Asteroid scrapes past Earth just 8,700miles away – with only 15 hours warning

Although no one noticed at the time, the Earth was almost hit by an asteroid last Friday.

The previously undiscovered asteroid came within 8,700miles of Earth but astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before it made its closest approach.

Its orbit brought it 30 times nearer than the Moon, which is 250,000 miles away.

But before you head for the nuclear bunkers you will be relieved to learn the tumbling rock was only 23ft across. Similar sized objects pass by this close to Earth about twice a year and impact on the planet about once every five years.Astronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up whi

stronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up while entering Earth’s atmosphere, causing a brilliant fireball in the sky but no major damage to the surface.

The asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on November 6, 2009. It was then identified by the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a near Earth object.

Nasa’s Near Earth Object Programme plotted the orbit of the object and determined that although it would fly extremely close to our planet it wouldn’t hit us.

It was the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.

The Nasa NEO programme aims to detect and track at least 90 per cent of the 1,000 asteroids and comets that approach Earth and are larger than 0.6miles in diameter, by 2020.

They monitored a 100ft asteroid that whizzed 45,000 miles above the Earth’s surface on March 2 this year. A similar sized object slammed into Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. The impact created a blast so powerful it levelled 1,200 square miles of forest.

via Asteroid scrapes past Earth just 8,700miles away – with only 15 hours warning | Mail Online.

We are sitting ducks, really. A space rock could smash through your roof in the next few minutes and kill you.  We have no shield, no interceptors.

Ricin ‘antidote’ to be produced

An anti-toxin that protects against ricin poisoning is to move into production for the first time.

It is the result of eight years of work by researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory based at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

The antidote can protect against death up to 24 hours after exposure, according to Dr Jane Holley from DSTL.

Security experts say ricin – roughly 1,000 times more toxic than cyanide – could be used in a bio-terror attack.

Dr Holley told BBC News: “In the past there has been lots of research carried out using different methods. But this is the first [anti-toxin] that has been moved into production.

The principal scientist in biomedical sciences at DSTL added: “It is anticipated that a product will be available for use in the next couple of years.”

Ricin is extracted from castor beans, which are processed throughout the world to make castor oil. The toxin is part of the waste “mash” produced when castor oil is made.

It can cause harm if injected, swallowed or inhaled. A tiny amount can be lethal, but the amount needed to kill depends on the route of administration.

A combination of pulmonary, liver, renal and immunological failure can lead to death, though people can recover from exposure. …

Although the anti-toxin developed at Porton Down was initially intended for use by the military, DSTL scientists are investigating its potential use in a civilian environment.

Production of the anti-toxin involves immunising sheep with an inactive form of ricin, which results in the production of antibodies. These are proteins used by the immune system to neutralise harmful substances.

The antibodies are then harvested from the sheep to produce a freeze-dried product. This is reconstituted with water for injection into the body.

Dr Holley said that although the anti-toxin is ready to be manufactured, full licensing is likely to take about five years. ….

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ricin ‘antidote’ to be produced.

Koalas ‘could face extinction’

Australia’s koalas could be wiped out within 30 years unless urgent action is taken to halt a decline in population, according to researchers.

They say development, climate change and bushfires have all combined to send the numbers of wild koalas plummeting.

The Australian Koala Foundation said a recent survey showed the population could have dropped by more than half in the past six years.

Many have been killed by the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.

Previous estimates put the number of koalas at more than 100,000 – but the latest calculations suggest there could now be as few as 43,000.

The foundation collected field data from 1,800 sites and 80,000 trees to calculate the numbers.

In one area in northern Queensland estimated to have 20,000 koalas a decade ago, a team of eight people could not find a single animal in four days of searching.

The foundation said as well as problems caused by deforestation, hotter, drier conditions attributed to global warming had reduced the nutritional value of their staple food, eucalyptus leaves, leading to malnutrition.

Koalas, which are confined to forests in Australia’s east and south, are notoriously fussy about what types of the leaves they eat.

Foundation chief Deborah Tabart said: “The koalas are missing everywhere we look. It’s really no tree, no me. If you keep cutting down trees you don’t have any koalas.” …

via BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Koalas ‘could face extinction’.

Ford Announces Airbags for Backseat Passengers

Some cars today have as many as 20 airbags – in the front, on the sides, to shield heads, even airbags to protect knees. Now, Ford is going one step further. The automaker has announced it will become the first automaker to offer seatbelt airbags for backseat passengers. The airbags will appear first in the company’s next general Ford Explorer – due out in about a year.

The airbags will be sewn into the shoulder portion of the rear seat belts – and will deploy outward and sidewise, like a small tubular pillow. Ford says these seatbelt airbags deploy more slowly and with much less force than frontal airbags. That, they say, makes it safe for a rear seat occupant, from a young child to an elderly passenger.

Ford Vice President Sue Cischke told ABC News, “This marries two life-saving technologies – the airbag technology and the seatbelts.”

via Ford Announces Airbags for Backseat Passengers – ABC News.

Over logging ’caused Nazca collapse’

The ancient Nazca people of Peru are famous for the lines they drew in the desert depicting strange animal forms.

A further mystery is what happened to this once great civilisation, which suddenly vanished 1,500 years ago.

Now a team of archaeologists have found the demise of the Nazca society was linked in part to the fate of a tree.

Analysing plant remains they reveal how the destruction of forests containing the huarango tree crossed a tipping point, causing ecological collapse.

The team have published their findings in the journal of Latin American Antiquity.

“These were very special forests,” says Dr David Beresford-Jones from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK who led the team.

The huarango tree (Prosopis pallida) is a unique tree with many qualities and played a vital role in the habitat, protecting the fragile desert ecosystem, the scientists say.

“It is the ecological keystone species in the desert zone enhancing soil fertility and moisture and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known,” Dr Beresford-Jones says.

The tree was also a useful resource.

“This remarkable nitrogen-fixing tree was an important source of food, forage timber and fuel for the local people.”

Researchers have previously found evidence that suggests the disappearance of the Nazca society was a due to catastrophic flooding event as a result of El Nino around 500 AD. …

“Our research contradicts the popular view that Native American peoples always lived in harmony with their environment until the Spanish Conquest,” Dr Beresford-Jones says.

Dr Beresford-Jones explains that with sufficient huarango cover, El Ninos were in fact not great disasters and actually created years of abundance replenishing water aquifers.

Once too much clearance had occurred the landscape was exposed to the effects of the El Nino floods.

“The river down cut into its floodplain and that floodplain narrowed hugely, irrigation systems were left high and dry,” he says.

“Human induced gradual change is just as important to the full story of Nazca collapse as the major climatic impacts that eventually precipitated them.”

via BBC – Earth News – Logging ’caused Nazca collapse’.

World’s fastest man adopts world fastest feline

The world’s fastest man adopted the animal kingdom’s fastest sprinter Monday, as Usain Bolt welcomed a new baby cheetah named Lightning Bolt into his life.

The Jamaican sprinter’s sponsorship of the 3-month-old male cheetah is part of an effort to boost Kenyan conservation efforts of its famous wildlife, whose survival is threatened by trophy hunting, climate change and human encroachment.

The world record-holder in the 100 and 200 meters paid $13,700 to formally adopt the cub. He will also pay $3,000 a year to care for Lighting Bolt, who will be raised at an animal orphanage in Nairobi.

The money will go to the Kenya Wildlife Service, and some will be used to protect Kenya’s endangered species, KWS director Julius Kipngetich said.

Bolt was joined on the trip by Colin Jackson, a former 110-meter hurdles Olympic champion, and Jochen Zeitz, the chief executive of athletic gear manufacturer Puma. Zietz made the visit to launch his charity’s campaign to preserve ecosystems.

Jackson adopted a 2-year-old eland, the largest of the antelope species.

Bolt, who was on a four-day visit to Kenya, said Friday he was looking forward to seeing Kenya’s diverse wildlife, but was scared of meeting lions.

He nearly ran away when asked Monday to pet a fully grown cheetah named Sharon for a photo shoot with Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga. Bolt had Zeitz stand in for him, until he saw that Sharon seemed harmless.

The world record holder appeared more comfortable later while handling his baby cheetah, which was the size of a fully grown domestic cat. He cradled the fuzzy-headed cub while feeding it bottled milk as cameramen snapped away.

When asked if he was afraid of cheetahs, Bolt said: “Yes, I was, but not anymore.”

Lighting Bolt is among three cubs rescued by KWS officials after their mother abandoned them in a game park.

via World’s fastest man adopts world fastest feline – Yahoo! News.

Study: Man-eating lions consumed 35 people in 1898

The nightly attacks by two man-eating lions terrified railway workers and brought construction to a halt in one of east Africa’s most notorious onslaughts more than a hundred years ago. But the death toll, scientists now say, wasn’t as high as previously thought.

Over nine months the two voracious hunters claimed 35 lives — no small figure, but much less than some accounts of as many as 135 victims.

It was 1898, when laborers from India and local natives building the Uganda Railroad across Kenya became the prey for the pair, a case that has been the subject of numerous accounts and at least three movies.

The death toll had been estimated at 28 railway workers and “scores of unfortunate African natives,” with the total ranging as high as 135. Delay of the railroad was even subject to debate in Britain’s House of Commons.

Scientists hoping to figure out the actual number of people eaten decided to study the remains of the two male lions, now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, testing the types of carbon and nitrogen in their teeth and hair.

Those chemical ratios were compared with the carbon and nitrogen found in modern lions in the region, in lions’ normal prey animals and in humans.

Bones and teeth store carbon and nitrogen isotopes over long periods, while the ratios in hair change more rapidly, allowing the scientists to determine the long-term diet and how it changed in the lions’ last months.

Humans made up at least half of the diet of one of the lions in the last months of his life, consuming at least 24 people, they concluded. The other lion had eaten 11 people, they found.

In other words, even a century later, you are what you eat. …

via Study: Man-eating lions consumed 35 people in 1898 – Yahoo! News.

Only 3 Percent of Americans Think It Should Be Legal to Text and Drive

I didn’t think 97 percent of Americans were in agreement about anything, but apparently they are about texting while driving: They think it should be illegal. A mere 3 percent don’t care, or didn’t answer cause they were busy texting.

And half think it should have the same penalty as drunk driving. Steeeep.

What’s fascinating is that while 80 percent think phones should be a no-no, they deem it kosher if you’re going hands-free. Newsflash, morons, a bunch of studies show it’s just as distracting if you’re using a Bluetooth headset. It’s the conversation that’s distracting, not your hands being up near your head. Personally, I think we should also ban eating, drinking, using combs or makeup, overly talkative passengers, any kind of music, talk radio, GPS navigators, and small children from being in cars, period. Only then can we drive completely safely, since then we won’t ever be distracted by anything ever again. [NYT]

via Only 3 Percent of Americans Think It Should Be Legal to Text and Drive – Texting – Gizmodo.

Bad drivers? Blame their genes

Good drivers can make the road a friendly place for their fellow drivers and milk great gas mileage (or equally great performance) out of their vehicles.  However, for every good driver on the road, there’s plenty of bad ones.  According to studies, cell phones play a role in the poor overall quality of driving that leads to many accidents across America.  However, a new study shows the problem may be more complex, pointing to a link between genes and bad driving.

Researchers at University of California Irvine found that people with a specific gene variant performed 20 percent worse on a driving test than those without.  The results were confirmed by a subsequent test.  The scary part?  According to expert estimates, 30 percent of Americans have this gene.

Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study states, “These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away.”

The neuroscientists discovered a potential cause for the bad behavior.  When active, people with the specific variant get less functioanlity from a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) than people with the wild type (“normal”) version of the gene.  This is not a good thing, as BDNF helps support communication between brain cells and keep them performing at their peak.  Typically it’s secreted in active parts of the brain — but those with the variant just don’t get as much. – dt

People with a particular gene variant performed more than 20 percent worse on a driving test than people without it – and a follow-up test a few days later yielded similar results. About 30 percent of Americans have the variant.

“These people make more errors from the get-go, and they forget more of what they learned after time away,” said Dr. Steven Cramer, neurology associate professor and senior author of the study published recently in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

This gene variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor during activity. BDNF keeps memory strong by supporting communication among brain cells and keeping them functioning optimally. When a person is engaged in a particular task, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond.

Previous studies have shown that in people with the variant, a smaller portion of the brain is stimulated when doing a task than in those with a normal BDNF gene. People with the variant also don’t recover as well after a stroke. Given these differences, the UCI scientists wondered: Could the variant affect an activity such as driving? – tc

My ex used to joke about bad Asian women drivers … I wonder … how does this play out across genders, ethnic and other groups?

Low serum BDNF has been reported in women with depression or eating disorders such as
anorexia nervosa, particularly when compared with obese patients, but also when women with anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa are compared with normal- weight individuals. – link

One thing is for sure, I’m going to feel much less comfortable now driving around  skinny nervous women.  And since these disorders are triggered by childhood abuse, I wonder if we can tie in the high number of road deaths in America as a consequence of molestation and neglect? Ripple effect.

Tigers fast dying out despite campaigns

The world’s tiger population is declining fast despite efforts to save them, and new strategies are urgently needed to keep the species from dying out, international wildlife experts say.

‘‘We are assembled here to save tigers that are at the verge of extinction,’’ Nepal’s secretary of forest and soil conservation, Yuvaraj Bhusal, told a conference on Tuesday of tiger experts from 20 countries, including the 13 where wild tigers are still found.

An estimated 3500 to 4000 tigers now roam the world’s forests, down from the more than 100,000 estimated at the beginning of the 20th century. All the remaining tigers are in Asia.

Participants at the conference, including the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund and other groups, plan to discuss strategies for tiger conservation, as well as challenges such as poaching, the trade of tiger parts and conflicts between tigers and local populations.

A Sumatran tiger died after being caught in a pig snare last week in Indonesia, the country’s news agency, Antara, reported on Monday. The report said the tiger died as it was being prepared for surgery on Monday. Only about 250 Sumatran tigers remain in the wild.

via Tigers fast dying out despite campaigns.