Recent Science Blog Updates

ZINC Science Blog U.S.-Indonesia expedition discovers new marine species A rare and exciting look at the seafloor -- with images of unusual and beautiful creatures -- was offered to U.S. and Indonesian scientists working side-by-side at Exploration Command Centers in Jakar... more » Sun-like star found to harbour extensive exoplanetary system Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) world-leading HARPS instrument have discovered a planetary system containing at least five planets, orbiting the Sun-like star HD 10180.The ... more » Significant muscle waste in long duration spaceflight Astronaut muscles waste away on long space flights and their ability to do physical work is reduced by more than 40% according to research by Marquette University.This is the equivalent of a 30- to 50... more » Oldest Earth mantle discovered Scientists have discovered a new window into the Earth's violent past. Geochemical evidence from volcanic rocks collected on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic suggests that beneath it lies a region... more » Glacier shed huge iceberg On August 5, 2010, an enormous chunk of ice, roughly 251 square kilometers (97 square miles) in size, broke off the Petermann Glacier along the northwestern coast of Greenland. The Canadian Ice Servic... more » Supercomputer simulates birth of cyclone To save lives from the high winds, flooding, and storm surges of tropical cyclones (also known as hurricanes and typhoons), forecasters need to give as much advance warning as possible and the greates... more » Key photosynthetic component identified in plants A team of researchers from Duke University and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has found a central part in the machinery that turns plants green when they sense light.There's the familiar sy... more » NASA helps Gulf of Mexico oil spill wildlife recovery NASA's Kennedy Space Center is helping with the unprecedented effort to save wildlife from the effects of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.The first group of hatchlings from en... more » Geologic clues uncovered in devastating 2004 Sumatran earthquake An international team of geoscientists has uncovered geological differences between two segments of an earthquake fault that may explain why the 2004 Sumatra Boxing Day Tsunami was so much more devast... more » New fish species found in oil inflicted Gulf of Mexico Although the Gulf of Mexico has been intensively surveyed by scientists and picked over by fishermen, it is still home to fishes that are waiting to be described.New research from a team that includes... more » First close-up view of asteroid Lutetia Asteroid Lutetia has been revealed as a battered world of many craters. ESA's Rosetta mission has returned the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor fr... more » Gigantic telescope to be built in Hawai'i After careful evaluation and comparison between two outstanding candidate sites -- Mauna Kea in Hawai'i and Cerro Armazones in Chile -- the board of directors of the TMT Observatory Corporation has se... more » Happy 10th anniversary CXO! Ten years ago, on July 23, 1999, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched aboard the space shuttle Columbia and deployed into orbit. Chandra has doubled its original five-year mission, ushering i... more » Plants might have saved Earth from runaway freezing When glaciers advanced over much of the Earth's surface during the last ice age, what kept the planet from freezing over entirely?This has been a puzzle to climate scientists because leading models ha... more » Canadian scientists find evidence of Martian water cycle According to the first findings from the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, snow and water-ice clouds play a crucial role in the exchange of water between the atmosphere and surface of Mars, which suggests ... more » Solar observing spacecraft ended long running mission Ulysses, the joint ESA/NASA solar orbiter mission, finally ended on 30 June 2009 when ground controllers sent commands to shut down the satellite's communications. The event marks the conclusion of on... more » Citizen science in environmental sensing with mobile phones UCLA researchers unveiled a new tool to help people understand their relationship with the environment.  The Personal Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) lets users see online how their daily choi... more » Nanotechnology helps increase DVD storage capacity Futuristic discs with a storage capacity 2,000 times that of current DVDs could be just around the corner, thanks to new research from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia.For the first tim... more » Two new space telescopes to study origin of Universe Two of the most ambitious missions ever attempted to unveil the secrets of the darkest, coldest and oldest parts of the Universe got off to a successful start on 14 May 2009 with the dual launch of ES... more » Nickel famine could increase oxygen level in early Earth The Earth's original atmosphere held very little oxygen. This began to change around 2.4 billion years ago when oxygen levels increased dramatically during what scientists call the "Great Oxidati... more » North magnetic pole of Earth Sea ice around the North Magnetic Pole, a wandering point on the Earth's surface, is featured in this Envisat radar image, acquired on 8 December 2008.Just as Earth has two geographic poles, the North... more » Two new Canadian astronauts selected Nearly 25 years after the first Canadian astronaut flew into space and only weeks before two Canadian space veterans launch to the International Space Station, the Honourable Industry Minister Tony Cl... more » Mild solar storm season predicted Although its peak is still four years away, a new active period of Earth-threatening solar storms will be the weakest since 1928, predicts an international panel of experts led by NOAA's Space Weather... more » Extensive tornado study begins in central U.S. The largest and most ambitious tornado study in history will begin next week, as dozens of scientists deploy radars and other ground-based instruments across the Great Plains to gain a better understa... more » Explore Great Lakes with Google Earth NOAA is offering a peer beneath the surfaces of the five Great Lakes by providing Google Earth with data that now includes detailed three-dimensional mapping of Lakes Huron, Ontario, Erie, Superior an... more » Last pretty picture from Hubble Telescope camera The Hubble community bids farewell to the soon-to-be decommissioned Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 onboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In tribute to Hubble's longest-running optical camera, whic... more » Canada's largest optical telescope to resume usage The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto Centre and Metrus Development Inc. celebrate the imminent return of one of Canada's most beloved astronomy landmarks to active service.Canada's larges... more » Space observations of Mt. Etna could lead to eruption forecast Using radar images acquired by European Space Agency (ESA) satellites from 1992 to 2006, scientists have for the first time been able to monitor the long-term behaviour of Mt. Etna, Europe's highest a... more » World Wide Web hits 20 years Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee returned to the birthplace of his invention on 13 March 2009, twenty years after submitting his paper 'Information Management: A Proposal' to his boss Mike Sendall.By writ... more » Google Mars NASA and Google announced the release of a new Mars mode in Google Earth that brings to everyone's desktop a high-resolution, three-dimensional view of the Red Planet.Besides providing a rich, immersi... more » Informal settings can boost science learning Each year, tens of millions of Americans, young and old, choose to learn about science in informal ways -- by visiting museums and aquariums, attending after-school programs, pursuing personal hobbies... more » Who really made the first telescopic observation? This year the world celebrates the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), marking the 400th anniversary of the first drawings of celestial objects through a telescope. This first has long been att... more » 2008 ends with an extra second On December 31, 2008 a "leap second" will be added to the world's clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).  This corresponds to 6:59:59 pm Eastern... more » First image of extrasolar planetary system with multiple planets Astronomers for the first time have taken snapshots of a multi-planet solar system, much like ours, orbiting another star.The new solar system orbits a dusty young star named HR8799, which is 140 ligh... more » First visible-light snapshot of an extrasolar planet NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star.Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbi... more » Cameras captured "fireball" in the sky For the second time this year, The University of Western Ontario Meteor Group has captured incredibly rare video footage of a meteor falling to Earth. The team of astronomers suspects the fireball dro... more » Rapid-response aerial imaging system aids disaster management Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a low-cost, high-resolution imaging system that can be attached to a helicopter to create a complete and detailed picture of an... more » Incident delays start-up of Large Hadron Collider Investigations at CERN following a large helium leak into sector 3-4 of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) tunnel have indicated that the most likely cause of the incident was a faulty electrical connect... more » Oldest rocks on Earth found Discovery of rocks as old as 4.28 billion years pushes back age of most ancient remnant of Earth's crust by 300 million yearsMcGill University researchers have discovered the oldest rocks on Earth -- ... more » Possible planet around Sun-like star imaged Astronomers have unveiled what is likely the first picture of a planet around a normal star similar to the Sun.Three University of Toronto scientists used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Ha... more » First beam in Large Hadron Collider The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres [16.8 miles] of the world's most powerful particle accelerator at 8:26 GMT [4:26 a.m. E... more » Backward-orbiting asteroid discovered An international team of astronomers have spotted a surprising asteroid, whose unusual orbit may help explain where comets come from. The asteroid, currently named 2008 KV42, is orbiting the Sun backw... more » Lidar could help sailors in competition A team of researchers at the Ocean University of China has developed and tested a mobile lidar (light detection and ranging) station that can accurately measure wind speed and direction over large are... more » Tagging peregrine falcons in Toronto In the morning of 10 July 2008 an operation to tag three peregrine falcon chicks happened in Toronto.  The event is particularly special because this is the first known peregrine falcon nest at a... more » Saturn, Mars, Regulus, Moon alignment On 5 July 2008 Saturn, Mars, Regulus and a crescent Moon aligned in a straight line in the western twilight sky after sunset.  Mars is the orange dot in between Saturn, the highest of the three d... more » May 2008 quake in China a rare event A new analysis of the setting for last month's devastating earthquake in China by a team of geoscientists at MIT shows that the quake resulted from faults with little seismic activity, and that simila... more » Canadian satellite to find near-Earth asteroids Canada is building the world's first space telescope designed to detect and track asteroids as well as satellites. Called NEOSSat (Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite), this spacecraft will provi... more » Tunguska blast 100 years ago At around 7:17 on the morning of June 30, 1908, a man based at the trading post at Vanavara in Siberia is sitting on his front porch. In a moment, 40 miles [64 km] from the center of an immense blast ... more » Science 2.0 In a provocative article in the 7 March 2008 issue of Science Magazine, the University of Maryland's Ben Shneiderman, one of the world's leading researchers and innovators in human-computer interactio... more » Drastic climate change near end of last Ice Age Information gleaned from a Greenland ice core by an international science team shows that two huge Northern Hemisphere temperature spikes prior to the close of the last ice age some 11,500 years ago w... more » Inexpensive prototype solar dish passes first tests A team led by MIT students successfully tested a prototype of what may be the most cost-efficient solar power system in the world -- one that team members believe has the potential to revolutionize gl... more » Harnessing solar energy to mimic photosynthesis Ask any scientist to name Earth's most abundant source of energy, and the answer comes quickly: sunlight. In one hour, the Sun strikes Earth with enough energy to power the entire planet for a year.Th... more » Science Centre World Congress issued Declaration in Toronto Courtesy: Andrew YeeLeaders from science centres and museums around the world met in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from June 14-19, 2008 for the Fifth Science Centre World Congress. At the closing ceremony... more » Extraterrestrial origin of nucleobases in meteorite confirmed Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin.The finding suggests that p... more » New class of Solar System objects: Plutoids The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term plutoid as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo.Almost two years after the International Ast... more » Geyser eruption depends on rainfall patterns New research suggests that how often Old Faithful and other Yellowstone geysers erupt may depend on annual rainfall patterns.Geysers are rare hot springs that periodically erupt bursts of steam and ho... more » Making giant lunar telescopes Scientists working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have concocted an innovative recipe for giant telescope mirrors on the Moon. To make a mirror that dwarfs anything on Earth,... more » Precision of radioactive argon dating improved Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Geochronology Center have pinpointed the date of the dinosaurs' extinction more precisely than ever thanks to refinements to a co... more » HDTV captured Full Earth-rise The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) successfully captured a movie of the "Full Earth-rise" using the onboard High Definition Television (HD... more » Uncover mechanisms of different types of lightning The mechanism behind different types of lightning may now be understood, thanks to a combination of direct observation and computer modeling reported by a team of researchers from New Mexico Tech and ... more » Concrete examples don't help students learn math A new study challenges the common practice in many classrooms of teaching mathematical concepts by using "real-world," concrete examples.Researchers led by Jennifer Kaminski, researcher scie... more » Odds of finding E.T. life low A mathematical model produced by a scientist from the University of East Anglia in U.K. suggests that the odds of finding new life on other Earth-like planets are low, given the time it has taken for ... more » Physicist promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada Physicist Art McDonald, director of the Queen's-led Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) is one of 30 Canadians promoted to Officer of the Order of Canada in Ottawa.Dr. McDonald first received the desig... more » Earth Hour 2008 in Toronto On March 29 between 8 and 9 pm local time the 2008 Earth Hour global campaign took place, with an aim of raising the awareness of energy conservation.  Many residents and businesses in Toronto tu... more » Oldest sound recording found and played A group of researchers has succeeded in playing a sound recording of a human voice made in 1860 -- seventeen years before Thomas Edison invented the phonograph.Roughly ten seconds in length, the recor... more » Maglev computer interface gives users sense of touch Computers, long used as tools to design and manipulate three-dimensional objects, may soon provide people with a way to sense the texture of those objects or feel how they fit together, thanks to a ha... more » Splitting iceberg In late 2004 satellite image mosaic shows the mega-iceberg A53a in the process of breaking off from the Larsen Ice Shelf.Courtesy: NASA GSFCOn 15 January 2008 astronauts of Expedition 16 mission on th... more » Martian avalanches photographed A NASA spacecraft in orbit around Mars has taken the first ever image of active avalanches near the Red Planet's north pole. The image shows tan clouds billowing away from the foot of a towering slope... more » Canadian two-armed robot comes alive on Space Station After a picture-perfect night launch on March 11 and three spacewalks to assemble it, Dextre was activated today. Canada's advanced, two-armed robot is now successfully installed on the International ... more » Get a robot to work with just a point and a click Robots are fluent in their native language of 1 and 0 absolutes but struggle to grasp the nuances and imprecise nature of human language. While scientists are making slow, incremental progress in thei... more » Unusually early Easter in 2008 An email has been in circulation claiming that the Easter of 2008 happens unusually early, on March 23.While the email correctly identifies the date of the early arrival of Easter in 2008, the Urban L... more » Redefining kilogram The kilogram is losing weight and many international scientists agree that it's time to redefine it.Scientists are hoping to redefine the kilogram by basing it on standards of universal constants rath... more » Cellphone GPS data provides traffic condition Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Nokia tested technology that could soon transform the way drivers navigate through congested highways and obtain information about road con... more » The World At Night (TWAN) program The World At Night (TWAN) is a new programme founded in 2007 with the goal of creating a collection of stunning photographs of the world's most beautiful and historic sites against the night-time back... more » Future Sun could vaporize Earth New calculations by University of Sussex astronomers predict that the Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun in about 7.6 billion years unless the Earth's orbit can be altered.Previous calculations sug... more » Toronto at night ... from space While the nighttime view of Toronto is a spectacle for visitors and residents, the amount of light that spills upward has brightened the night sky so much that unaided eyes can easily see only bright ... more » First near-Earth triple asteroid discovered Once considered just your average single asteroid, 2001 SN263 has now been revealed as the first near-Earth triple asteroid ever found. The asteroid -- with three bodies orbiting each other -- was dis... more » Tracking climate clues in spring flowers Starting February 15 a nationwide initiative enables volunteers to track climate change by observing the timing of flowers and foliage. Project BudBurst, operated by the University Corporation for Atm... more » Swimsuit fabrics tested in wind tunnel When a swimsuit manufacturer wanted to create a better fabric for competitive swimmers, it sought out some unlikely experts -- aerospace engineers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virgini... more » Vertical treadmill to improve astronaut health in space NASA is using a new treadmill that allows people to run while suspended horizontally to help astronauts prepare for long-duration missions to the moon and beyond. A team of engineers at NASA's Glenn R... more » Spacecraft flyby of Mercury returned surprises The recent flyby of Mercury by NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft has given scientists an entirely new look at a planet once thought to have characteristics similar to those of Earth's moon. Researchers are ... more » Beam a song into deep space For the first time ever, NASA beamed a song -- The Beatles' "Across the Universe" -- directly into deep space at 7 p.m. EST on Feb. 4 [0000 UTC Feb. 5].Courtesy: NASAThe transmission over NA... more » Metal alchemy Using a tabletop laser, University of Rochester optical scientists have turned pure aluminum, gold.And blue. And gray. And many other colors. And it works for every metal tested, including platinum, t... more » Darkest material made in lab Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University have created the darkest material ever made by man.The material, a thin coating comprised of low-density arrays of loosely verticall... more » Space-tech could make life easier for diabetics German student Nicole Schmiedel has come up with a design for a trendy-looking wristwatch that contains an innovative ultra-light insulin pump to help people with type 1 diabetes. The watch produces i... more » Microworld artistry Albert Folch is a scientist who also happens to appreciate art. And many of the photos he's taken through his microscope would look equally at home on the walls of a modern-art gallery. Crimson geomet... more » Unravelling monarch butterfly migration Since its discovery, the annual migration of eastern North American monarch butterfly has captivated the human imagination and spirit. That millions of butterflies annually fly up to 2000 miles to rea... more » Asteroid to pass near Mars New data have led to a significant reduction in the position uncertainties during the asteroid's close approach to Mars on Jan. 30, 2008. As a result, the impact probability has dropped dramatically, ... more » Earth: A Borderline Planet for Life? New work by astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics shows that if Earth had been slightly smaller and less massive, it would not have plate tectonics -- the forces that move con... more » Phosphorescence key to fingerprinting Hope Diamond Shine a white light on the Hope Diamond and it will dazzle you with the brilliance of an amazing blue diamond. Shine an ultraviolet light on the Hope Diamond and the gem will glow red-orange for about... more » Plate tectonic process on Earth may not be continuous Plate tectonics, the geologic process responsible for creating the Earth's continents, mountain ranges, and ocean basins, may be an on-again, off-again affair.Scientists have assumed that the shifting... more » SETI@home looking for more volunteers The longest-running search for radio signals from alien civilizations is getting a burst of new data from an upgraded Arecibo telescope, which means the SETI@home project needs more desktop computers ... more » New solar cycle begins A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM tra... more » Checking global navigation satellite system accuracy NOAA will lead an international effort to pinpoint the locations of more than 40 global positioning satellites in Earth orbit, which is vital to ensuring the accuracy of GPS data that millions worldwi... more » Smaller asteroids may pose greater danger than previously believed The stunning amount of forest devastation at Tunguska a century ago in Siberia may have been caused by an asteroid only a fraction as large as previously published estimates, Sandia National Laborator... more » Organic matter in Martian meteorite came from chemical reactions, not microbes Organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen and form the building blocks of all life on Earth. By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at th... more » Large earthquakes may broadcast warnings Like geological ninjas, earthquakes can strike without warning. But there may be a way to detect the footfalls of large earthquakes before they strike, alerting their potential victims a week or more ... more » Oral traditions warn people about tsunamis effectively The infamous Indian Ocean tsunami that struck on December 26, 2004, caused tragically high mortality -- from 10 to 90 percent of the population at various locations. Yet in 1930 a tsunami of similar s... more » Solar System is squashed NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has followed its twin, Voyager 1, into the solar system's final frontier, a vast region at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind runs up against the thin gas be... more » New hypothesis for origin of life proposed Life may have begun in the protected spaces inside of layers of the mineral mica, in ancient oceans, according to a new hypothesis.The hypothesis was developed by Helen Hansma, a research scientist wi... more » Cameras capture dramatic wildfire-wildlife images Wildlife photos from a motion-triggered camera used in wildlife research in Orange County between Los Angeles and San Diego managed to survive the fire intact, along with some astonishing photos. ... more » Comments on science festivals South Hampton, UK — Perhaps the first science festival could be said to be the 1851 World's Fair in London. Over a quarter of the population of Britain went to marvel at the latest inventions am... more » Marvel at this balancey thing Zinc Projects has just bought this marvellous balancey thing from our friend Ben Cravenhttp://bencraven.org.uk/balancing_beam.html... more » HDTV goes to the Moon When the Japanese space agency launched its SELENE / KAGUYA lunar spacecraft on the morning of September 14, 2007 (Japanese time, evening of Sept. 13 in North America), it carried a HDTV camera that w... more » Internet capacity may be insufficient by 2010 Consumer and corporate Internet usage could outstrip network capacity both in North America and worldwide in a little more than two years ... This study — the first-ever to assess internet infra... more »