Free Republic

Explanation: Palomar 12 was not born here. The stars of the globular cluster, first identified in the Palomar Sky Survey, are younger than those in other globular star clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy. Palomar 12's position in our galaxy and measured motion suggest its home was once the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, a small satellite of the Milky Way. Disrupted by gravitational tides during close encounters the satellite galaxy has lost its stars to the larger Milky Way. Now part of the Milky Way's halo, the tidal capture of Palomar 12 likely took place some...

Explanation: What are those bright spots on asteroid Ceres? As the robotic spacecraft Dawn approaches the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, the puzzle only deepens. Sharper new images taken last week and released yesterday indicate, as expected, that most of the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is dark and heavily cratered like our Moon and the planet Mercury. The new images do not clearly indicate, however, the nature of comparatively bright spots -- although more of them are seen to exist. The enigmatic spots were first noticed on Texas-sized Ceres a few weeks ago during Dawn's approach. The intriguing...

Forget HoloLens, forget smart glasses and forget augmented reality -- scientists have proposed a "cortical modem" that plugs into your DNA and your visual cortex to cure sight loss and show a heads-up display in front of your very eyes. The cortical modem concept is the brainchild of DARPA, the US Defense Research Projects Agency. Originally founded in 1958 in response to the launch of Sputnik, DARPA is the US military's research and development agency. It's perhaps best known outside of military circles for the development of ARPANET, an early packet switching network that formed a precursor to the Internet....

Following are excerpts: Bandar Al-Khaybari: Someone is asking whether the Earth moves or whether it is fixed in place. Does it move or remain fixed? The Truth, as described by our scholars Imam Ibn Baz and Sheik Saleh Al-Fawzan, is that the Earth is fixed and does not move. This is in keeping with the Quranic text, and it makes sense as well. [...] There is ample Quranic evidence that it is the sun that revolves around the Earth. As for evidence based on reason... The [Westerners] present all kinds of theories, but we Muslims also have theories and brains....

Julia Roberts as Mother Nature: She Wants to Kill Us A new environmentalist video calls mankind puny and threatens to wipe us out. By Jason Jones & John Zmirak Published on February 15, 2015Julia Roberts delivers a stone-cold video message from Gaia, courtesy of Conservation International. There is something bracing and powerful in this little film. We moderns surely do need to be reminded that material reality poses stark limitations on our narcissistic desires. We can’t foul our nest, wreck the only known habitable planet and expect it to magically fix itself. Thus far, we’re on board with Julia.Check the...

The hunt for Earth-like planets around distant stars could soon become a lot easier thanks to a technique developed by researchers in Germany. In a paper published today, 18 February, in the New Journal of Physics, the team of researchers have successfully demonstrated how a solar telescope can be combined with a piece of technology that has already taken the physics world by storm—the laser frequency comb (LFC). It is expected the technique will allow a spectral analysis of distant stars with unprecedented accuracy, as well as advance research in other areas of astrophysics, such as detailed observations of the...

Alan Turing and the New Emergentists Erik J. Larson February 18, 2015 4:29 AM | Permalink The acclaimed Alan Turing biographical film The Imitation Game is up for multiple Oscars on Sunday. It is a tale of Turing as a tragic hero and misunderstood genius, irascible, certainly idiosyncratic, who insinuates himself into a job interview at Bletchley Park as a self-proclaimed mathematical genius, which later is born out as true. He "invents" the digital computer to solve the decryption challenge posed by the German Enigma machines, and thus saves the Allied powers from Hitler.  The film is a human-interest story,...

We are from the School of Meteorology and we invite you to participate in our research project entitled Tornado Warning Communication and Response. This research is being conducted at The University of Oklahoma. You were selected as a possible participant because you received the link to the online survey. What is the purpose of this research? The purpose of this research is to study how different individuals respond to severe weather communication. What will I be asked to do? If you agree to be in this research, you will answer 10 questions regarding severe weather communication, each with multiple parts....

February 17, 2015 Image Advisory—Craters and mysterious bright spots are beginning to pop out in the latest images of Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. These images, taken Feb. 12 at a distance of 52,000 miles (83,000 kilometers) from the dwarf planet, pose intriguing questions for the science team to explore as the spacecraft nears its destination. “As we slowly approach the stage, our eyes transfixed on Ceres and her planetary dance, we find she has beguiled us but left us none the wiser,” said Chris Russell, principal investigator of the Dawn mission, based at UCLA. “We expected to be surprised;...

The sun revolves around the Earth, a Saudi cleric insisted to a student panel Sunday—prompting a social media storm. Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari told a student that the Earth is “stationary and does not move,” according to Al-Arabiya, justifying the statement with religious texts and statements. But then he tried to debunk the common knowledge about the Earth’s rotation using “logic,” in a visual demonstration that prompted the speech to go viral. “First of all, where are we now?” he asked. “We go to Sharjah airport to travel to China by plane, clear?!” Khaibari argued, confusingly, that the Earth cannot rotate...

If limiting fossil fuel usage is so disastrous for the poor, how can Obama, through EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, claim to the Vatican that his policies help the least fortunate? This argument rests on the assumption that preventing climate change will protect the poor from rising seas, worsening droughts, and the extreme climate events that are allegedly linked to global warming. This claim is false on two counts...

Patient-Focused Drug Development for Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders; Public Meeting; Request for Comments This conference is being held in the N.E so those of us in the South or West are excluded unless you take the time to EMAIL this person. email Sayyedeh.Mariani@fda.hhs.gov

One of the fundamentals that underpins not just physics but every aspect of existence is the law of cause and effect, always in that order. Changing the past would violate that: your actions would affect what caused you to go back in the first place – so if you did manage to kill Hitler he wouldn’t have done what led you to go back and kill him. That doesn’t stop filmmakers exploring the consequences if you could somehow drop in on history. For Hollywood, applause and special effects are more important than cause and effect, and time travel offers unlimited...

Originally, astronomers thought that the Chelyabinsk meteor came from a 1.24-mile-wide (2 kilometers) near-Earth asteroid called 1999 NC43. But a closer look at the asteroid's orbit and likely mineral composition, gained from spectroscopy, suggests few similarities between it and the Russian meteor. However, "the composition of [the] Chelyabinsk meteorite that was recovered after the event is similar to a common type of meteorite called LL chondrites," he added. "The near-Earth asteroid has a composition that is distinctly different from this." More generally, Reddy and his colleagues' work showed that it is difficult to make predictions about what particular asteroid could...

Explanation: When does the Sun look like a flower? In a specific color of red light emitted by hydrogen, as featured here, some regions of the solar chromosphere may resemble a rose. The color-inverted image was taken in 2014 October and shows active solar region 2177. The petals dominating the frame are actually magnetically confined tubes of hot plasma called fibrils, some of which extend longer the diameter of the Earth. In the central region many of these fibrils are seen end-on, while the surrounding regions are typically populated with curved fibrils. When seen over the Sun's edge, these huge...

Saudi Royal's Benedict Canyon Home Would Require Environmental Review A 2011 photo of part of a Saudi prince's planned 5-acre development in Benedict Canyon. (Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times) By MARTHA GROVES An appeals panel finds a Saudi prince's vast project must go through an environmental review A California court Friday threw up a roadblock to the vast compound a Saudi Arabian prince hopes to build in Benedict Canyon, a project opposed by the billionaires next door and hundreds of residents nearby. The California appellate court's decision that the proposed residential complex must go through an environmental review marks...

Plumes seen reaching high above the surface of Mars are causing a stir among scientists studying the atmosphere on the Red Planet. On two separate occasions in March and April 2012, amateur astronomers reported definite plume-like features developing on the planet. The plumes were seen rising to altitudes of over 250 km above the same region of Mars on both occasions. By comparison, similar features seen in the past have not exceeded 100 km. "At about 250 km, the division between the atmosphere and outer space is very thin, so the reported plumes are extremely unexpected," says Agustin Sanchez-Lavega of...

"We are looking at Eastern North America," said Milner. "Nowhere else in the world has similar archaeological data been compiled for such a large area." ... He notes that the popular view of warfare in small-scale societies in North America usually falls either at the extremes of excessively warlike or eternally peaceful. However, the reality, as seen in archaeological evidence, is the levels of warfare varied both through time and space... The researchers also looked at skeletal indications of conflict including embedded arrowheads, evidence of damage by stone axes or mutilation including scalping. Over an area that includes the East...

If you think you understand it, you don't know nearly enough about it It will soon be 200 years since the birth of Charles Darwin and 150 years since the publication of On the Origin of Species, arguably the most important book ever written. In it, Darwin outlined an idea that many still find shocking - that all life on Earth, including human life, evolved through natural selection. Darwin presented compelling evidence for evolution in On the Origin and, since his time, the case has become overwhelming. Countless fossil discoveries allow us to trace the evolution of today's organisms from...

A Firewall Between Science and Culture? Questions and Answers with John West, Author of Darwin Day in America Evolution News & Views February 16, 2015 12:27 AM | Permalink ENV: What is "Darwin Day," and why is your book titled Darwin Day in America?West: "Darwin Day" is Charles Darwin's birthday, February 12. There is a growing movement around the world to turn the day into a kind of secular holy day complete with its own rituals to honor Darwin. These Darwin Day celebrations expose just how much Darwinian evolution is like a secular religion for many of its proponents. At...