Hubble Finds a Mystery Object

Don’t get the idea that we’ve found every kind of astronomical object there is in the universe. In a paper to appear in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers working on the Supernova Cosmology Project report finding a new kind of something that they cannot make any sense of.

The project used the Hubble Space Telescope to monitor very distant galaxy clusters for supernovae. On February 21, 2006, in the direction of a far-away cluster in Bootes named CL 1432.5+3332.8 (redshift 1.112, light travel time 8.2 billion years), Hubble began seeing something brighten. It continued brightening for about 100 days and peaked at 21st magnitude in two near-infrared colors. It then faded away over a similar timescale, until nothing was left in view down to 26th magnitude. The object brightened and faded by a factor of at least 120, maybe more.

The mystery object did not behave like any known kind of supernova. It is not even in any detectable galaxy. “The shape of the light curve is inconsistent with microlensing,” say the researchers. They recorded three spectra of it — and its spectrum, they write, “in addition to being inconsistent with all known supernova types, is not matched to any spectrum in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey database” of vast numbers of objects. “We suggest that the transient may be one of a new class.” … Here is the group’s paper with all the details. – skyandtelescope

New Vaccine Fights Breast Cancer Tumors

An experimental breast cancer vaccine makes mice reject tumors — even cancers no longer sensitive to Herceptin. The vaccine targets breast cancers that grow wildly in response to a growth factor called HER-2. About 25% of women with breast cancer have HER-2 positive tumors.

Herceptin, a man-made antibody approved for the treatment of breast cancer, targets these cancers. But after a while, tumor cells often become resistant to Herceptin. The new vaccine elicits immune responses that kill HER-2 positive breast tumors in mice, whether or not they’ve become Herceptin resistant, says Wei-Zen Wei, PhD, professor of immunology at Detroit’s Karmanos Cancer Institute.

“Regardless of whether tumor cells are resistant, if immune cells are properly primed by immunization we can destroy these cells,” Wei tells WebMD.

The vaccine developed by Wei’s team uses DNA that carries the genetic code for a key piece of the HER-2 molecule. After injection of the DNA into the skin, a small electric pulse is administered to help cells take up the DNA and produce the protein that elicits immune responses.

Mice given the vaccine made anti-HER-2 antibodies. The vaccine also primed cellular immune responses that attacked breast cancer tumors. These cellular responses alone were enough to kill HER-2 positive cells in mice unable to make antibodies.

A version of the vaccine is now undergoing human safety tests. … – webmd

Deep blood clots may affect 600,000 a year: How to prevent them.

… People who have a high risk for these clots include those who have had surgery recently, are over 65, take birth control pills, have cancer, have had a bad bruise or a broken bone or who have been immobile during long trips.

Symptoms include new swelling, skin redness, soreness or a warm spot on the arm or leg, breathing difficulties, chest pain, a strange cough or fast heartbeat.

Those at risk are advised to wear loose-fitting clothes, to raise their legs up above heart level from time to time, exercise, wear compression stockings and cut down on salt. – reuters

Church makes ‘ludicrous’ apology to Charles Darwin – 126 years after his death

The Church of England will tomorrow officially apologise to Charles Darwin for misunderstanding his theory of evolution.

In a bizarre step, the Church will address its contrition directly to the Victorian scientist himself, even though he died 126 years ago.

But the move was greeted with derision last night, with Darwin’s great-great-grandson dismissing it as ‘pointless’ and other critics branding it ‘ludicrous’.

Church officials compared the apology to the late Pope John Paul II’s decision to say sorry for the Vatican’s 1633 trial of Galileo, the astronomer who appalled prelates by declaring that the earth revolved around the sun.

The officials said that senior bishops wanted to atone for the vilification their predecessors heaped on Darwin in the 1860s, when he put forward his theory that man was descended from apes.

The Church is also anxious to counter the view that its teaching is incompatible with science. It wants to distance itself from fundamentalist Christians, who believe in the Biblical account of the creation of the world in seven days.

An article to be posted on the Church’s website will say: ‘Charles Darwin, 200 years from your birth [in 1809], the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still.

‘But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests.’

The article has been written by the Rev Dr Malcolm Brown, the director of mission and public affairs of the Archbishops’ Council, the Church’s managing body, which is headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams. Dr Brown writes: ‘People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it’s easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights. – dailymail

It would be great if we could learn from this mistake and really take a fresh look at all the other things we currently believe, perhaps in error.  But I doubt that will happen.

RAF radar chief: I saw UFO fleet

Wing Cmdr Turner, who was a chief operator of the RAF’s radar system for 29 years, said the craft were equally spaced and shot from 3,000ft to 60,000ft at almost 300mph.

Incredibly, every few seconds one of the UFOs would suddenly vanish from radar and be replaced by an identical vessel moments later.

Wing Cmdr Turner said six military radars, plus operators at Heathrow, spotted the UFOs east of Salisbury Plain and filed reports on the unexplained phenomenon in 1971.

The RAF chief even drew a map charting their flight in between key sites like RAF Lyneham, Wilts, and the aircraft navigation transmitter at Brookmans Park, Herts.

Three days later, the Ministry of Defence visited the RAF and instructed staff to “never speak about the incident again”.

Wing Cmdr Turner, who retired from the RAF in 1995, said: “UFOs are a fact — I tracked them on military radar units.

“What I saw defied all logic and was, quite frankly, extraordinary.

“It wasn’t just me.

“More than 30 pairs of eyes of RAF staff and radar operators at Heathrow Airport witnessed the same thing.

“It’s arrogant to believe that we’re the only ones in this universe.” … – the sun

Youngest & Oldest Confirmed Mothers

Lina Medina (born September 27, 1933) is the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of 5 years, 7 months and 21 days. Born in Peru, Lina was brought to a hospital by her parents at the age of 5 years because of increasing abdominal size. She was originally thought to have had a tumor, but her doctors determined she was in her seventh month of pregnancy. Dr. Gerardo Lozada took her to Lima, Peru, prior to the surgery to have other specialists confirm that Lina was in fact pregnant. A month and a half later, on May 14, 1939, she gave birth to a boy by a caesarean section necessitated by her small pelvis. The surgery was performed by Dr. Lozada and Dr. Busalleu, with Dr. Colretta providing anaesthesia. Her case was reported in detail by Dr. Edmundo Escomel to La Presse Medicale, along with the additional details that her menarche had occurred at 8 months of age, and that she had had prominent breast development by the age of 4. By age 5 her figure displayed pelvic widening and advanced bone maturation.  … Although the case was called a hoax by some, a number of doctors over the years have verified it based on biopsies, X rays of the fetal skeleton in utero, and photographs taken by the doctors caring for her. – mysterytopia

And the oldest?

A 66-year-old professor who writes children’s books claims to have become the world’s oldest woman to give birth, and doctors said Monday she and her day-old baby daughter were in good condition in intensive care. – st

South african ruins 75000 years old?

When historians first stumbled upon these structures they simply assumed that they were cattle kraal left behind by the Bantu people as they moved south and settled the land from around the 13th century. But research work done by people like Cyril Hromnik, Richard Wade, Johan Heine and a handful of others over the past twenty years, into ancient southern African history, has revealed that these stone structures are in fact more than just cattle kraal, but the remains of ancient temples and astronomical observatories of lost ancient civilisations that stretch back for thousands of years.
These circular ruins are spread over thousands of square kilometres. They can only truly be appreciated from the air, and those lucky enough to view these ruins from the air will be able to see hundreds of ruins in a one-hour trip.
Many of them have almost completely eroded or have been covered by the movement of soil, while some have survived and still display the great sizes of the original walls that stand 2,5 metres high and over a metre wide in places. Prof Guy Charlesworth of Wits University concurs that if these were the original heights of some of the walls, it would have taken thousands of years to erode to knee-height through the effects of nature alone. … – mysterytopia

Interesting floorplan.

Hackers deface LHC site, came close to turning off particle detector

The message in Greek that the hackers displayed.

Is it now cyberwar over atom-smashing? A team of Greek hackers calling themselvses Greek Security Team has penetrated the Large Hadron Collider and defaced a public website. No real damage done, but the hackers got perilously close. The hackers attacked the Compact Muon Solenoid Experiment, or CMS. The Guardian reports:

Scientists working at Cern, the organisation that runs the vast smasher, were worried about what the hackers could do because they were “one step away” from the computer control system of one of the huge detectors of the machine, a vast magnet that weighs 12,500 tons, measuring around 21 metres in length and 15 metres wide/high. …  – zdnet

… The hacking attempt started around the time that the giant machine was about to circulate its first particles, under the spotlight of the world’s media.

On Wednesday afternoon, as the world held its breath as the machine sparked up, CMS team members were scouring computers at the machine for half a dozen files uploaded by the hackers on September 9 and 10.

“We think that someone from Fermilab’s Tevatron (the competing atom smasher in America) had their access details compromised,” said one of the scientists working on the machine. “What happened wasn’t a big deal, just goes to show people are out there always on the prowl.”

The CMS team studied the files inserted by the hackers carefully before deleting, in case a “backdoor” had been installed, a means of access to the computer that bypasses security.

The system the hackers managed to access was CMSMON, which monitors the CMS software system as the vast detector takes data, during collisions between particles to study the energies and physics in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang, which created the universe. – telegraph

Can anyone translate this? Just curious.

Someone Stole Your Cell Phone? Tell It to Phone Home

Maverick Mobile Solutions, an Indian company that makes mobile applications, has a new way to protect your cell phone: tell it to follow the lead of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and “phone home.”

Or, to bring E.T. into the 21st century, “text home.”

If your phone is lost or stolen, the application, called Maverick Secure Mobile, encrypts your data, sends you a text message with the location of the phone and, best of all, plays an annoyingly loud siren to torture the thief.

The application was unveiled at the DEMO technology conference in San Diego, Calif., this week, where it provided a few minutes of “comic relief,” according to Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat.

The Maverick software is hidden on a phone, so a potential thief can’t tell whether or not your phone has it. You give the company a second phone number — your spouse’s or a friend’s, for example. As soon as a thief replaces your SIM card with his own, the phone encrypts all of your remaining data, like your phone book, photos or text messages, so the thief can’t see them. It also sends that data to your second phone so that you have it. – nytimes

The Top 100 Human Problems

Your turn. Help Xeno figure out the top 100 human problems. What could most likely completely wipe us off the face of the Earth? Click as many as you want and vote.