Monday, October 02, 2006

Vega-like stars, dinosaur’s reputation reserved, orbiting human habitats in four years

Welcome! "Alien Life" tracks the latest discoveries and thoughts in the various elements of the famous Drake Equation. Here's today's news:
g Stars - With the VISIR instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have mapped the disc around a star more massive than the Sun. The very extended and flared disc most likely contains enough gas and dust to spawn planets. It appears as a precursor of debris discs such as the one around Vega-like stars and thus provides the rare opportunity to witness the conditions prevailing prior to or during planet formation. See article.
g Abodes - Ancient rocks from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean suggest dramatic climate changes during the dinosaur-dominated Mesozoic Era, a time once thought to have been monotonously hot and humid. See article.
g Life - A dinosaur species long accused of cannibalism and infanticide is finally having the charges against it dropped and its reputation restored. See article.
g Intelligence - The completion of the Allen Institute for Brain Science's inaugural project signals a remarkable leap forward in one of the last frontiers of medical science - the brain. The Institute today announced the completion of the groundbreaking Allen Brain Atlas, a Web- based, three-dimensional map of gene expression in the mouse brain. Detailing more than 21,000 genes at the cellular level, the Atlas provides scientists with a level of data previously not available. See article.
g Cosmicus - If the planned Jan. 30 launch of Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis 2 space module on a Russian Dnepr rocket is successful, Las Vegas entrepreneur Robert Bigelow plans to send a human-rated habitat into orbit in either the second half of 2009 or the first half of 2010. See article.
g Learning - Here’s a neat set of classroom lessons, about how technologies have played an essential role in the study of space and in the emerging use of space environments.

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