Science Friday: wacky weather, rocky rain, ancient ancestors, and freaky fruit October 2, 2009
by Kayla Iacovino , Filed under: Science/Technology , trackback
This week in Science Friday we bring you wacky weather, rocky rain, ancient ancestors, and freaky fruit. See Martian skies over Australia, pebble rain on distant worlds, human’s oldest ancestor, and a million to one mutant apple. All this and more plus our gadget of the week: The Sci-Fi future of surgery.
Massive Dust Storm Creates Martian Skies Over Australia
A massive dust storm, 500km wide by 1,000 km long, swept across eastern Australia Wednesday blanketing Sydney in a red-orange haze. The dust rerouted air traffic and ground transportation and forced people indoors for shelter from the hazardous air, extreme winds, and even hail storms. The storm was purportedly the worst the city has seen in 70 years, and lots of great photos were taken of the eerie, Martian-like scenery. See The Boston Globe for a very nice collection of images.
Sydney Harbour Bridge shrouded in orange dust
The massive dust storm seen from space
Strange Planet has Atmosphere of Gaseous Rock, and it Rains Pebbles!
The exoplanet Corot-7b has earned a reputation as one of the most interesting planets yet spotted outside our solar system, mostly because of its similarities to Earth: it’s rocky and only about five times more massive than Earth. But the dissimilarities are just as fascinating. In the latest twist, a new study has suggested that storm fronts on Corot-7b may bring a rain of pebbles. The planet is so close to its sun that temperatures are thought to reach about 4,220 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to vaporize rock. That means that its atmosphere is made up of vaporized rock rather than nitrogen and oxygen as on Earth. Using computer models, the researchers set out to determine how this strange atmosphere would behave. The results, which will be published in The Astrophysical Journal, suggest that during storms, pebbles may condense out of the atmosphere. Via DISCOVER.
Artist’s conception of the hot, molten exoplanet
Human’s Oldest Relative Found
The skeleton nicknamed ‘Aridi,’ dug up in the Ethiopian desert and studied for 15 years, was announced yesterday to be a major breakthrough in the study of human origins. Ardi, the 110 pound, 4-foot-tall female, lived 4.4 million years ago, long before the much celebrated “Lucy” fossil found just 45 miles away. If scientists are correct, Ardi and her kind are our ancestors’ ancestors. She was a transitional figure, almost a hybrid — a tree creature who could carry food in her arms as she explored the woodland floor on two legs. Anthropologists say that Ardi tells us twice as much as Lucy. “We have hands and feet, a more complete environment, a more complete skeleton, it’s older, it’s more primitive, it shows us the process of transformation from common ancestor to hominid.” Read more from UC Berkeley
Weird Science: Million to One Apple is Half Red, Half Green
Ken Morrish of Devon, England was stunned to find this half red, half green apple growing in his tree. Scientists say that finding a mutation of this sort with such a perfect line between red and green sides of an apple is an extremely rare million-to-one genetic mutation. John Breach, chairman of the British Independent Fruit Growers Association, told the Daily Mail: “I’ve never seen this happen before to a golden delicious. It is extremely rare. It is an extreme mutation. “There has been the occasional case of this type reported. If there was a whole branch of apples with the same coloring then fruit experts would get even more excited.” If you were wondering, the two sides DO taste different! The red side usually tastes sweeter than the green side because it has seen more sunshine during its growth.
The 1/2 and 1/2 apple
Pic of the Week: Launch of New Horizons in 2006
Photographer Ben Cooper took this photo of a the launch of the New Horizons mission, the first ever mission to pluto, aboard an Atlas 5 rocket in 2006. Check out his website, Launch Photography for more amazing photos.
Gadget of the Week: The Sci-Fi Future of Surgery
Robots and nanobots could soon be helping surgeons do their job. More and more research is being put into remote operation technology and nanobots that could work on you from the inside out. New Scientist put together the below video highlighting some of the more recent advancements.
#FollowFriday
If you are on Twitter, you know there are plenty of amazing people out there tweeting away. And, many of them are scientists! Every Friday I’ll be bringing you a new list of great scientists and techies to follow on Twitter. This week…
- @peccavi: Gadget junkie. Geophysicist. Geologist. Technophile. Scrabble addict. Mk4 GTI driver. MATLAB®-er. D-SLR greenhorn. Digital cartographer. Carnivorous mammal.
- @Astro_Nicole: NASA Astronaut, STS-128 mission specialist; Exp. 20/21 flight engineer tweeting from space!
- @NewHorizons2015: The First Space Mission to Explore Planet Pluto and the Kuiper Belt
Science Quickies
Not enough science for you? Here’s a warp-speed look at some more science tid-bits that are worth a look.
- Space Radiation hits record high
- From the Onion: Thousands of unemployed robots join the military
TrekMovie’s Science Friday is an homage the the great NPR radio show Science Friday. Science Friday® is a registered service mark of ScienceFriday Inc.
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Comments»
Love science Friday!
Cool pic of the apple, That’s So Freaky!
First?
I would have thought that was an apple from Bele’s home planet. Let that be your last apple-field.
LOL @ #3! Dammit, you beat me to it!
If they can propagate that apple, they should name it “Cheron”
#1
AGREED! And I think this is by far one of the most interesting they’ve done in a while.
#3 – Kudos, sir. :)
Hmmm. Which side of the Apple should we try. I wonder what DR. Severn would do. Yeah Brother!. I reah man. I reach.
D’oh!! You’ve all beaten me to the punch, too! I’m no genetisist (sp) but I wonder if this kind of apple could be cultivated? I agree, call it a Cheron!
Let’s put it to a vote.
Well. If Dr Severn made it to Cheron then I think he would be very happy. It could be his new Garden.His Red and green Apple. Yea Brother.
Love that apple I wonder waht a teacher would say ? Usefull for science class! As for Ardi BSG. Ardi is Hera! Take that you bible thumping redneck wingnuts! Proof positive of evolution!
What a nasty dust storm downunder! Now those folks know what a Martian dust storm might look like. And the raining rocks. Talk about hailing stones!
Happy Science Friday!!!
Dust storm that was once the dustbowl od the1930s during the great depression eerie to say the least a dist bowl tagging along. This recessiob food for thought. Or that cheron apple for eating! LOL
Cool beans! That apple is pretty awesome. I love the advances in medicine, but I think I would crap myself if a robot rolled into my hospital room and tried to carry me off somewhere. must be from japan
#7 – Thanks.
Simply scrumptious articulate article with wacky hoppin’ headline!
That’s Sydney?? Are you sure it’s not Shi’Dney on Planet Vulcan!?!?
Now, at least, we have a real world justification for Vulcan having red skies due to dust (another good reason to that extra eyelid!) yet sometimes rarely having blue skies. Thank you, Planet Earth! :)
I was in Sydney last month! I wished to be there when the red dust storm happened! I wanted to experience it!
I want to eat that apple. Whoever can grow them will make big bucks.
Ha ha! I can’t believe I didn’t even think of the Cheron thing! You’re killing me with “Let that be your last apple-field”!
Bele was the first thing I thought of too. But it’s probably a photoshop trick. I believe nothing I see on the web. :)
I found me oldest relative… he wasn’t wearin’ pants when I dug him up… makes a good soup bowl, his skull does…
Last time I rained pebbles I needed a doctor ta’ check me oot…
Half red, half green- tha’ Loki apple… Beal is behind…
I got a rocket in me pocket and 2 tons o’ liquidy oxygen and liquidy helium hooked up ta’ me… ta’ me… and… uhhhhh… Oh, NOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
Sorry- folks got ta’ tha’ Bele thing afore me… and better…
No matter… me telescope telescopes fur’ Kayla’s lovely news…
‘Course me telescope also telescopes fur’ a nice soft satin sheeted bed after a lovely three-course meal involvin’ succ’ulent shrimp, a good glass o’ Cab slightly colder than tha’ room, and a marathon viewein’ o’ all tha’ Chipmunk episodes…
And liquidy hydrogen! Boooooooooom!
I gotsa stop smokin’…
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…
Like mosy if they have seen TOS, seeing the apple automatically recalls the Episode with White/Black and Black/White show with it’s subtitle comments on racial things. If the geometry of biology and reality is based on Fractal math to get such half/half biometry is even more rare. About in the odds of someone winning every state lottery for that week or month. Noy saying it can not happen it’s just damn hard even with help from humanity.
I bet biologists have high interest in understanding the chemistry and biometrics of how it happened. The odds of it being natures work rates up there with life’s creation on the 3rd rock from the sun.
As for the Land down unders dust storm, the last time I saw colors of the sky like that was from gound level based home movies from those around the Twin Towers in Manhatten as or just after they fell.
From what I know from my brothers friends at Lockheed Martin, events like that sand storm will be common on Mars s and if we begin terraforming it for human life. Converting the air on Mars from CO2 to NO2 that humans breath can take from one and a half centuries to an Eon (1000 years as the Greeks used the word, not the 10,000 years as the Roman’s did).
Either way at least the Aussies can say they prelived on Mars, and since they have already had the experience they deserve the first rights to live there. So here is the new Aussie bumper sticker, We’ve lived there once, so lets do it again, The Aussies will Colinize Mars.
11.
Wouldn’t that just mean we were Intelligently Designed by the Cylons and the Lords of Kobol? :P
Remember my fellow atheist friend that evolution is a fact,
19 – Sorry to hear it’s killing you… Perhaps it is a hybrid apple from Cheron and Eden (the planet). It’d be hard to know which half you can eat! ; )
25 – A fact for atheists perhaps. A theory for the rest of us — who all enjoy Festivus!
Yeah Terpor, I wouldn’t use this board as a place to debate it.
A theory in science is not the same as a theory for the people who reject science. There is very little woth dicussing about this concept. (I simply had to point it out).
First time poster. Love Trek and the site!