We are all familiar with the three most common forms of matter that we see around us everyday: solid, liquid, gas. However, matter behaves in strange ways when exposed to high temperatures and pressures. For example, at high temperatures (typically tens of thousands of degrees), the gaseous state transforms into a state called plasma, where the atoms are shorn of some or all electrons. This is state that the solar corona is composed of. Similarly, at extremely low temperatures (millionth of degrees above Absolute Zero), matter takes on states dictated by Quantum Mechanics, viz. supersolid and superfluid (also known as Bose-Einstein Condensate).

Rotating ball of gas, punctured with vortices (Courtesy: MIT)Now scientists from MIT have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity! The work, to be published in Nature, will solve lingering questions about superconductivity.
Superconductivity is a quantum mechanical phenomenon, seen (as of yet) only in certain materials at very close to Absolute Zero. In such a situation, the material loses all resistance to electric current! This is very exciting since if perfected, we can save huge amounts of energy, since most of the electrical transmission losses are due to resistance in the wires.
Similar to superconductivity, where electricity loses all resistance, a superfluid gas can flow without resistance (say through a pipe). When the pipe is rotated, an ordinary gas would rotate with it, thus creating vortices. But a superfluid can only rotate when it forms vortices similar to mini-tornadoes. This gives a rotating superfluid the appearance of Swiss cheese, where the holes are the cores of the mini-tornadoes, like the picture above. The gas was cooled down to 50 billionths of one degree abouve Absolute Zero!!
Interestingly, the gas can also serve as a model for studying properties of much denser forms of matter such as solid superconductors, neutron stars or the quark-gluon plasma that existed in the early universe :):).

Brown Dwarfs are heavenly bodies, neither small enough to be planets, nor large enough to be stars. Typically 5-90 times the mass of Jupiter (∼ 0.01 of the mass of our Sun), Brown Dwarfs have a gaesous composition of Hydrogen and Helium (just like the Sun), but the fusion nuclear reactions (that power the Sun) have not happened due to the relatively low temperature and pressure at the core.
Now for the first time, astronomers have observed a jet of matter spewing from a Brown Dwarf. This suggests that they form in a similar manner as stars, and even large planets like Jupiter and Saturn might have once spewed such jets.

Brown Dwarf Jet Source (Courtesy: NewScientistSpace)There are different theories to Brown Dwarf birth. Some think they condense from gas and dust clouds like other stars but are simply limited by the size of the clouds. Others say they are tossed out of their birth clouds prematurely by gravitational tussles with other growing stars in the cloud. Recent observations of large, dusty discs around brown dwarfs have bolstered the former theory, as only small - if any - discs are thought to be able to survive a violent ejection in the latter scenario.
Researchers led by Emma Whelan of Ireland's Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) have observed a jet stretching 1.5 billion kms (Earth to Sun distance, in comparison is 150 million kms!) from a young Brown Dwarf in a stellar nursery called Rho Ophiuchi. Similar jets have been detected around young, massive stars and are thought to form from material in the disc that swirls around them. The stars grow when matter falls on them from the disc, but the stars' magnetic fields funnel about a tenth of that matter back through the jets.
Jets can say a lot of things about the Brown Dwarfs. From the length and intensity of the jets, astronomers can detect the composition, mass, and magnetic properties of the Dwarf. In addition, such data can be used to determine if our Jupiter and Saturn sported such jets in the past, and if Saturnian Rings have anything to do with the creation of such jets.

Microtubules are elongated protein structures found in cells. Polymers of tubulin, microtubules are hollow cylinder-like structures, consisting of 13 long strands of the tubulin polymer along the axis. They are part of the exoskeleton of our cells, and also provide the support-structure for nerve cells, and perform essential functions during cell division.
For the first time, scientists have unraveled the processes that take place when tubulin polymers combine to form a microtubule. Eva Nogales and Hong-Wei Wang of the Life Sciences Division of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report their findings in the 16 June 2005, issue of the journal Nature.

Microtubule (Courtesy: Wikipedia)As the microtubules play a critical role during cell division, understanding the way it is created can pave the way to new anti-cancer drugs (Cancer is essentially cells multiplying without control, and thus an ability to control the microtubule growth can lead to a way to stop that). The research identifies the technique in which a GTP (Guanosine Triphosphate, a chemical composed of the nucleotide Guanine and a inorganic radical named triphosphate) combines with a single tubulin, which further enables other tubulins to latch onto it, and thus build the cylinder:):).
The new high-resolution models of tubulin transitional states will be used to understand how microtubules explore their cellular environment to find their goals — a process crucial to the accurate deployment of spindles during cell division, for example — and how drugs can be designed and targeted to put a monkey wrench into the growth of cancer cells:):).

In certain fields, small is always beautiful. One such field is that of artificial satellites. The smaller a satellite is, less fuel it spends to get up in orbit or to navigate. Also it is harder to detect, and can perform intricate moves much more easily that its larger cousins.
With this in mind, NASA's Johnson Space Center has built a volley-ball sized satellite, called Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (Mini AERCam). Weighing about 10 pounds, the craft will be used for remote viewing and inspection on future human spaceflight missions.

AERCam (Courtesy: ScienceDaily)The vehicle is designed with a central ring that houses the power and propulsion system. Batteries are lithium-ion with six hours of operational time. The propulsion system is designed for cold-gas xenon, which packs more densely than nitrogen, but is compatible with low-cost nitrogen in the current ground test configuration. Attitude and position control are achieved with the use of twelve thrusters, distributed across four thruster pods around the central ring. The batteries are rechargeable and a port is provided for refueling:).
Early development is funded by the Space Shuttle Program Office, which is considering using Mini AERCam to inspect the Shuttle's heat shield in space. The nanosatellite will not be used on the Return to Flight mission (STS-114), but holds long-term promise for future space operations.
The craft could be deployed and retrieved many times during a single space mission, with the use of a hangar-based docking system located on the exterior of the vehicle. Other features include custom avionics based on the PowerPC 740/750 microprocessor, "camera-on-a-chip" imagers with video compression, micro electromechanical system gyroscopes, precise relative GPS navigation, digital radio frequency communications, micro-patch antennas, digital instrumentation networking and compact mechanical packaging.
Hopefully, in-space inspection by such satellites will prevent tragedies such as the Columbia disaster.

Did anyone else have the same experience? A new study suggests that the brain has problems listening and looking at the same time! The parts of the brain that handle visual input are less effective when the mind is also processing audio input, and vice versa. According to Steven Yantis, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist, directing attention to listening effectively 'turns down the volume' on input to the visual parts of the brain.

The Brain (Courtesy: ScienceBob)In the study, people aged 19 to 35 watched a rapidly changing display of letters and numbers while listening to three voices speak other letters and numbers. The scientists recorded brain activity. When the test subjects paid attention to the screen, activity decreased in the parts of their brain responsible for listening.
Surprisingly, when a subject was told to shift attention from vision to hearing, the brain's parietal cortex and the prefrontal cortex produced a burst of activity. The scientists assume it was a signal to initiate the shift of attention. Experts had previously thought those parts of the brain were only involved in processing visual information.
This has interesting implications. For example, talking on the phone while driving might reduce your awareness of your surroundings. But again, we do not find watching movies to be problematic just because there is a lot of dialogue. So, the scientists perhaps need to flesh this out a little bit more:).

Cosmos 1 is a privately-funded attempt to launch a Solar Sail into space. Dedicated to the enduring memory of Carl Sagan, the Solar Sail is to be launched from a submerged submarine in the Barents Sea (See my post on May 07, 2005 for more details on the solar sail).
Now in another few hours (at around 4:09PM New York Time), the rocket carrying the sail will be launched!! I am keeping my fingers crossed:).
Latest Update: The Russian space agency said the attempt to launch the solar sail space vehicle was not successful because the booster rocket's engine failed soon after it blasted into space. The booster failed 83 seconds after its launch from a Russian nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, and the vehicle was lost :(.

Cosmos-1 (Courtesy: The Planetary Society)Update: Hooraay! The launch went on flawlessly, and the first private solar sail mission is on the way:):).
Cosmos 1, the world's first solar sail spacecraft, launched in the tip of a converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile from the Barents Sea for the start of a mission that cost just $4 million.
Mission operations personnel monitoring the spacecraft from the Planetary Society's three-story bungalow in Pasadena got word from mission operations in Moscow of the rocket's take off just after 3:45 p.m. EDT (1945 GMT).
Cosmos 1 will orbit for several days to acclimatize its instruments to the vacuum of space before its twin sails are deployed via inflatable booms. Mission controls now plan to deploy the sails late on Saturday.
Each sail is made up of eight triangular blades whose combined structure looks like a disk. The reflective Mylar sails are about 5 microns thick, or about one-quarter the thickness of a plastic trash bag. After it deploys its sails, Cosmos 1 will be visible as it circles the Earth about once every 100 minutes:):).

Time is a strange thing. There is no law in physics that prohibits time from going backwards, but as we all know, it has a tendency to go always forward:)). Why is it so? We can all envisage the problems that time travel would create: people could go back in time and kill their grandparents, and give past generations modern technology or prevent some historic event from happening!
Physicists Daniel Greenberger of the City University of New York and Karl Svozil of the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have come up with a provocative idea:), but it suggests that time travel might not be possible at all:(.

Worm Hole (Courtesy: ThinkQuest)Worm-Holes are hypothetical bridges (arising out of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity) that might join distant regions of the spacetime. Imagine a 2D surface, where two points are far apart. If it were possible to bend the surface, the two points would be much closer, and a hole could be constructed to stitch the two points together. A similar construct is perhaps possible in 3D space too. However, Kip Thorne showed that such a hole could be used for time travel: a person entering from one end of the hole might reach the other side before he/she entered the hole:D.
Then how are the time paradoxes resolved? According to the new proposal, such paradoxes may be ruled out by the weirdness inherent in laws of quantum physics. The constraint arises from a quantum object's ability to behave like a wave. Quantum objects split their existence into multiple component waves, each following a distinct path through space-time. Ultimately, an object is usually most likely to end up in places where its component waves recombine, or "interfere", constructively, with the peaks and troughs of the waves lined up, say. The object is unlikely to be in places where the components interfere destructively, and cancel each other out.
When Greenberger and Svozil analysed what happens when these component waves flow into the past, they found that the paradoxes implied by Einstein's equations never arise. Waves that travel back in time interfere destructively, thus preventing anything from happening differently from that which has already taken place:)).
So, it seems that even if matter could travel back in time, it will not be able to keep its cohesion, and therefore no information can be sent back in time to influence the past!