Official "Science News" Thread

[science_man_88]

Superstorm Sandy shook the U.S. like an earthquake

According to Hutko, this is the first time IRIS has been able to capture seismic data from a hurricane hitting the United States. "As this was happening, [I] thought it would be pretty neat to plot. I ended up staying up through the night two nights in a row," he said.

[kladner]

http://www.computerworld.com/s/artic...computing_edge

The European Union is moving to build a high-performance computing industry to challenge U.S. dominance, but it doesn't want to play catch-up. It wants to leapfrog and it is seeing whether ARM Holdings technology can give it that edge. The Barcelona Supercomputing Center is using the ARM-based Samsung Exynos 5 Dual processor to build a supercomputer. It's the same processor that's available in Samsung's new $249 Chromebook.

Their aim is to attempt to "build a 200 petaflop system by around 2017 that uses only 10 MW of power." Titan is a peak ~27 petaflop system that uses ~9 MW.

[tServo]

Various news feeds have been reporting that NASA have made a
"discovery for the history books" !!
Evidence of life ? Life itself ? Jimmy Hoffa's body ?

[rogue]

Originally Posted by tServo

Various news feeds have been reporting that NASA have made a
"discovery for the history books" !!
Evidence of life ? Life itself ? Jimmy Hoffa's body ?

Anonymous hacked Rover and discovered a 1 billion digit prime with it!

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by tServo

Various news feeds have been reporting that NASA have made a
"discovery for the history books" !!
Evidence of life ? Life itself ? Jimmy Hoffa's body ?

Footprints?

- - -

Whatever, it's something from a soil sample:

http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165513...ts-mum-for-now

. . .

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

SAM is a kind of miniature chemistry lab. Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and it will tell you what the sample is made of.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking.

I see that other sites speculate that it's some organic compound, or further evidence that water flowed on Mars, or perhaps some element that's been thought not to occur on Mars.

"This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he'll tell me what the heck he's found, but he's not providing any more information.

So why doesn't Grotzinger want to share his exciting news? The main reason is caution. Grotzinger and his team were almost stung once before. When SAM analyzed an air sample, it looked like there was methane in it, and at least here on Earth, some methane comes from living organisms.

But Grotzinger says they held up announcing the finding because they wanted to be sure they were measuring Martian air, and not air brought along from the rover's launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

"We knew from the very beginning that we had this risk of having brought air from Florida. And we needed to diminish it and then make the measurement again," he says. And when they made the measurement again, the signs of methane disappeared.

Grotzinger says it will take several weeks before he and his team are ready to talk about their latest finding. In the meantime he'll fend off requests from pesky reporters, and probably from NASA brass as well. Like any big institution, NASA would love to trumpet a major finding, especially at a time when budget decisions are being made. Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes.

Richard Zare, a chemist at Stanford University, appreciates the uncomfortable position John Grotzinger is in. He's been there. In 1996, he was part of a team that reported finding organic compounds in a meteorite from Mars that landed in Antarctica. When the news came out, it caused a huge sensation because finding organic compounds in a Martian rock suggested the possibility at least that there was once life on Mars.

"You're bursting with a feeling that you want to share this information, and it's frustrating when you feel you can't talk about it, "says Zare.

It wasn't scientific caution that kept Zare from announcing his results. It was a rule many scientific journals enforce that says scientists are not allowed to talk about their research until the day it's officially published. Zare had to follow the rules if he wanted his paper to come out.

(That could also be a reason for NASA's delay in describing the current discovery ... or maybe it's just going to take that long to get a sample of Jimmy Hoffa's DNA for comparison.)

He did break down and tell his family. "I remember at the dinner table with great excitement explaining to my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Bethany, what it was we were doing," says Zare. And then he experienced something many parents can relate to when talking to their kids.

"Bethany looked at me and said, 'pass the ketchup.' So, not everybody was as excited as I was," he says.

. . .

[LaurV]

The bitchy side of me says this sentence in you quotes tells all about...

Like any big institution, NASA would love to trumpet a major finding, especially at a time when budget decisions are being made. Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes.

They will first wait for the methane to evaporate, but the wait will take long enough for the budget to be approved

[Batalov]

Like any big institution, NASA would love to trumpet a major finding, especially at a time when budget decisions are being made. Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes.

Last time they trumpeted, they've badly flopped. (search for NASA's Arsenic Bacteria)

Some critics add that NASA tricked the media and public into believing scientists had found aliens. A cryptic press announcement earlier in the week notified journalists NASA was holding a press conference to “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” Speculation roared forth, with some tabloids and blogs actually announcing, with no basis at all, that NASA had found alien life. Science denied the rumors, but refused to lift its embargo until Thursday morning, meaning science journalists could do nothing to dispel the misinformation unless they wanted to face sanctions later.

[xilman]

Sorry, but I couldn't resist publicising the headline chosen by the Beeb for this report

The headline in question is on the front page, in the Science and Environment section. The article has a more expansive version.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by xilman

Sorry, but I couldn't resist publicising the headline chosen by the Beeb for this report

The headline in question is on the front page, in the Science and Environment section. The article has a more expansive version.

I miss the classic old BBC Wildfacts page - which I could not find last time I looked - on the Great Tit, which finished with a classic line to the effect of (as best I can recall)

Great tits are not considered threatened. It is estimated that there are 500,000 pairs in Great Britain.

[Batalov]

I find that hard to believe. They probably seasonally migrated from Russia.

[rogue]

Originally Posted by Batalov

I find that hard to believe. They probably seasonally migrated from Russia.

There's a coconut joke in there somewhere...