Новости за 21.01.2017

Charles Q. Choi, Astrobiology

Microbes that rank among the simplest and most ancient organisms on Earth could survive the extremely thin air of Mars, a new study finds.The Martian surface is presently cold and dry, but there is plenty of evidence suggesting that rivers, lakes and seas covered the Red Planet billions of years ago. Since there is life virtually wherever there is liquid water on Earth, scientists have suggested that life might have evolved on Mars when it was wet, and life could... Читать дальше...

Nathaniel Scharping, Discover

Lasers could turn Earth's atmosphere into a defensive, or offensive, tool in the future of warfare.Proposed by BAE Systems, a defense and aerospace company founded in the United Kingdom, the conceptual Laser Developed Atmospheric Lens (LDAL) would use lasers to ionize and heat the atmosphere in a way that temporarily endows small pockets of it with useful characteristics. This could take the form of an aerial lens used to magnify objects far away, or even a kind... Читать дальше...

The Economist
WHEN introduced 40 years ago, the Soviet Shkval (Squall) torpedo was hailed as an aircraft-carrier killer because its speed, more than 370kph (200 knots), was four times that of any American rival. The claim was premature. Problems with its design meant Shkval turned out to be less threatening than hoped (or, from a NATO point of view, less dangerous than feared), even though it is still made and deployed. But supercavitation, the principle upon which its speed depends, has continued to intrigue torpedo designers. Читать дальше...

Josh Bloom, ACSH
I am usually supportive of the pharmaceutical industry (1). People who routinely criticize it usually have no idea how difficult and expensive it is to get something from the lab to the pharmacy. Also, many people think that drug companies don't provide innovation, and do little more than manufacture something that the NIH or a university came up with. This could not be more wrong. Pharmaceutical companies have discovered and developed drugs that have had an enormous impact on human health. Читать дальше...

Ian O'Neill, Seeker

It's always interesting to consider all the weird and wonderful ways life on Earth could be affected by a cataclysmic disaster from space but it seems that only when you attach a dollar amount to the damage that can be caused, the world takes morbid notice.For example, we know an asteroid impact would kill a lot of people, that's a given. But if the economic cost of an asteroid hitting a financial center was estimated at a few trillion dollars, it's the latter that grabs the headlines.

Stephanie Bucklin, Astronomy
The idea of the multiverse or the theoretical possibility of infinite parallel universes--straddles a strange world between science fiction and a plausible hypothesis. Though scientists have no direct evidence for the multiverse's existence, some theoretical models suggest the multiverse could solve some key riddles in physics, such as why the parameters of our universe, including the strength of the the electromagnetic force between particles and the value of the cosmological constant... Читать дальше...

Helen Briggs, BBC News
Ants are even more impressive at navigating than we thought.Scientists say they can follow a compass route, regardless of the direction in which they are facing.It is the equivalent of trying to find your way home while walking backwards or even spinning round and round.Experiments suggest ants keep to the right path by plotting the Sun's position in the sky which they combine with visual information about their surroundings.