SAMPLE STALE More than 40 years after the first Apollo mission landed on the Moon, vials of lunar dust were found sitting inside a warehouse at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, untouched since being brought back to Earth by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins and having been studied by scientists for possible pathogens. (via Space.com)
Tracks
UNTRUE BLUE The Sun, imaged in a specific color of extreme violet light called CaK that is emitted by the very slight abundance of ionized calcium in the star’s atmosphere; the image was then false color-inverted. (Alan Friedman / Averted Imagination via NASA APOD)
FLASH BURDEN Images captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory of the Sun’s active region AR1748 has produced the first four X-class solar flares of 2013 in less than 48 hours, all seen here in the extreme ultraviolet range. (Photo: SDO via NASA APOD)
WORTH THE WAIT Time magazine, NASA and the US Geological Survey have collaborated on something truly awesome, sifting through trillions of LANDSAT satellite images, culled from the past 30 years, to create “the world’s first multi-decade animated timelapse of the Earth.” Click on the image for the complete series; you will be blown away.
‘You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!’
It’s an odd little speech. But if you went back 15,000 years and spoke these words to hunter-gatherers in Asia in any one of hundreds of modern languages, there is a chance they would understand at least some of what you were saying.
That’s because all of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the four sentences are words that have descended largely unchanged from a language that died out as the glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age. Those few words mean the same thing, and sound almost the same, as they did then.
The traditional view is that words can’t survive for more than 8,000 to 9,000 years. Evolution, linguistic “weathering” and the adoption of replacements from other languages eventually drive ancient words to extinction, just like the dinosaurs of the Jurassic era.
A new study, however, suggests that’s not always true.
A team of researchers has come up with a list of two dozen “ultraconserved words” that have survived 150 centuries. It includes some predictable entries: “mother,” “not,” “what,” “to hear” and “man.” It also contains surprises: “to flow,” “ashes” and “worm.”
The existence of the long-lived words suggests there was a “proto-Eurasiatic” language that was the common ancestor to about 700 contemporary languages that are the native tongues of more than half the world’s people.
The Washington Post, “Linguists Identify 15,000-Year-Old ‘Ultraconserved’ Words.”
Amazing.
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO BOOM A tremendous explosion, dubbed GRB 130427A, has occurred in the nearby universe and major telescopes across Earth and space are investigating. The gamma-ray burst was first seen by the Earth-orbiting Swift satellite; within minutes, the half-meter ISON telescope in New Mexico found the blast in visible light, noted its extreme brightness, and relayed more exact coordinates. Soon after the bright optical counterpart was being tracked by several telescopes in California, New Mexico, and Hawaii. Pictured in the above animation, the entire gamma-ray sky is shown becoming momentarily dominated by the intense glow of GRB 130427A — about five billion miles away — with the possibility of a classic supernova to follow soon. (Photo: NASA, DOE, Fermi LAT Collaboration via NASA APOD)
(Source: apod.nasa.gov)
PLASMATICA A solar prominence erupts from the surface of the Sun in this false-color image captured by the Solar Dynamics Obsevatory. (Photo: NASA via Rex Features / The Telegraph)
CONE OF NOT SILENCE Mount Mayon, one of the Philippines’ most active volcanoes, rumbled to life Tuesday, spewing room-sized rocks toward nearly 30 surprised climbers. Five people were killed; no evacuations were planned. (Photo: Redemtoristine Monastery via EPA / NBC News)
THIS McBITES Meet the northern snakehead fish, an invasive species that can breathe air up to four days and use its fins to crawl on land. They can be found in the waters off Florida, in the Potomac, and — watch out, urbanites! — this weekend officials will check to see if the snakehead is floating about one of Central Park’s lakes. Note to joggers: that thing biting your ankle may not be Fifi the poodle. (File photo: Ed Wray / AP via The Los Angeles Times; caption via the LA Times)
WHIRLEDS AWAY The spinning vortex of Saturn’s north polar storm resembles a deep red rose in this false-color image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Measurements have sized the eye at a staggering 1,250 miles across with cloud speeds as fast as 330 miles per hour. This image was taken from a distance of 261,000 miles on Nov. 27, 2012, with filters sensitive to near-infrared light. (Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech via NBC News)
Today in Terribly Contaminated Water:
- “Two years after a triple meltdown that grew into the world’s second worst nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is faced with a new crisis: a flood of highly radioactive wastewater that workers are struggling to contain.” (NY Times)
- “Hurricane Sandy’s huge coastal floods flushed 10 billion gallons of sewage into New York and New Jersey’s waterways — and turned most of the shoreline into a filth-filled toilet for days, according to a report set to be released Tuesday. New York and New Jersey released 10 billion gallons of sewage — virtually all of the 11 billion gallons that leaked into rivers, lakes, streams and oceans between Washington, D.C. and Connecticut.” (NY Daily News)
Take that, Starfleet.
(via NASA APOD; click through for larger)
DICKS IN SPACE No, the NASA rover Curiosity did not draw a penis on the surface of Mars. However, Curiosity‘smission controllers should probably refrain from having the probe make K-turns from now on, lest they elicit giggles from the same group of little boys who think the Valles Marineris looks like a vagina. (Via the Herald Sun)
DRAMATIC FLARE A composite of 25 separate images, spanning from April 16, 2012 to April 15, 2013, reveals the most active zones on the Sun. (Photo: Solar Dynamics Observatory / NASA via Rex Features / The Telegraph)
There is beauty still. There is serenity, and calm, and a steadfast, unbroken peace. There is creation. There are shades of blue, and of red other than that of blood and carnage, than that of war or terror.
There is wonder, still; there is light, even in the deepest of space, or around the nearest corner. There is a zenith for every nadir.
There still is love, and friendship.
And above all, there is hope.
(Photo of the nebula Messier 17, which lies 5,500 light-years away, via NASA APOD)
