Science 'n Shtein

[PhillyPhreak54]

I got tired after Jupiter...that is pretty cool

[General_Failure]

Child's heart fixed at Kosair Children's Hospital with help of 3-D printing

At Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, heart surgeon Erle Austin of University of Louisville Physicians had done plenty of pediatric surgeries. But he knew that Roland's complex condition would be particularly tricky. He showed two-dimensional scans to other surgeons and got conflicting advice on how to proceed.

So Austin and his team turned to U of L's engineering school, which used a 3-D printer to create a polymer model of Roland's heart, replicating its complex structures and defects.

"Once I had a model, I knew exactly what I needed to do and how I could do it," said Austin, who was able to make fewer exploratory incisions, reduce the operating time and ensure that 14-month-old Roland wouldn't need follow-up operations. "It was a tremendous benefit."

[Eagaholic]

discovery of an asteroid with rings, and maybe moon

   
STRANGE BUT TRUE--AN ASTEROID WITH RINGS: Today at a press conference in Brazil, astronomers announced the surprising discovery of an asteroid with rings. The 250-km-wide asteroid, named Chariklo, is located in the outer solar system between Saturn and Uranus. In June 2013, observers used seven different telescopes in South America to watch the asteroid pass in front of a distant star. The star winked out not just once, as would be expected for a solitary asteroid, but multiple times, revealing a pair of dense narrow rings surrounding the space rock.

"We weren't looking for a ring and didn't think small bodies like Chariklo had them at all, so the discovery — and the amazing amount of detail we saw in the system — came as a complete surprise!" says Felipe Braga-Ribas of Observatório Nacional/MCTI in Rio de Janeiro. He planned the observing campaign and is the lead author of a March 26th paper in Nature describing the results.

According to their analysis, the rings are only 3 km and 7 km wide, respectively, with a 9 km gap between them. "I try to imagine how it would be to stand on the surface of this icy asteroid and stare up at a such a ring system 1000 times closer than the Moon," adds team member Uffe Gråe Jørgensen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark.

Because the rings are so narrow, they are probably confined and shepherded by small satellites. "So, as well as the rings, it's likely that Chariklo has at least one small moon still waiting to be discovered," adds Felipe Braga Ribas. For more information about this discovery, click here.

[General_Failure]

Dinosaur Unearthed in Argentina Breaks Record for Largest Ever Discovered

A team of scientists in Argentina have unearthed the remains of the largest species of dinosaur discovered to date, paleontologists announced Saturday.

Seven "huge" herbivorous dinosaurs were discovered at one site in the province of Chubut, Argentina, according to the Paleontological Museum Egidio Feruglio, which led the dig.

The new species are estimated to have been 40 meters in length and 80 tons in weight, surpassing the previous record-holder for the world's largest dinosaur — the Argentinosaurus.

[MDS]

it was only 5,000 years ago. not that hard to find.

[ice grillin you]

this is really cool

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/girls-12000-year-old-skeleton-may-solve-a-mystery/2014/05/15/e45a6330-da90-11e3-8009-71de85b9c527_story.html

[Eagaholic]

It's not too often that we get a "new" meteor shower, but you may have already heard a little bit about this (potentially) excellent celestial event with the very funny name... the Camelopardalids.

Where should you look?
As with all meteor showers, it is named after the constellation from which the meteors will appear to radiate. In this case, the meteors will appear to stream from a spot in the northern sky in the dim constellation Camelopardalis. Don't worry... you won't need to be able to find the constellation in order to see the meteor shower. All you need to know is that if you face north, most all of the meteors you see will seem to radiate from an area of sky low on the northern horizon. In fact, you don't even need to face north... the meteors can and will appear ANYWHERE in the sky. But after you've seen a few, you'll start to notice that they're mostly radiating from a point in the north.


When should you look?
The peak of this shower is expected to be around 3 in the morning, this Saturday (May 24), so a good two-hour window might be between 2:00 and 4:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.


What should you expect?
This is a new shower, and the astronomers who predict such things have forecast rates ranging from about 30 per hour, to many hundreds per hour. Even if it ends up being a terrific shower, bear in mind that a lot of things can negatively impact the number of meteors you see. Bright lights nearby can "wash out" most of the visible meteors. Having trees, buildings, or other large structures blocking a portion of the sky will also reduce the number of meteors you'll see. As a new shower, there's no "track record." The predictions are based upon the likelihood that there's a fair amount of debris in the orbital path of Comet 209P/LINEAR. If there's a lot of debris...we get a great shower. If there isn't... we don't!

Even if it is a great shower, keep in mind that there will likely be stretches of time ranging up to several minutes where you won't see a thing. So if you do get up in the middle of the night to watch, don't give up after five minutes if you haven't seen anything. Give it at least 15 minutes to a half hour.

[Susquehanna Birder]

Why the hell can't these things peak at 10 PM? It always seems to be best just before the ass crack of dawn.

[PhillyPhreak54]

Haha I thought the same. Oh 2am? No.

[SD]

Got up around 330 to take a leak...poked my head outside for 15 minutes...didn't see a thing

[Rome]

um

[Eagaholic]

I watched last night and saw about a half dozen meteors so all in all it was pretty meh. I've been watching meteor showers since I was in my teens and find they can be real hit or miss.

Once I went out to a beach to watch about 2am for a meteor shower with a 6 pack. As I was walking along I thought "I wonder if the beach closes at a certain time and the cops will hassle me." No sooner than I had that thought than a bright light came sweeping across the sand. I though "oh farg" and turned around, but saw a fireball type shooting star streaking across the sky with a bright green tail. It then exploded and continued in a yellow/gold streak that took up maybe 1/3 of the sky.

By the end of the night there were meteors falling at a rate over 3000 per hour. I saw starbursts with 10 or 15 at a time like coming from the center of an umbrella and cascading down in all directions. It was raining shooting stars, probably the most spectacular thing I've ever seen (it was the Leonid showers around 15 years ago). People often stay up drinking or sacked out in front of a tv til 2 or 3am, I figure might as well go out if there are good prospects for a shower. I enjoy them enough the ones I hit on make the rest worthwhile.

[Susquehanna Birder]

I peeked out before going to bed around 1AM, and the sky was pretty overcast. So even if there was some activity, I probably wouldn't have been able to see it.

From what I've seen on the net, this event was pretty much a dud.

[General_Failure]

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk will unveil the first manned Dragon spacecraft Thursday night (May 29) at 7 p.m. PDT/10 p.m. EDT (0200 May 30) in a live event at the company's Hawthorne, California rocket factory.

[General_Failure]

Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram