‘Seven minutes of terror’: NASA releases footage of Perseverance’s descent to Mars

https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/seven-minutes-of-terror-nasa-releases-footage-of-perseverance-s-descent-to-mars-20210223-p574wk.html

By Marcia Dunn

Updated February 23, 2021 — 10.01amfirst published at 7.41amSaveShareNormal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size

Cape Canaveral: NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.

The quality was so good — and the images so breathtaking — that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along.PlayMuteCurrent Time 0:08/Duration 1:43Loaded: 48.30% FullscreenFirst video of Perseverance landing on Mars

NASA released the first video ever of its rover Perseverance landing on the surface of Mars.Hoarding situation at Waterford home leads to removal of over 40 cats

“It gives me goosebumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team.

The Perseverance rover landed last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference.

“These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams,” said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team.

RELATED ARTICLE

Explainer

Space

Why are so many nations blasting off to Mars?

“Seven minutes of terror” is a phrase used by scientists to describe the touchy phase of a spacecraft’s plunge through a planet’s atomosphere before coming safely to rest on its surface.

Six off-the-shelf cameras were devoted to entry, descent and landing, looking up and down from different perspectives. All but one camera worked. The lone microphone turned on for landing failed, but NASA got some snippets of sound after touchdown: the whirring of the rover’s systems and wind gusts.

Flight controllers were thrilled with the thousands of images beamed back — and also with the remarkably good condition of the rover. It will spend the next two years exploring the dry river delta and drilling into rocks that may hold evidence of life 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. The core samples will be set aside for return to Earth in a decade.

NASA added 25 cameras to the $US3 billion mission — the most ever sent to Mars. The space agency’s previous rover, 2012’s Curiosity, managed only jerky, grainy stop-motion images, mostly of terrain. Curiosity is still working. So is NASA’s InSight lander, although it’s hampered by dusty solar panels.

Deputy project manager Matt Wallace said he was inspired several years ago to film Perseverance’s harrowing descent when his young gymnast daughter wore a camera while performing a backflip.https://e.infogr.am/1p9gddmr0pz227s7qx3kvy0mw0f3rpx65dn?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theage.com.au%2Fworld%2Fnorth-america%2Fseven-minutes-of-terror-nasa-releases-footage-of-perseverance-s-descent-to-mars-20210223-p574wk.html&src=embed#async_embed

Watching the video “I think you will feel like you are getting a glimpse into what it would be like to land successfully in Jezero Crater with Perseverance,” he said.

Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said the video and also the panoramic views following touchdown “are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.”

The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead, according to the engineers.

There’s a more immediate benefit.

“I know it’s been a tough year for everybody,” said imaging scientist Justin Maki, “and we’re hoping that maybe these images will help brighten people’s days.”

AP

We will always be learning more about our ancestors’

‘WORLD’S OLDEST CALENDAR’ DISCOVERED IN SCOTTISH FIELD

Yahoo!7 July 15, 2013, 6:28 pm

Archaeologists in Scotland have uncovered what is believed to be the world’s oldest lunar calendar.

Twelve pits, said to have been created by hunter gatherers almost 10,000 years ago, were unearthed in a field at Crathes Castle, Aberdeenshire.

The pits are arranged in a 50-metre long row and are said to represent the months of the year and the phases of the moon.

Variation in the depths of the pits suggests that each pit or month may have also been divided into three roughly ten-day ‘weeks’ used to indicate the waxing moon, the gibbous/full moon and the waning moon.

The discovery of the Mesolithic ‘calendar’ overtakes a 5,000-year-old monument from Bronze Age Mesopotamia to claim the title of the world’s oldest ‘calendar’.

A simple illustration of how the pits would have been used by hunter gatherers. Photo: University of Birmingham

The site at Crathes Castle was originally excavated in 2004, but the findings were only analysed over the last six months using a purpose-built software.

Professor Vince Gafney led the archaeological project that discovered the structures.

‘The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and sophistication to track time across the years, to correct for seasonal drift of the lunar year and that this occurred nearly 5,000 years before the first formal calendars known in the Near East,’ he said.

‘In doing so, this illustrates one important step towards the formal construction of time and therefore history itself.’

An artist’s impression of the site at Crathes Castle. Photo: University of Birmingham

Dr David Bates of the University of St Andrews said the discovery provided “exciting new evidence” of Mesolithic Scotland given it’s age in comparison to other known calendars.

‘This is the earliest example of such a structure and there is no known comparable site in Britain or Europe for several thousands of years after the monument at Warren Field was constructed.’

Scientists believe the Mesolithic monument discovered in Aberdeenshire was in use for some 4,000 years, from 8,000 BC to approximately 4,000 BC.

Space Station Musician – This is so cool!

I love what these guys are doing in space!

Click on this link to see a short version of the song:
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/hallo-spaceboy-bowies-oddity-a-space-odyssey-for-astronaut-chris-20130513-2jhfq.html#ixzz2T9GECObQ

——————————————————–

‘Hallo Spaceboy’: Bowie’s Oddity a space odyssey for astronaut Chris

Date

May 13, 2013 – 2:17PM

Megan Levy Breaking news reporter

• Astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield
• David Bowie
• International Space Station
• Kazakhstan

Astronaut sings farewell to space

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield ends his stint on the International Space Station by recording a moving version of the David Bowie classic Space Oddity.

If anyone were qualified to cover David Bowie’s Space Oddity it would surely be astronaut Chris Hadfield.

Which is exactly what the mustachioed Canadian has done, recording a showstopping rendition of the classic tune on board the International Space Station as he prepares to descend back to Earth this week after a five-month mission in space.

Hadfield, who has been referred to as the “coolest guy in outer space”, has outdone himself in his latest stunt among the stars, posting a five-minute clip on YouTube in which he performs the 1969 classic.

Twist on a David Bowie song: Chris Hadfield.

The clip shows the 53-year-old veteran astronaut spinning around the cabin of the space station and playing his guitar while floating in zero gravity.

He sings “I’m floating in a most peculiar way”, while floating in zero gravity. Stunning views of the earth are visible from the space station’s windows for much of the clip.

Hadfield’s efforts have earned him the adoration of the internet, and the praise of Bowie himself, who tweeted “Hallo Spaceboy . . .”

Chris Hadfield: his song has captured the attention of social media users.

One of Hadfield’s fans commented on the YouTube clip: “You’re a bloody marvellous human being.”

“NASA might be cool again,” wrote another fan, while one person said they cried while watching the clip, adding: “I want to be a SCIENTIST”.

The film clip was mixed with the help of staff at the Canadian Space Agency and musician Emm Gryner, and some of the lyrics were modified to refer to the Soyuz capsule that will return Hadfield to Kazakhstan on Monday night.

David Bowie performs at the Odeon Theatre, in Hammersmith, West London in July 1973. Photo: Association Newspapers

Hadfield tweeted a link to the video with the words: “With deference to the genius of David Bowie, here’s Space Oddity, recorded on Station. A last glimpse of the World.”

It was retweeted nearly 9000 times in the first four hours.

During his stint as commander of the International Space Station, Hadfield has captivated and entertained his followers on social media with quirky videos and stunning photographs from space.

He has posted charming videos about sleeping, eating, safely clipping his fingernails, and even cooking spinach.

Half a million people tuned in to watch him brush his teeth, while more than 10 million people watched Hadfield wring out a soaking wet cloth. It was an experiment suggested by 10th graders in Nova Scotia.

He has also posted daily photographs and tweets from space, including images of the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney, in which he highlighted unique land formations, weather events and the glittering lights that mark out human development.

Hadfield handed over command of the station on Sunday to Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov.

He and his two crew members are scheduled to leave the space station on Monday night in their Soyuz spacecraft and head back to Earth for a planned landing in Kazakhstan.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/music/hallo-spaceboy-bowies-oddity-a-space-odyssey-for-astronaut-chris-20130513-2jhfq.html#ixzz2T9GECObQ

And Tony Abbott still thinks Climate Change is Crap!

Talk about an Ostrich putting its head into the sand!!!

And he wants to be the next Prime Minister!!!

Of what!

Once the earth’s climate is fucked, so are all its living things, including dumbshit Abbott supporters!
————————————————————————

Greenhouse gases in new danger zone

Date

April 29, 2013

Ben Cubby

Environment Editor

View more articles from Ben Cubby

The world’s carbon dioxide levels are on the cusp of reaching 400 parts per million in the atmosphere for the first time in 3 million years.

The daily CO2 level, measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, stood at 399.72 parts per million last Thursday, and a few hourly readings had already risen above 400 parts per million.

”I wish it weren’t true, but it looks like the world is going to blow through the 400 ppm level without losing a beat,” said Ralph Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, which operates the Hawaiian observatory. ”At this pace we’ll hit 450 ppm within a few decades.”

The 450 parts per million level is considered the point where the world has a 50 per cent chance of avoiding dangerous climate change – any higher, and the odds of avoiding searing temperature rises of four or five degrees by the end of the century become prohibitively risky.

The rise in greenhouse gases corresponds with the extra CO2 emitted by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests. More greenhouse gases mean more heat builds up at the Earth’s surface.

The last time CO2 reached the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million in the atmosphere – in the Pliocene era – temperatures rose three to four degrees and sea levels were between five and 40 metres higher than they are today. Carbon dioxide levels have been increasing since the first measurements at the observatory in 1958 recorded 317 parts per million.

Levels above 400 parts per million have already been breached at a few polar monitoring stations in the past year.

It comes as Australia’s Climate Commission will release a report on Monday on global action to reduce emissions. The US and, particularly, China were moving into leadership positions on greenhouse gas cuts, according to the report, The Critical Decade: Global Action Building on Climate Change.

Growth in coal use in China had declined substantially and renewable energy had expanded on a massive scale, it said. Its wind power generation had increased almost 50-fold between 2005 and 2012, solar power capacity rose by 75 per cent last year.

Australia doubled its renewable energy capacity between 2001 and 2012, but was at some risk of being left behind by other nations, according to the chief of the Climate Commission, Tim Flannery.

”We are the 15th largest emitter in the world, larger than 180 other countries,” Professor Flannery said. ”We are more influential than most of us think.”

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/greenhouse-gases-in-new-danger-zone-20130428-2imjm.html#ixzz2RlsuKg9e

It can be done!

Read author Kim Stanley Robinson’s trilogy of Mar’s books. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars.

All directions are there! 
——————————————–

Fancy living on Mars? This reality show is for you

Date

April 23, 2013 – 11:19AM

It could be the plot to Avatar‘s sequel, but a Dutch ‘interplanetary media group’ is really looking for applicants who are willing to take a one-way trip to the red planet and face possibly lethal radiation, no growable food and cramped quarters for the rest of their lives.

An artist’s impression of what the Mars One colony will look like in 2023. Photo: Mars One

Are you crazy enough to sign up for a one-way trip to Mars? Applications are being accepted by the makers of a Dutch reality show that says it will deliver the first humans to the red planet in 10 years.

The main requirements are strong health, good people and survival skills, being 18 or older, and having a reasonable grasp of the English language.

The company, called Mars One, aims to land its first four astronauts in 2023 for a televised reality show that would follow the exploits of the first humans to attempt to establish a colony on Mars.

Space odyssey 2023 … Could man call Mars home? Even if it meant possible death on the red planet?

Already, the organisers have received “10,000 emails from more than 100 different countries from people who are interested in joining us for this mission”, said founder Bas Lansdorp at a news conference in a New York hotel.

In all they are seeking six groups of four people each. A new group would make the seven-month journey every two years after the first crew departs in 2022.

The cost for the first mission is about $US6 billion ($A5.9 billion).

“It sounds like a lot of money. And actually it is a lot of money. But imagine what will happen when the first people land on Mars. Literally everybody on the globe will want to see it,” Lansdorp said.

The project has garnered plenty of sceptics but is backed by Dutch Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, who won the 1999 prize for physics.

The world’s space agencies have only managed to send unmanned robotic rovers to Mars so far, the latest being NASA’s $US2.5 billion Curiosity rover that touched down in August 2012.

Major drawbacks to the proposed mission include the inability to return to Earth, the small living quarters and the lack of food on the dry planet. That is, if the radiation endured during the trip is not lethal, and if the volatile landing goes according to plan.

Key attributes for applicants, according to Mars One medical director Norbert Kraft, are being adaptable, resilient, creative and having empathy.

“Can you really work with other people from other countries, as a team?” he asked.

Many questions remain about how the astronauts would survive, breathe and drink on a planet with a temperature of minus 55C and whose atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide.

But the company’s representatives insisted that they believe they are within ethical guidelines by pursuing their mission.

“The long-term aim is to have a lasting colony,” said Hooft. “This expansion will not be easy. How soon that will be accomplished is anyone’s guess today.”

AFP

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/fancy-living-on-mars-this-reality-show-is-for-you-20130423-2iblo.html#ixzz2RGYsZGrV

If you think Facebook is slow now, read this!

Preparations begin for damaging solar storms

Date

April 5, 2013 – 10:47AM

Mariette Le Roux

Zoom in on this story. Explore all there is to know.

• International Space Station
• Earth
• Juha-Pekka Luntama
• Quebec

An M9-class solar flare erupting on the Sun’s northeastern hemisphere. Photo: NASA

Europe launched its first space weather coordination centre on Wednesday to raise the alarm for possible satellite-sizzling solar storms that also threaten astronauts in orbit, plane passengers and electricity grids on Earth.

Though impossible to predict, a worst-case scenario mega-storm can happen at any time, leaving the world without internet, telephones, television, electricity and air and rail transport for days on end.

In the worst case, what could happen is that the transformers in the power grid are damaged and in that case, replacement of the transformers can take weeks or months.

Limited precautions can be taken, but early warning is key, say experts at the European Space Agency (ESA) which runs the centre from Brussels.

“A pilot can always land a plane… because they have alternatives [to satellites] for navigation, but if they get the disturbance without warning, at the wrong time, that can be dangerous,” Juha-Pekka Luntama, head of ESA’s space weather division said at the launch.

Even a slight satellite glitch can put navigation out by 100 metres – enough to miss a runway.

Earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere protect the planet from radiation released during solar flares and geomagnetic storms – some of the most severe forms of space weather.

Smaller eruptions usually have little noticeable effect – perhaps slight problems with car navigation systems or mobile phones.

But a major solar storm on the scale of an event in 1859 that crippled global telegraph systems could have severe impacts today.

A “coronal mass ejection” – which sends electromagnetic radiation flying towards Earth at a speed of some 2500 kilometres per second and plays havoc with long transmission lines – caused surges on telegraph lines so strong in 1859 that offices caught fire and operators received electric shocks.

Such a storm today could claim about 50 to 100 satellites – 10 per cent of the total in orbit, according to ESA.

But probably the biggest threat to Earth lies in electric power grid surges.

“In the worst case, what could happen is that the transformers in the power grid are damaged and in that case, replacement of the transformers can take weeks or months,” said Luntama.

Even if only a small part of the grid is damaged, overloading in neighbouring systems can lead to more blackouts that spread domino-like, such as the nine-hour power blackout in Quebec in Canada in 1989.

Astronauts orbiting Earth on the International Space Station (ISS), closer to the source of the radiation, could be at high risk of a severe solar storm, as could plane crews and passengers flying over the polar regions.

Precautions would include turning off satellites to lessen the risk, reducing the load on power grids, astronauts taking cover in well-shielded part of the ISS, and planes being diverted or even grounded if communications become unreliable.

Once witnessed by space weather watchers, the fallout from a solar storm takes between 17 and 48 hours to reach Earth, depending on its severity.

The coordination centre, a central point for space weather enquiries, will draw on the expertise of dozens of European universities, research institutions and private companies.

A similar service already exists in the United States.

For the moment, the ESA service — funded by 14 member states — is free.

The centre started operating six months ago and is expected to be fully operational by 2020 – part of wider, multi-billion euro ESA system that also tracks objects in space that pose a collision threat.

AFP

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/preparations-begin-for-damaging-solar-storms-20130405-2hare.html#ixzz2PYrtvygI

How Pacific Ocean Currents affect our Weather

How El Niño & La Niña affects you

Posted on 26 March 2013 by Essie

We’ve seen some incredible weather in Australia over the last couple of years. How much of that is caused by the weather created by El Niño & La Niña? How do these weather systems affect our country and where? Find out how and why it matters to you in our latest Infographic!

The Age of the Universe Bullshit!

I have never, not even for one single solitary second, given the primitive, evolutionary stage that they, our ‘scientists’, and the rest of mankind, are at, ever believed, that in my lifetime, anyone, would know the real age of the universe!

My mind boggles, that our primitive minds, could be so arrogant, as to assume, and, put a date on, the creation of the universe.  

There will continue to be new discoveries, that will produce more data, that will make our 13.8 billion years estimate laughable. As laughable as the similarity that can be drawn to creationist thinking, that according to the bible, the universe is 5,000 years old.

And this also applies to my acceptance of the ‘Big Bang Theory’! What a load of crap! I can though, believe in how the universe may have evolved, as explained in that theory. But how it started? No way!

So much for my sermon from the mount. Or in my case, the sermon from the riverside. 🙂
———————————————————————-

‘Infant’ universe, born before we knew

Date

March 22, 2013 – 11:13AM

This image allows astronomers to look back to the foundations of the universe, writes Dennis Overbye.

Big Bang map shows oldest light

Analysis of the best ever map of the earliest light reveals the shape of the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

• Autoplay ONOFF
• Video feedback
• Video settings

Astronomers released the latest and most exquisite baby picture yet of the universe on Thursday, one that showed it to be 80 million to 100 million years older and a little fatter, with more light and dark matter than previously thought, and perhaps ever so slightly lopsided.

Recorded by the European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, the image is a heat map of the cosmos as it appeared only 380,000 years after the Big Bang, showing space speckled with faint spots from which galaxies would grow over billions of years.

It shows the seeds from which the current universe grew.

Marc Kamionkowski, Johns Hopkins University

The map, the Planck team said is in stunning agreement with the general view of the universe that has emerged during the past 20 years, of a cosmos dominated by dark energy that is pushing it apart, and dark matter that is pulling galaxies together. It also shows a universe that seems to have endured an explosive burp known as inflation, which was the dynamite in the Big Bang.

A view of the cosmic microwave background collected by the European Space Agency?s Planck satellite. The heat map of the cosmos was imprinted on the sky when the universe was just 380,000 years old. Photo: ESA

In a statement issued by the European Space Agency, Jean-Jacques Dordain, its director-general, said, “The extraordinary quality of Planck’s portrait of the infant universe allows us to peel back its layers to the very foundations, revealing that our blueprint of the cosmos is far from complete.”

Marc Kamionkowski, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins University who commented on the work at a news teleconference sponsored by NASA, called Planck “cosmology’s human genome project”.

“It shows the seeds from which the current universe grew,” he said.

A map of relic radiation (microwave sky) from the Big Bang. Photo: ESA

David N. Spergel, a Princeton University cosmologist, described the new results as “beautiful”, adding that “the standard cosmological model looks even stronger today than yesterday. The universe remains simple and strange.”

Within the standard cosmological framework, however, the new satellite data underscored the existence of puzzling anomalies that may yet lead theorists back to the drawing board. The universe appears to be slightly lumpier, with bigger and more heat spots on one side than on the other, for example, and there is an unexplained cool spot in the middle of the map.

Those anomalies had shown up on previous maps by NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, satellite, but some had argued that they were because of a bad analysis or contamination from the Milky Way.

The evolution of satellites designed to measure ancient light left over from the Big Bang: From left: NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer, or COBE, 1989; the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, or WMAP, 2001; Planck, 2009. Photo: ESA

Now cosmologists will have to take them more seriously, said Max Tegmark, an expert on the early universe at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not part of the Planck team and who called the new results “very exciting”.

It could be, he said, that “the universe is trying to tell us something”.

George Efstathiou of Cambridge University, one of the leaders of the Planck project, said in the European Space Agency news release: “Our ultimate goal would be to construct a new model that predicts the anomalies and links them together. But these are early days; so far, we don’t know whether this is possible and what type of new physics might be needed. And that’s exciting.”

The Planck satellite was launched in 2009 and has been scanning the sky ever since, recording the faint variations in a haze of radio microwaves that fill the sky. Those microwaves are believed to be the cooled-off remains of the fires of the Big Bang, shown 380,000 years later, when the first hydrogen atoms formed.

The microwaves were discovered by accident in 1965 by a pair of Bell Labs radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert W. Wilson, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics. Using balloons, a U-2 spy plane and a series of satellites like the WMAP, astronomers have been teasing out the detailed features of this radiation.

Analysing the relative sizes and frequencies of spots and ripples has allowed astronomers to describe the birth of the universe so precisely that it would make the philosophers weep.

The new data have allowed astronomers to tweak their model a bit. It now seems the universe is 13.8 billion years old, instead of 13.7 billion, and consists by mass of 4.9 per cent atoms, 27 per cent dark matter and 71 per cent dark energy.

The biggest surprise here, astronomers said, is that the universe is expanding slightly more slowly than previous measurements had indicated. The Hubble constant, which characterises the expansion rate, is 67 kilometres per second per megaparsec — the units astronomers use — according to Planck. Recent ground-based measurements combined with the WMAP data gave a value of 69, offering enough of a discrepancy to make cosmologists re-run their computer simulations of cosmic history.

The fact that astronomers once would go to war with one another over a factor of two in measurements of this parameter shows how cosmology has progressed over the past 20 years.

Pressed for a possible explanation for the discrepancy, Martin White, a Planck team member from the University of California, Berkeley, said it represents a mismatch between measurements made at the beginning of time and those made more recently. He said it could mean that dark energy, which is speeding up the expansion of the universe, is more complicated than cosmologists thought. He termed the possibility “pretty radical”, adding, “That would be pretty exciting.”

The data also offered striking support for the notion of inflation, which has been the backbone of Big Bang theorising for 30 years.

Under the influence of a mysterious force-field during the first fraction of a second, what would become the observable universe ballooned by 100 trillion trillion times in size from a subatomic pinprick to a grapefruit in less than a violent eye-blink, according to the story first enunciated by Alan Guth of MIT.

Submicroscopic quantum fluctuations in this force-field are what would produce the hot spots in the cosmic microwaves, which in turn would grow into galaxies. According to Planck’s measurements, those fluctuations so far fit the predictions of the simplest model of inflation, invented by Andrei Linde of Stanford, to a tee.

Dr Tegmark of MIT said, “We’re homing in on the simplest model.”

Cosmologists still don’t know what might have caused inflation, but the recent discovery of the Higgs boson has provided evidence that the kinds of fields that can provoke such behaviour really exist.

Dr Tegmark and others said that another clue to the nature of inflation could come from the anomalies in the microwave data, which tend to happen on the largest scales in the universe. By the logic of quantum cosmology, they were the first patterns to be laid down on the emerging cosmos — that is to say, when inflation was just starting.

He compared it to walking in someplace and encountering a fight. If the fight had been going on for a while, he said, it is impossible to tell who started it or who was hurt first. But if you come in only a few seconds after it started, you have a better chance of figuring out who did what to whom.

“It may be,” he said, “we’re coming in early to the cosmic brawl.”

New York Times

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/infant-universe-born-before-we-knew-20130322-2gjru.html#ixzz2OHRWtpiJ

Superbug reports spark concern

This problem does not only apply to prostate tests. It applies to ANY invasive process!
————————————————————————————————————

Date

March 15, 2013

Julia Medew

Health Editor

View more articles from Julia Medew

Follow Julia on Twitter Email Julia 

Ken Montgomery is in the Austin Hospital recovering from a superbug that made him very ill after a routine prostate biopsy. Photo: Penny Stephens

Healthy Australian men are falling ill with superbug infections after prostate biopsies, and doctors fear the bacteria is coming from contaminated food.

In a worrying trend, head of infectious diseases at the Austin Hospital, Professor Lindsay Grayson, said there had been increasing reports of men suffering serious infections after prostate biopsies because of the proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

While superbugs have been found in hospitals, Professor Grayson said he was particularly concerned about the possibility of meat, poultry and seafood containing superbugs because of the widespread use of antibiotics in farming, particularly outside of Australia. It is also possible antibiotics in waterways are contaminating food with drug residues or superbugs.

The infections have mostly occurred in recent travellers to regions where these superbugs are more prevalent, such as Asia and India. Some who haven infected had not travelled.

Tests in China have also found waterways contaminated with animal manure have antibiotics and superbugs in them.

One Melbourne man, Ken Montgomery, 58, was shocked to learn last week that he had picked up a superbug that most likely came from food. The IT specialist fell ill with a blood infection one day after having a prostate biopsy to check for cancer.

While the test showed he was cancer-free, Mr Montgomery said he became the sickest he had ever felt with vomiting and chills about 36 hours later. He went to the Austin emergency department where blood tests showed he had a blood infection caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

The superbug had crossed from his bowel into his blood during the prostate biopsy which pierces the rectum wall. While doctors believe they have an antibiotic to treat him, he now requires six weeks of the expensive intravenous drug. Before last week, Mr Montgomery had never been to hospital.

”It was quite scary. I don’t want to be dramatic but there was a period of time there when it was unknown if we had the right antibiotics for me to recover or to fix it,” he said. ”You don’t expect this to happen to you.”

Professor Grayson said without an antibiotic to treat the infection, Mr Montgomery would have died within days.
Microbiologists and infectious disease experts are calling for more testing and surveillance of animals and food because there are universal fears that the world is headed for a post-antibiotic era where infections cannot be treated because of multi-drug resistance.

Resistance is caused by inappropriate use of antibiotics because the more they are used, the more chances bacteria have to adapt and become resistant to them.

In submissions to a current Senate inquiry into the issue, microbiologists and infectious disease experts have called for a reassessment of Australian farming practices to ensure appropriate antibiotic use is occurring and more rigorous screening of imported foods for both superbugs and antibiotic residues.

Last week, the inquiry heard 341 tests on fresh seafood imported from Vietnam to Australia in 2012 found about 4 per cent had antibiotics in them that are not permitted to be in food under Australian law.

Professor Grayson said if Australians were consuming such food, they could be carrying superbugs in their bowels that can cause illness in particular circumstances such as after a prostate biopsy or through urinary tract infections.

A federal government spokesman said a committee had been set up to look at the issue.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/health/superbug-reports-spark-concern-20130314-2g3ix.html#ixzz2NWXccd25

Powerful comet ‘could hit Mars’

Wow! Am I glad I read this!

I was booked on a flight home (to Mars) at exactly the same time this comet might hit. Luckily, I was able to change my booking to a later flight! 😛
—————————————————————

Powerful comet ‘could hit Mars’

STAFF REPORTER, The West Australian March 5, 2013, 7:47 am

 

Mars could be hit by a comet with the power of a billion megatons next year, astronomers claim.

Comet C/2013 A1 was discovered between Jupiter and Saturn in January by Robert McNaught at Australia’s Siding Spring Observatory and was forecast to pass within 37,000km of Mars in October 2014.

But according to a new recalculation, the comet may hit our nearest planetary neighbour after all.

Researcher Leonid Elenin said there is now a slightly higher chance of the impact occurring.

The movements of comets are difficult to predict, because as they approach the sun their structure is affected by increases in temperature which can throw it off course, according to the Huffington Post.

The report says that if the comet hit Mars, at a speed of 56 km/second, it would leave a crater about 500km wide and 2km deep.

The Mars Curiosity rover and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter could capture a view of the ball of ice and dust as it passes or hits the planet.

NASA puts the most likely “close-approach” distance between the comet and Mars at about 100,000km.

Astronomer Phil Plait told The Economist that given the unusual speed of the comet, its impact should yield a blast equivalent to that of a billion megatons of TNT.

“It would be an event on the same sort of scale as the impact that drove the dinosaurs extinct 65 million years ago,” Mr Plait said. “If it really is that big, and if the comet were to hit the side of Mars facing Earth then the blast could well be visible to the naked eye, even in daylight.”

The cratering process after such an impact would be interesting to geologists and astrobiologists, according to The Economist.

There is a lot of ice frozen into the Martian crust and the heat of an enormous impact would melt a huge amount of it.

If, as some believe, there are microbes living deep under the Martian surface, such a burst of warm, wet conditions over a substantial chunk of the planet would give them a brief chance to thrive at and close to the surface before the planet refroze,” the report said. “Parts of the surface and subsurface in the impact region, if there is an impact, will stay warm for decades.”

NASA spokesman Donald Yeomans said “unless this comet completely fizzles, it should be extraordinary as seen with Mars-based assets”.

“And if the comet passes close enough to the planet it may allow a natural experiment,” he said.

“Over the past decade there has been much discussion of the possibility that there might be methane on Mars, possibly produced by the aforementioned subterranean microbes.

“Various observers claim to have seen evidence for the gas, but theoretical arguments cast serious doubt on their results.

“One of the questions in play is how fast the Martian environment can oxidise organic compounds (such as methane) which get pumped or dumped into it.

“A very close encounter with a comet might result in a measurable pulse of organic matter being introduced into the upper atmosphere; its fate would be interesting to track.”

Follow thewest.com.au on Twitter