ESA tracking station loses contact with Phobos-Grunt
The ESA tracking station that had made contact with Phobos-Grunt earlier this week failed repeatedly yesterday to re-establish contact.
Tag: science
Evidence from a cave in Australia suggests that humans were doing deep sea fishing more than 40,000 years ago
New evidence from a cave in Australia suggests that humans were doing deep sea fishing — with the sophisticated maritime skills such ocean-going requires — far earlier than previously believed, as much as 42,000 years ago.
An update on the efforts to save Phobos-Grunt
An update on the efforts to save Phobos-Grunt.
“The first pass was successful in that the spacecraft’s radio downlink was commanded to switch on and telemetry was received,” said Wolfgang Hell, ESA’s Service Manager for Phobos–Grunt. Telemetry typically includes information on the status and health of a spacecraft’s systems. “The signals received from Phobos–Grunt were much stronger than those initially received on 22 November, in part due to having better knowledge of the spacecraft’s orbital position.”
The second pass was short, and so was used only to uplink commands – no receipt of signal was expected. However, the following three passes in the early morning of 24 November proved to be more difficult: no signal was received from Phobos–Grunt.
ESA antenna contacts Phobos-Grunt again, this time downloading telemetry data
An ESA tracking station has once again contacted Phobos-Grunt, this time downloading telemetry data.
“We have again established contact with the Phobos-Grunt spacecraft, we obtained telemetry reports, they are being analyzed by our colleagues from the Lavochkin Research and Production Association,” ESA spokesman Rene Pischel said.
India pushes for a sharing of intellectual property rights at Durban climate talks
India pushes for a sharing of intellectual property rights at Durban climate talks.
If you ever had any doubts about the political goals behind the global warming movement, this headline and story should put those forever to rest. The advocates of climate change really don’t care about climate change. What they really want is to get their hands on other people’s success. Failing to get a deal that would limit the activities of the developed countries so that the developing countries would have an advantage in the free market, the effort is now aimed at attacking and even eliminating the property rights of private technology companies. What this has to do with climate change is beyond me.
That India is leading the way here is puzzling, however, as that country’s economic success in the past decade is solely due to its abandonment of communist ideals in favor of capitalism and the free market. You would think, with that experience, that India’s government would thus understand the importance of protecting property rights, not violating them.
A team of Italian scientists have reviewed the earlier faster-than-light neutrino results and have rejected them.
Not so fast: A team of Italian scientists have reviewed the earlier faster-than-light neutrino results and have rejected them.
‘Perfect black’ coating can render a 3D object flat, raises intriguing dark veil possibility in astronomy
A newly developed “perfect black” coating can render a 3D object flat, which raises an intriguing dark veil possibility in astronomy.
“The carbon nanotube forest can absorb very wide range of electromagnetic wave from ultraviolet up to terahertz,” Guo said, “and in principle it can be applied to an arbitrary sized object.” Just how large an object? Guo suggested an intriguing possibility—perhaps entire planets or even stars. “Since deep space itself is a perfect dark background, if a planet or star were surrounded by a thick, sooty atmosphere of light-absorbing carbon nanomaterial gases, it would become invisible due to the same principle,” Guo said. “It would become totally dark to our instruments that rely on the detection of electromagnetic waves.”
Climategate 2
Having failed to clean up its act after the release of the climategate emails two years ago, the field of climate science is about to turned upside down all over again. Today there was another release of hacked emails, written by the same collection of global warming scientists. Once again, these emails show that these scientists are anything but scientists. Instead, they seem far more interested in campaigning for a certain result, regardless of the science. A few quotes:
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A new batch of hacked climategate emails have been released
A new batch of hacked climategate emails have been released. More info, including some examples from the emails, can be found here and here.
Update: A quick scan by me of these, hardly finished, reveals this one email from Phil Jones, demonstrating beyond doubt how much fraud is involved in climate science:
Basic problem is that all models are wrong – not got enough middle and low level clouds.
Stay tuned for more bombshells.
Russia is considering shifting its planetary research from Mars to the Moon, following the failure of Phobos-Grunt
Russia is considering shifting its planetary research from Mars to the Moon, following the failure of the Phobos-Grunt mission to Mars.
Figuring out the diet of an extinct lion subspecies
Figuring out the diet of an extinct lion subspecies.
Japanese engineers aim Akatsuki for a second attempt at orbiting Venus in 2015
Japanese engineers have re-adjusted the course of their science probe Akatsuki for a second attempt at orbiting Venus in 2015.
The man behind the cameras on Mars
NASA’s next chief scientist: an former astronaut
NASA’s next head of its science programs: former astronaut John Grunsfeld.
James Hansen and the corruption of science
A 70-million-year-old nest of fifteen baby dinosaurs has been found
A 70-million-year-old nest of fifteen baby dinosaurs has been found.
The hunt for the “God Particle” enters the final stretch
The hunt for the “God Particle” enters the final stretch. And scientists might find it doesn’t exist!
Uncertainty rules the day
The press reports have been unanimous:
- Nature: Climate panel says prepare for weird weather
- Associated Press: Get ready for extreme weather
- The Guardian: Extreme weather will strike as climate change takes hold, IPCC warns
- Reuters: Extreme weather to worsen with climate change: IPCC
Unfortunately, if you read the actual IPCC panel summary report, you find that, though the majority of the press stories accurately describe the report’s worst scenarios and predictions, all of them downplay the most important point of the report, that the uncertainties are gigantic and that the influence of human activity on the increase or decrease of extreme weather for the next few decades will be inconsequential. To quote the report:
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An engineering prize to rival the Nobel
An engineering prize to rival the Nobel.
The CERN experiment that appeared to see faster-than-light neutrinos has repeated its results, except that not everyone on the team agrees
The uncertainty of science: The CERN experiment that appeared to see faster-than-light neutrinos has repeated its results, except that not everyone on the team agrees.
The new tests, completed 6 November, did away with the statistical analysis by splitting each pulse into bunches just 1- to 2-nanoseconds long, allowing each neutrino detected at Gran Sasso to be tied to a particular bunch produced at CERN. These tests were carried out over 10 days and provided 20 events. The researchers confirmed that the neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds early, with an uncertainty of about 10 nanoseconds, comparable to that of the initial result. The collaboration has also checked its original statistical analysis, but today’s decision to submit the results to a journal was not unanimous. “About four people” among the group of around 15 who did not sign the preprint have signed the journal submission, according to a source within the collaboration, while “four new people” have decided not to sign. That leaves the number of dissenters at about 15, compared with about 180 who did sign the journal submission.