NASA ends efforts to free rover from Martian sand

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 -- NASA on Tuesday declared an end to Mars Exploration Rover Spirit's roving career after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.

The venerable robot's primary task in the next few weeks will be to position itself to combat the severe Martian winter, according to the U.S. space agency. If Spirit survives, it will continue conducting significant new science from its final location. The rover's mission could continue for several months to years.

"Spirit is not dead; it has just entered another phase of its long life," said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We told the world last year that attempts to set the beloved robot free may not be successful. It looks like Spirit's current location on Mars will be its final resting place."

Ten months ago, as Spirit was driving south beside the western edge of a low plateau called Home Plate, its wheels broke through a crusty surface and churned into soft sand hidden underneath.

After Spirit became embedded, the rover team crafted plans for trying to get the six-wheeled vehicle free using its five functioning wheels -- the sixth wheel quit working in 2006, limiting Spirit's mobility. The planning included experiments with a test rover in a sandbox at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, plus analysis, modeling and reviews. In November, another wheel quit working, making a difficult situation even worse.

Recent drives have yielded the best results since Spirit became embedded. However, the coming winter mandates a change in strategy. It is mid-autumn at the solar-powered robot's home on Mars. Winter will begin in May. Solar energy is declining and expected to become insufficient to power further driving by mid-February. The rover team plans to use those remaining potential drives for improving the rover's tilt. Spirit currently tilts slightly toward the south. The winter sun stays in the northern sky, so decreasing the southward tilt would boost the amount of sunshine on the rover 's solar panels.

At its current angle, Spirit probably would not have enough power to keep communicating with Earth through the Martian winter. Even a few degrees of improvement in tilt might make enough difference to enable communication every few days.

However, even in a stationary state, Spirit continues scientific research, NASA said.

"There's a class of science we can do only with a stationary vehicle that we had put off during the years of driving," said Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University and principal investigator for Spirit and Opportunity. "Degraded mobility does not mean the mission ends abruptly. Instead, it lets us transition to stationary science."

One stationary experiment Spirit has begun studies tiny wobbles in the rotation of Mars to gain insight about the planet's core. This requires months of radio-tracking the motion of a point on the surface of Mars to calculate long-term motion with an accuracy of a few inches.

Tools on Spirit's robotic arm can study variations in the composition of nearby soil, which has been affected by water. Stationary science also includes watching how wind moves soil particles and monitoring the Martian atmosphere.

Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004. They have been exploring for six years, far surpassing their original 90-day mission. Opportunity currently is driving toward a large crater called Endeavor and continues to make scientific discoveries. It has driven approximately 12 miles and returned more than 133,000 images.
(Xinhua)

New species found in Ecuador: Glass frog with transparent body

Rain Frog

A new species, this as yet unnamed rain frog looks toward an uncertain future.

The frog is one of 30 unknown species found in Ecuador's highland forests by a team of U.S. and Ecuadorian researchers, the nonprofit, Arizona-based Reptile & Amphibian Ecology International announced January 14, 2010. As Central and South America’s increasingly isolated "islands" of mountaintop forest fall to the ax, and heat up with global warming, scientists fear many such species will be lost before we ever knew they existed, the organization says.

A new species, this as yet unnamed rain frog looks toward an uncertain future.

Slug-Sucking Snake

Just 20 minutes of nighttime searching in a rare patch of coastal dry forest in Ecuador enabled scientists to spot this new species of snake—on a branch just above biologist Paul Hamilton’s head.

The slug-sucking snake is one of a small group that feasts on gastropods such as slugs and snails. Not only is the snake an unknown species, but its closest relative lives almost 350 miles (560 kilometers) away in Peru.

Slug-Sucking Snake

Tree Frog With Red Iris

A new species, announced January 2010, of rain frog crouches on a leaf in its forest home in Ecuador.

The frogs' lifestyle is so thoroughly arboreal that, instead of laying eggs in water, the frogs deposit their eggs in trees. And instead of hatching as tadpoles, the offspring emerge as miniature versions of their parents—some not much larger than pinheads.

Tree Frog With Red Iris

New Species of Stick Insect

The RAEI team uncovered four intriguing stick-insect species—including the above animal—which boast some of the animal kingdom’s best camouflage.

Scientists searching for reptiles and amphibians captured the photogenic insects on film—and later were surprised to learn they'd discovered four new species of the genus Xylospinodes.

New Species of Stick Insect.

Scaly-Eyed Gecko

The scaly-eyed gecko (Lepidoblepharis buchwaldi)—also a new species—can perch comfortably atop a pencil eraser, even as an adult.

"They crawl around in leaf litter on the forest floor, and they are so small they are very hard to find," biologist Hamilton explained. "All of these things take a lot of time to find, and if we don't get to work and put in a lot of hours we're going to miss ever seeing a lot of these little things."

The scaly-eyed gecko (Lepidoblepharis buchwaldi)—also a new species—can perch comfortably atop a pencil eraser, even as an adult.

Lungless Salamander

Like nearly half of the new species announced by RAEI in January 2010, the salamander—which is not a new species—dwells on Cerro Pata de Pájaro. The cloud forest-capped mountain straddles the Equator six miles (ten kilometers) from the Pacific Ocean.

The few square miles of forest here are home to 14 new species found nowhere else.

This lungless salamander, which breathes through its skin, is one of three similar species RAEI scientists spotted in Ecuadorian forests.

Heart of Glass

This so-called glass frog's transparent body lacks pigmentation and reveals its organs in action—including a beating heart.

More than 150 species of glass frogs are found in rain forest trees across Central and South America, RAEI says (pictures of tropical rain forests). But many are feeling pressures like those that threaten their frog relatives worldwide.

This so-called glass frog's transparent body lacks pigmentation and reveals its organs in action—including a beating heart.

Dwarf Iguana

A male O'Shaughnessy's Dwarf Iguana (Enyalioides oshaughnessyi) can cut an imposing figure. But the animal may be helpless in the face of threats to its cloud forest home, RAEI says.

Cerro Pata de Pájaro is being deforested on all sides for the expansion of cattle grazing, RAEI says. Climate change may also heat up—and dry up—cloud forests, which could leave animals unable to adapt with nowhere to go.

A male O'Shaughnessy's Dwarf Iguana (Enyalioides oshaughnessyi) can cut an imposing figure. But the animal may be helpless in the face of threats to its cloud forest home, RAEI says.

(CCTV.com)

NASA research finds last decade was warmest on record

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 -- A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds that January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record and the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said Thursday in a press release.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

People walk past a globe at the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, capital of Denmark, December 19, 2009.

Looking back to 1880, when modern scientific instrumentation became available to monitor temperatures precisely, a clear warming trend is present, although there was a leveling off between the 1940s and 1970s, scientists find.

In the past three decades, the GISS surface temperature record shows an upward trend of about 0.36 degrees F (0.2 degrees C) per decade. In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 1.5 degrees F (0.8 degrees C) since 1880.

GISS uses publicly available data from three sources to conduct its temperature analysis. The sources are weather data from more than a thousand meteorological stations around the world, satellite observations of sea surface temperatures, and Antarctic research station measurements.

The near-record global temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures from the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while increasing its tendency to blow from north to south. The result was an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north. This left North America cooler than normal, while the Arctic was warmer than normal.
(Reuters)

International researchers find method to date Dead Sea Scrolls

File photo shows a document, thought to be an ancient text written on papyrus, is displayed at Jerusalem Magistrates Court May 6, 2009. This style of writing is primarily known from the Dead Sea scrolls and various inscriptions that occur on ossuaries and coffins.

STOCKHOLM, Jan. 20 -- A Danish archaeochemist and an international team of researchers have found a way to enable scientists to precisely date the Dead Sea Scrolls, according to reports reaching here from Copenhagen on Wednesday.

"For more than a decade we've been saying that there was no point in dating the scrolls before we found a method to remove the oil. Now we have found just such a method," Kaare Lund Rasmussen, Associate Professor and Archaeochemist of the University of Southern Denmark, was quoted as saying by the Danish newspaper Politiken online.

Treatment of the scrolls included being spread out using plant oil, which in turn made precise carbon dating of the scrolls almost impossible, said Politiken.

However, researchers have now found a chemical method to remove the oil without harming the parchment of the scrolls, and thus allowing precise carbon dating, said the report.

Carbon dating tests of the scrolls were carried out in the 1990s by the Zurich Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona, but precise dating has remained controversial. It is not yet clear when a new set of carbon dating tests will be carried out, the report added.

The Dead Sea Scrolls consisting of about 900 documents and other ancient documents were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in caves near the Qumran Wadi northwest of the Dead Sea.
(Reuters)

Solar-powered car "Sikat" debuts in Manila

Photo taken in Manila, the Philippines on Jan. 12, 2010 shows Philippine second solar-powered car called "Sikat" (means famous) is driven along the street during a road show. The car's body is made of a lightweight carbon fibre found in current F1 car models and with improved design features such as new generation sun power cells and a sleeker, more maneuverable and aerodynamic design. The road show is aimed at promoting the use of solar energy and preparing the team for the 2011 World Solar Car Challenge in Australia.

Photo taken in Manila, the Philippines on Jan. 12, 2010 shows Philippine second solar-powered car called "Sikat" (means famous) is driven along the street during a road show. The car's body is made of a lightweight carbon fibre found in current F1 car models and with improved design features such as new generation sun power cells and a sleeker, more maneuverable and aerodynamic design. The road show is aimed at promoting the use of solar energy and preparing the team for the 2011 World Solar Car Challenge in Australia.

Photo taken in Manila, the Philippines on Jan. 12, 2010 shows Philippine second solar-powered car called "Sikat" (means famous) is driven along the street during a road show. The car's body is made of a lightweight carbon fibre found in current F1 car models and with improved design features such as new generation sun power cells and a sleeker, more maneuverable and aerodynamic design. The road show is aimed at promoting the use of solar energy and preparing the team for the 2011 World Solar Car Challenge in Australia.
(Xinhua)