The hunt for
direct images of planets outside our Solar System has bagged its
strongest candidate yet. Recent observations from the Hubble Space
Telescope have confirmed a previous sighting made in April 2004.
Astronomers say they are now 99% certain that the dim and distant
blob is indeed a planet.More than 130 extrasolar planets, or exoplanets,
have been detected by watching how their orbit makes their parent
star wobble. But none has been imaged directly, because a planet's
dim glow is mostly swamped by the light of its star.
University of
Utah researchers have won federal grants to develop wireless electrodes
that would be implanted to provide blind people with artificial
vision and stimulate paralyzed body parts and so disabled people
could walk, talk or control a computer with their thoughts. “We
plan to spend this $6.7 million to further develop technology that
we hope will someday help blind individuals see, allow paraplegics
to stand and eventually walk, and let people with vocal cord problems
speak,” says Richard Normann, a professor of bioengineering
and ophthalmology.
Patterns of deep,
prolonged tremors newly revealed beneath the San Andreas fault
zone may offer scientists a way to foretell earthquake activity
there. The small tremors don't produce typical seismic vibrations
that indicate a sudden slip along a fault, says Robert M. Nadeau,
a seismologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Instead,
the deep tremors gradually rumble to life.
The devastating
earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean on 26 December was so powerful
that it has accelerated the Earth's rotation, geophysicists have
declared. They estimate that the shockwave shortened the period
of our planet's rotation by some three microseconds. The change
was caused by a shift of mass towards the planet's centre, as the
Indian Ocean's heavy tectonic plate lurched underneath Indonesia's
one, say researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California.
Each year, billions
of tons of concrete become the stuff of buildings, highways, dams,
sidewalks, and even artworks. The list goes on. Not only is the
material ubiquitous, it has a long history. The Romans invented
cement-based concrete more than 2,000 years ago and used the material
to build architectural masterpieces such as the Pantheon. From
ultrahigh-performance concrete that bends like metal to concrete
blocks that transmit light, scientists are pushing the physical
and architectural limits of this ubiquitous construction material.
