Following is a summary of current science news briefs.
NASA’s Mars rover may be in for blind landing
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA’s new Mars rover
is heading for a risky do-or-die touchdown next month to assess
conditions for life on the planet, but the U.S. space agency
may not know for hours whether it arrived safely, managers said
on Monday. That’s because the satellite that NASA was counting
on for real-time coverage of the Mars Science Laboratory’s
descent into Gale Crater, located near the planet’s equator,
was sidelined last month by a maneuvering system glitch.
Eye Eye captain: Bounty mutineer descendants may hold key
to myopia
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Descendants of the famous Bounty
mutineers who now live on an isolated Pacific Island have among
the lowest rate of myopia in the world and may hold the key to
unlocking the genetic code for the disease, according to a new
study. A study of residents on Australia’s Norfolk Island,
1,600 km (1,000 miles) northeast of Sydney, showed the rate of
myopia, or short-sightedness, among Bounty descendants was
about half that of the general Australian population.
Indian scientists try to crack monsoon source code
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESHWAR (Reuters) – Scientists aided by
supercomputers are trying to unravel one of Mother Nature’s
biggest mysteries — the vagaries of the summer monsoon rains
that bring life, and sometimes death, to India every year. In a
first-of-its-kind project, Indian scientists aim to build
computer models that would allow them to make a quantum leap in
predicting the erratic movements of the monsoon.
Analysis: Biosensors – the canary in a coalmine worth $13
billion
LONDON (Reuters) – When Tony Turner started studying the
arcane area of biosensors 30 years ago, the market for those
devices was worth only $5 million a year and he used to see one
research paper on the subject every two years. Now a professor
at Linkoping University in Sweden running a department
dedicated to bioelectronics, Turner says a study he led at
Cranfield University in Britain found the devices now generate
annual sales of $13 billion and spawned 6,000 research papers
last year.
Visitors to get first up-close look at space shuttle in New
York
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Enterprise has landed in New York
City, where starting on Thursday the public will be allowed a
close-up look at the first, prototype space shuttle created by
NASA in 1976. The Enterprise exhibit is expected to boost
attendance at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum by a third
and help bring nearly 1.3 million people a year to the
repurposed World War Two aircraft carrier docked on Manhattan’s
West Side.
NASA hires SpaceX for science satellite launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA hired Space
Exploration Technologies to launch an ocean monitoring
satellite, a key win for the start-up rocket company that also
wants to break into the U.S. military’s launch business, NASA
officials said on Thursday. The $82 million contract covers
launch, payload processing and other services for the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s ocean-measuring
Jason-3 satellite, which is slated to fly in December 2014.
France’s 20th century radium craze still haunts Paris
CHAVILLE, France (Reuters) – The Belle Epoque, France’s
golden era at the turn of the last century, bequeathed Paris
elegant landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, but also a more
sinister legacy of radioactive floors and backyards which the
capital is only now addressing. When the Franco-Polish Nobel
Prize winner Marie Curie discovered the radioactive element
radium in 1898, she set off a craze for the luminescent metal
among Parisians, who started using it for everything from alarm
clock dials to lipsticks and even water fountains.
