NASA has sent a supercomputer to the International Space Station, in a bid to accelerate its mission to put humans on Mars.

The supercomputer, known as the Spaceborne Computer, was launched aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, propelled by a reusable Falcon 9 rocket booster, on Monday, August 14.

A stunning new view of Saturn has revealed waves of clouds swirling above the planet, like ‘strokes from a cosmic brush.’

The image, captured by the Cassini spacecraft from roughly 750,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) above the surface, shows the turbulent essence of Saturn’s clouds, which move as bands in different speeds and directions.

Cassini began the final phase of its mission this week, executing the first of five ultra-close passes of the gas giant on Monday morning.

BRITAIN is in the grip of its coldest summer holidays for 35 years. Temperatures in London have failed to get any higher than 73F (23C) since schools broke up on July 19. It has been a similar story in Birmingham, while in Newcastle the thermometer has been stuck below a modest 68F (20C).

The 35 papers variously confirm that warming is ‘potentially beneficial’; cooling causes ecological declines, greater health risks, extinctions. Also, warming leads to less extreme weather, while cooling does the opposite. Warming causes fewer and less intense hurricanes, less drought and flood frequency.

People are happier if they are able to feel emotions they desire – even if those emotions are unpleasant, such as anger and hatred, a study suggests.
The results of the study, compiled by an international team of researchers, found happiness is “more than simply feeling pleasure and avoiding pain”. Researchers asked participants what emotions they desired and felt. This was then compared to how they rated their overall happiness, or life satisfaction.

The most genetically modified animals in existence have been created to help end a shortage of organs for transplant, say US researchers. The scientists successfully rid 37 pigs of viruses hiding in their DNA, overcoming one of the big barriers to transplanting pig organs to people.

The team at eGenesis admits preventing pig organs from being rejected by the human body remains a huge challenge
But experts said it was a promising and exciting first step. The study, published in the journal Science, started with skin cells from a pig. Tests identified 25 Pervs – porcine endogenous retroviruses – hidden in the pig’s genetic code.

The Cassini probe has begun the final phase of its mission to Saturn. The satellite has executed the first of five ultra-close passes of the giant world, dipping down far enough to brush through the top of the atmosphere.
It promises unprecedented data on the chemical composition of Saturn. It also sets the stage for the probe’s dramatic end-manoeuvre next month when it will plunge to destruction in the planet’s atmosphere.

The intended audience of this article is really Germans, who suffer from Stefan Rahmstorf, but I (Dr. Duane Thresher) think Americans and the rest of the world will find it fascinating as well.

Full disclosure: Dr. Claudia Kubatzki is coauthor on several papers with Stefan Rahmstorf and was also at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) with him.

Study in JAMA links climate skepticism with vaccines: Claims ‘significant proportion of US is impervious to scientific facts’, says Climate Depot’s Marc Morano. Study infers skeptics are uneducated and ignorant.

Image copyright: GETTY IMAGES

Scientists have solved the puzzle of the so-called “Frankenstein dinosaur”, which seems to consist of body parts from unrelated species. A new study suggests that it is in fact the missing link between plant-eating dinosaurs, such as Stegosaurus, and carnivorous dinosaurs, like T. rex.

A defensive mucus secreted by slugs has inspired a new kind of adhesive that could transform medicine, say scientists. The “bio-glue” is incredibly strong, moves with the body and crucially, sticks to wet surfaces.
The team at Harvard University have even used it to seal a hole in a pig’s heart. Experts have described the glue as “really cool” and said there would be “absolutely huge demand” for it.

Plans to build the world’s “largest” data centre are being made public. The facility is set to be created at the Norwegian town of Ballangen, which is located inside the Arctic Circle. The firm behind the project, Kolos, says the chilled air and abundant hydropower available locally would help it keep its energy costs down.

New evidence from ancient lunar rocks suggests that an active dynamo once churned within the molten metallic core of the moon, generating a magnetic field that lasted at least 1 billion years longer than previously thought. Dynamos are natural generators of magnetic fields around terrestrial bodies, and are powered by the churning of conducting fluids within many stars and planets.

Scientists have decoded the secrets behind a goldfish’s ability to survive in ice-covered lakes. They’ve worked out how and why the fish turn lactic acid in their bodies into alcohol, as a means of staying alive. Some goldfish were found to have levels well above legal drink-driving limits in many countries.

The researchers say the work may help with the study of some alcohol impacts in humans. Scientists have known about the peculiar survival abilities of goldfish and their wild relatives, crucian carp, since the 1980s. While humans and most vertebrates die in a few minutes without oxygen, these fish are able to survive for months in icy conditions in ponds and lakes in northern Europe.

After 31 years working for E.I. DuPont de Nemours here is my understanding about “ozone depletion” — the warm-up act for anthropogenic CO2-induced “global warming”. Even the proponents of human-induced “ozone depletion” are starting to realize that the thinning of the ozone layer is a natural phenomenon that just waxes and wanes.

Ozone (O3) is produced in the stratosphere by the intense solar radiation causing photo-dissociation of the di-atomic oxygen molecule (O2). The oxygen singlet (- O) is a powerful oxidizing agent and readily reacts with another O2 molecule to yield ozone. Ozone is not produced during the dark polar winters and its lowest point is in the early spring. The ozone layer is renewed by the sunlit polar summers.

Science writer and researcher, Edsel Chromie, urges space scientists to recognise the increasing empirical evidence pointing to electromagnetism rather than gravity as the more dominant galactic force. Like many researchers increasingly persuaded that modern cosmology has taken a wrong turn. Chromie tells Principia Scientific International:
“The common denominator of many of the many mysteries that have been studied for the last 100 years and that remain unresolved is that they all occur in an abnormally intense area of magnetic field energy. And the one thing the science community has adamantly refused to consider is the magnetic field energy factor in the creation or involvement of these phenomena. They do this because they stubbornly believe it to be too weak to be relevant.”