Four possible new dinosaur species were discovered in South Africa. One of which has already been named Aardonyx Celestae. The new species is being heralded as a missing link between the early dinosaurs that were two-legged to the sauropods or four-legged dinosaurs.

How dinosaurs evolved into the massive four-legged reptiles has been a question that keeps bugging scientists for a long time.

The Aardonyx is dated to have lived in the early Jurassic period, stands 6 feet (1.7 meters) and weighs 1100 pounds (500 kgms). It is 23 foot (7 meters) long and has a large barrel of a chest. Concrete-like stones are attached to its claws – hence the name “Aardonyx” which literally means “earth claws”. It walks on its hind legs but can drop to all fours. It is also classified as plant eating or herbivore.

Professor Adam Yates of the University of the Witwatersrand’s Bernard Price Institute for Paleontological Research lead the South African research. However he assigned the actual site where the bones were dug up to masters student Marc Blackbeard. Blackbeard’s team then found the more than 300 bones that make up the new dinosaur species.

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New Dinosaur Species Discovered in South Africa

NASA has confirmed that there is a “significant” amount of water on the moon.

The space agency’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), along with a companion rocket stage made twin impacts in Cabeus crater last month. The analysis of the cloud of debris thrown up by the missile’s impact confirmed the presence of water in the form of ice.

Actually this news is quite boring because India has made this announcement two months ago. I’m still waiting for that big revelation and I’m pretty sure NASA knows what I’m talking about.

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NASA discovers water on moon…YAWN

Switzerland bids to be the first to produce a solar powered airplane that can travel around the world. Solar Impulse unveiled the prototype in an airbase hangar near Zurich.

With a wingspan equal to an Airbus A380, the ultralight high-tech single seater plane will make its maiden voyage over the coming few weeks when the weather conditions allow. The slender craft, which weighs 1600 kilograms (equal to a medium-sized car and lighter than the best performing gliders), will need clear conditions and light breeze of three knots to be able to fly.

The prototype, however, is smaller than the actual plane that is expected to fly around the world. The prototype is being used to test the cutting technology that built the plane, the controls of the plane and its ability to fly though the night.

Runway tests are due on December 20 at the Dubendorf airbase.

The first 36-hour non-stop flight is scheduled to fly out from Switzerland in spring 2010 while a five-stage flight plan is scheduled in 2012.

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Solar Powered Plane Prototype Unveiled

As you may or may not know, the 2012 movie is to be released this Friday. But before that happens, NASA is already on a crusade to vanquish the myth that 2012 will be the end of the world as thousands upon thousands of mails and emails flood their doorstep.

“There is no factual basis for these claims,” NASA said in a question-and-answer posting on its website.

The movie depicts that Earth will undergo catastrophic changes and will be hit by global disasters including planetary collision, massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc…

Watching this movie will sure be a welcome thrill but ending the world on 2012 seems far fetched. The Earth has been here for millions (or is it billions?) of years and will be here to stay.

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NASA – The Fight Against the 2012 Myth?

Sexual function can be restored for those with damaged penises by growing new penile tissues in the lab and implanting it.

For rabbits, that is.

The procedure conducted for the experiment started by extracting smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells from the penises of the animals. They are separately grown on rod-shaped collagen scaffolds, placed in an incubator and nourished by fluids. When the cells mature, the newly formed penile spongy tissue called corpora carnevosa are implanted surgically to the penises of the rabbits. The tissue will reconstitute itself as time passes by.

Dr. Andrew McCullough, director of male sex health, fertility and microsurgery at NYU Medical Center said that the outcome have been met with positive results. “It has a long way to go, but the researchers have basically shown they can take cells from an organ, culture them, put them back in and have them be functional.”

The rabbits were able to normally have an erection, do penetration and deposit sperms to the female rabbits. Study showed that 4 out of 12 female rabbits were impregnated.

Researches say that the technique can one day be implemented to treat severe erectile dysfunction in human males.

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New Penile Tissue Regrown in the Lab

Before going through the whole top 10 list of most important modern discoveries, make a guess of which is #1. No it is not the iPhone but rather the #1 modern discovery as voted by the British public in a Science Museum poll is the X-ray!

Now you may or may not agree with this but whatever the case is, the x-ray has done us a lot of good. The x-ray has vastly improved medical analysis as it enables professionals in the medicine field to examine us using x-ray machines which gives valuable information during check-up.

The x-ray has also helped the field of astronomy as it is able to build up more detailed pictures of the outer space in our quest for deeper space explorations.

And now without further ado, the top 10:
1: X-ray
2: Penicillin
3: DNA double helix
4: Apollo 10 capsule
5: V2 rocket engine
6: Stephenson’s Rocket
7: Pilot ACE – one of the first computers
8: Steam engine
9: Model T Ford motor car
10: Electric telegraph

[via MailOnline]

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Top 10 Most Important Modern Discoveries

NASA today began the countdown for the test launch of the world’s largest rocket designed to replace the aging space shuttle and one day take astronauts back to the moon and beyond.

The 327-foot rocket, called the Ares I-X, is set to launch at 8 a.m. ET from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. However, forecasters say there’s a big chance that bad weather could delay the test flight.

The space agency has installed more than 700 sensors throughout the rocket to collect reams of data and confirm it is safe and stable during a launch.

The air travel is only slated to last two minutes, but it represents the culmination of years of work by the ATK Space Systems in Utah and almost 1,000 other NASA workers and private contractors across 17 states.

The build up and the takeoff will be broadcast live online on NASA TV.

[Image credit: NASA]

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Watch Ares I-X rocket launch live online

Thirty-two new planets have just been discovered, some five times the mass of Earth and others far bigger than Jupiter. But don’t bother going outside, it’s not like you’re going to see them or anything. These alien orbs are outside of our solar system.

The exoplanets, found through the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) spectrometer, was revealed Monday by European astronomers, bringing the number of worlds discovered outside the solar system to more than 400.

As for the new planets, they can’t really tell if they’re habitable. Twenty-eight of them are so-called “super-Earths” with masses 20 times the size of Earth or less, and are thus probably rocky planets. However, most are made up of toxic gas, and thus would be inhospitable to support life.

Scientists are excited about the new findings because they say that they significantly boost the evidence to the theory that the universe has many places where life could develop.

[Photo: European Southern Observatory]

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Dozens of planets found outside solar system

Biologists have discovered seven new glow-in-the-dark mushroom species, bringing the total number of bioluminescent fungi to 71.

Professor Dennis Desjardin and colleagues from the San Francisco State University discovered the shrooms in Belize, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia and Puerto Rico.

They may not have any psychoactive properties, but these fungi are psychedelic in their own way, emitting a bright, yellowish-green light 24/7. In natural light, however, the species appears to be a grayish-brown color.

Pictured above is Mycena silvaelucens, which was collected in Borneo, Malaysia.

[via Wired]

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New species of glow-in-the-dark mushrooms found

The Field Museum in Chicago will display a 40,000-year-old well-preserved infant woolly mammoth discovered in Siberian soil recently.

The exhibit debuts March 5 and will be open to the public until September 6.

The mammoth, known as Lyuba, was about a month old when she died after being sucked into a river bed. Her body was perfectly preserved that her tummy retained traces of her mother’s milk. Mud was also found in her trunk and throat, suggesting she had suffocated.

The remains are so well-preserved to provide DNA samples, but the prospect of cloning the little creature is still far and wide.

The photo of the mammoth is fascinating, so be sure to visit the Times of London for a look.

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Perfectly preserved baby mammoth heads to Chicago

Astronomers announced on Wednesday that they have found the first confirmed Earth-like planet outside our solar system, a discovery that raises hopes of finding extraterrestrial life.

COROT-7b is about 500 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn, and detailed observations show the planet to have a mass just five times that of the Earth.

Unfortunately, with daytime temperatures above 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,600 degrees Fahrenheit) and nighttime temps of minus 200, the environment on the planet is probably too severe to support life.

COROT-7b is only 2.5 million km away from its host star, or 23 times closer than Mercury is to the Sun. However the discovery suggests there may be planets with more hospitable conditions throughout the galaxy.

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Earth-like planet discovered outside solar system

Space shuttle Discovery lifted off just before midnight Friday from the Kennedy Space Center on Florida’s Atlantic coast, carrying nearly 8,000 kilograms of equipment for the International Space Station.

The mission had been postponed three times: once due to unfavorable weather conditions, once for a malfunctioning valve sensor and then to check data from a tanking test.

“It looks like third time really is the charm,’ launch director Pete Nickolenko told commander Rick Sturckow. “We wish you and your team good luck and Godspeed.”

The orbiter with seven astronauts aboard is on a 13-day mission to deliver food, supplies, science racks and equipment, as well as additional environmental hardware to sustain crew members on the ISS.

WATCH:

[Image via NASA]

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Space shuttle Discovery blasts off to ISS (video)

Space shuttle Endeavour is ready to launch today, Sunday, July 12. The Endevour launch was delayed after an electrical storm hit near it’s perch atop launch pad at Kennedy Space Center on Friday, reports space.com.

According to NASA, ground crews found no signs of damage from a lightning strike and completed all the necessary check they should do to clear the shuttle for take-off.

Endeaavour is now cleared to go at around 7:13 P.M. EDT (23:13 GMT). The space shuttle are set to deliver the third and final piece of Japan’s $1 billion space station lab, named Kibo (kee-boh), which means “hope” in the Japanese language. It is Japan’s first human space facility and enhances the unique research capabilities of the International Space Station.

[image: NASA via Wikipedia]

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Space shuttle Endeavour to launch today

US researchers have discovered a way to extract hydrogen from human urine that can then be used as fuel for hydrogen cars.

Although initial stages of the research used fake pee—or rather synthetic urine—the process works just as well with real human piss, Dr. Gerardine Botte claimed.

Botte, an Associate Professor from the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department at Ohio University, said that extracting hydrogen from urine will cost less than extracting hydrogen from water. She uses electrolysis to break the molecule apart, developing an inexpensive nickel-based electrode to efficiently oxidize the urea.

To break the molecule down, a voltage of 0.37V needs to be applied across the cell, which is much less than the 1.23V needed to split water.

“During the electrochemical process the urea gets adsorbed on to the nickel electrode surface, which passes the electrons needed to break up the molecule,” Botte told Chemistry World.

For now, it doesn’t look as if the technology will be readily available anytime soon but this could be the future of automobile fuel.

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Urine could be the hydrogen fuel of the future

Most hardcore geeks swear by it; most others think that the world will end by it.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider is up for repair ever since it got nicked by faulty wiring just nine days after it was started last September, and CERN’s officials are saying that current estimates for when repair is going to be finished are getting kicked back to sometime this October.

That’s a pretty long time for such a nifty gadget to be just sleeping around. Especially since it’s repair estimates are going to rack up to $37 million over a few years, not to mention that this 27-kilometer wide circular baby cost $10 billion to start with.

The Large Hadron Collider, if you must know, is essentially a huge circular tube where scientists go nuts making atomic particles collide with each other. The particles that blow off when they do can apparently tell how the world may have began, how it is most likely to end, and perhaps why toast always falls butter side down.

Sadly, I’m not too keen about squandering that huge amount of money, all for nine whole days at this merry-go-round.

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Large Hadron Collider up for remission until October. Still.