NEW SCIENTIST WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
No 67, 13 January 2001
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The festive season is over and life has returned to normal. In the
science world, this means you could come across Philip Watts donning a
pair of wings, dressing up in a bat-like suit with webbed arms, or
opening and shutting an umbrella while standing on a weighing scales.
Yes, scientists are back at work. The researcher at Applied Fluids
Engineering in Long Beach, California, is simulating propulsion systems
used by creatures on Earth in an attempt to calculate how they would
fare in microgravity conditions. Watts and his colleague David Carrier,
a comparative physiologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City,
are searching for the best way for people to get around a large space
station under their own steam. And the researchers may have found what
they're looking for. If they are right, tomorrow's astronauts could be
"jogging" around space powered by umbrella-shaped devices strapped to
their feet...
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227329
SPEED BUMPS
In fact, things are going well for Watts. So far, the umbrella
has been a great source of inspiration for the researcher, and so too
has the humpback whale. The mysterious lumps, or tubercles, on
humpbacks' fins and heads have long puzzled biologists. Now, together
with Frank Fish of West Chester University in Pennsylvania, Watts has
simulated the effect of these tubercles and has found that not only do
they reduce drag by 10 per cent, they also increase lift by 5 per cent.
According to Watts, "It's very rare to find something that does both at
the same time." The researcher suspects that these tubercles help the
whales make tight turns as they pursue prey and could hold the key to
improving the manoeuvrability of boats and aircraft.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227334
DRILLING FOR MARTIANS
Meanwhile, there's more engineering excitement at NASA's Center for Mars
Exploration at the Ames Research Center in California. If life ever
existed on Mars, the only remaining traces may be buried more than a
kilometre down. But Martian soil is a mixture of sand, dust and rocks
cemented together with mineral salts. Trying to drill into it is about
as easy as "digging in a sandpit". Geoff Briggs and his colleagues,
however, have developed a metre-long spear which could solve the
problem. This new tool has a tip which heats up to 1500 degrees Celsius
and "melts pretty much any type of rock". The molten rock then turns to
glass, holds the surrounding soil in place, and produces a
self-supporting hole which should make it much easier to "get to the
bottom" of the Red Planet.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227323
NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT
Sadly, not all of us are settling back into work as smoothly as the
engineers seem to be. So, for any deadline dodgers out there who have
recently been subjected to red-faced yells of "NOW means NOW", here's
some reassuring news. Scientists in Britain have discovered that there
may be no such thing as "now". Using sounds and lights, Jim Stone and
his colleagues at the University of Sheffield looked at differences in
the time it takes for audio and visual stimuli to reach people's
consciousness. This research has produced evidence which strongly
suggests that the present is subjective and that the perception of "now"
varies from person to person...
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227324
OUT OF THIS WORLD
When a star wobbles Geoffrey Marcy wants to be the first to know about
it. The professor of astronomy at the University of California at
Berkeley is a leading authority on planets outside our Solar System and
a fierce competitor in the race to find and announce new worlds. Planet
hunting is now an intensely competitive business, a bit like Formula 1
racing. We talk to the "Michael Schumacher" of extrasolar exploration, a
passionate astronomer who says that to discover how our Solar System
fits into the grand scheme of planetary systems would "bring tears" to
his eyes.
http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opinion.jsp?id=ns227345
TERRESTRIAL TOT
Marcy may be excited by the prospect of learning something about our
position in the Galaxy, but Charles Lineweaver has information which
indicates that the discovery could be somewhat humbling. By cleverly
combining a host of factors that determine the formation and destruction
of terrestrial planets, the researcher at the University of New South
Wales in Sydney estimates that three-quarters of all Earth-like planets
will be on average about 1.8 billion years older than Earth. "This
analysis gives us an age distribution for life on such planets and a
rare clue about how we compare to other life which may inhabit the
Universe," says Lineweaver. In other words, intelligent life on these
"older" planets may be so highly advanced that to them we seem little
better than bacteria.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227327
A DIRTY BUSINESS
The average human may not be thrilled about being compared to a
bacterium, but it's worth remembering that most of our natural
antibiotics come from soil-dwelling bacteria. How and why do they
produce them? Find out in this week's Last Word section.
http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/lastword.jsp?id=lw1314
DISASTER IN THE MAKING
In a well-intentioned experiment an Australian research team has
accidentally spawned a killer virus. The researchers were trying to
create a mouse contraceptive for pest control. What they ended up with
was a virus which wiped out all the animals within nine days. The
modified mousepox does not affect humans, but it is closely related to
smallpox and its implications for biowarfare are chilling. As Ken
Alibek, former second-in-command of the civilian branch of the Soviet
germ-warfare programme points out, "It's a good way to show how to alter
smallpox to make it more virulent."
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999311
AND FINALLY...
He's Australian. He's 60,000 years old. And he may be about to turn our
theory of human origins on its head. Meet Mungo Man...
http://www.newscientist.com/dailynews/news.jsp?id=ns9999307
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