Rocky extrasolar planets thought to be half frozen and half scorched might instead rock back and forth, creating large swaths of twilight with temperatures suitable for life.
Because of gravitational tugs with the objects they orbit, rocky bodies often settle into trajectories in which they always show the same face to their hosts. Such ‘tidally locked’ exoplanets would thus seem like bad candidates for life, since the hemisphere facing their host stars would roast and the dark side would freeze.
But a new computer model by Anthony Dobrovolskis of NASA Ames Research Center in California, US, suggests this is not always so. He finds that such planets can rock to and fro if they travel on elongated, or eccentric orbits, creating a ‘twilight zone’ that could be hospitable to life.
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Source: newscientist.com
Ancient remains including a 3,000 year-old stone circle and presumed place of sacrifice have been discovered near Vitemölla on Österlen in the far south of Sweden. The site extends over two hectares and is older and bigger than the region’s celebrated Ale’s Stones.
The site, presumed to date from the bronze age, is reported to be probably the largest stone circle in the whole of northern Europe.
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Source: thelocal.se
The owners of a trout farm were amazed a photographer caught their fish making an extraordinary escape on camera.
He pictured the trout making giant leaps out of their pond into a metal feed pipe three feet above the water level.
They then fought against the current for 30ft to the end of the eight inch wide pipe, which emerges underwater in a tributary of the River Itchen near Alresford, Hants.
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Source: ananova.com
Next time you sort through your holiday photos, maybe your dog could lend a hand. It seems dogs can place photographs into categories the same way humans do, an ability previously identified only in birds and primates.
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Source: newscientist.com
Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric “monster” reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday.
Initial excavation of a site on the Svalbard islands in August yielded the remains, teeth, skull fragments and vertebrae of a reptile estimated to measure nearly 40 feet long, said Joern Harald Hurum of the University of Oslo.
“It seems the monster is a new species,” he told The Associated Press.
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Source: wired.com
A barber in China has set a world record by cutting a customer’s hair with 10 pairs of scissors simultaneously.
Wang Zedong, 41, of Jiujiang city, Jiangxi province, demonstrated his stunt in a television studio with hundreds of people, and Guinness officials, in the audience.
In less than three minutes, Wang cut the model’s hair, reports Zhejiang Online.
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Source: ananova.com
Swarms of miniature airplanes that could someday track hurricanes, helping researchers make better predictions about the storms’ course and strength, are being tested in the US.
Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have developed small uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) that link up to form an airborne network, allowing the planes to coordinate their behaviour independently of a central control. And they are working on networking autonomous subs the same way.
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Source: newscientist.com
Imagery could help scientists figure out history of ‘Home Plate’. NASA’s sharpest-eyed orbiter at Mars has spotted the Spirit rover far below, sitting on an enigmatic rock formation nicknamed “Home Plate.”
Such imagery could provide new clues about the plateau’s geological history — and serve as a guide for Spirit’s future sojourns around Home Plate, Ken Herkenhoff of the U.S. Geological Survey told msnbc.com on Monday.
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Source: msnbc.msn.com
The 7 Incredible Natural Phenomena: Venezuela’s Everlasting Storm, Honduras’ Rain of Fishes,Morocco’s Climbing Goats,Kerala’s (extraterrestrial?) Red Rain,Brazilian’s longest wave on the Earth,Denmark’s Black Sun,Idaho’s Fire Rainbow
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Source: oddee.com
A remote Chinese village has built a school in a giant mountain cave.
The school, named Middle Cave School, is located in the middle cave of a mountain in Getu village, Guizhou province.
It has expanded from just one class when it first opened to having eight teachers and 186 students.
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Source: ananova.com
Vets believe the cat, which has two mouths, two noses and four eyes, may have two brains, as one face can go to sleep while the other remains awake and it can blink independently on each one.
“When he purrs it is like he is purring in stereo,” the cat’s owner said.
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Source: telegraph.co.uk
At the age of six months, most babies have barely learnt to sit up, let alone crawl, walk or talk.
But, according to new research, they can already assess someone’s intentions towards them, deciding who is a likely friend or enemy.
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Source: bbc.co.uk
They are making orange peel plastic and robots that can heal themselves. They are six researchers with six ideas that will one day change the world. Everything from making orange peel plastic to robots that can heal themselves.
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Source: esquire.com
An impoverished surfer has drawn up a new theory of the universe, seen by some as the Holy Grail of physics, which as received rave reviews from scientists.
His proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.
Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts.
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Source: telegraph.co.uk
A cat is baffling his owner by wandering off at night before expecting to be collected by car every morning at exactly the same time and place.
Sgt Podge, a Norwegian Forest Cat, disappears from his owner’s home in Talbot Woods, Bournemouth, every night.
The next morning, the 12-year-old cat can always be found in exactly the same place, on a pavement about one and a half miles (2.4km) away.
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Source: bbc.co.uk
