s Wizard’s World of 1989: “But she was renewed in mind and body, feeling as if some leechcraft had been at work during her rest, banishing all ills.”

At one time a dog-leech was a vet, though that term could also serve as a pejorative name for a quack doctor. The ring finger was once called the leech-finger (also the medical finger and physic finger), a translation of Latin digitus medicus. We’re not sure how it got that name, though some writers say it was because the vein in it was believed to communicate directly with the heart and so gave that finger healing properties, for example in mixing ointments. Engagement and wedding rings are traditionally put on that finger of the left hand for the same reason, which is why the vein became known as the vena amoris, literally “vein of love”.