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Apophis – a 'potentially hazardous' asteroid – flies by Earth on Wednesday | Stuart Clark
Asteroid Apophis arrives this week for a close pass of Earth. This isn't the end of the world but a new beginning for research into potentially hazardous asteroidsApophis hit the headlines in December 2004. Six months after its discovery, astronomers had accrued enough images to calculate a reasonable orbit for the 300-metre chunk of space rock. What they saw was shocking. There was a roughly 1 in 300 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth during April 2029. Nasa issued a press release spurring astronomers around the world to take more observations in order to refine the orbit. Far from dropping, however, the chances of an i...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 7, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Stuart Clark Tags: Blogposts Astronomy guardian.co.uk Space Science Source Type: news

Apophis: why Nasa takes a special interest in the asteroid's latest pass
Asteroid Apophis arrives this week for a close pass of Earth. This isn't the end of the world but a new beginning for research into potentially hazardous asteroidsApophis hit the headlines in December 2004. Six months after its discovery, astronomers had accrued enough images to calculate a reasonable orbit for the 300-metre chunk of space rock. What they saw was shocking. There was a roughly 1 in 300 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth during April 2029. Nasa issued a press release spurring astronomers around the world to take more observations in order to refine the orbit. Far from dropping, however, the chances of an i...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 9, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Stuart Clark Tags: Blogposts Astronomy guardian.co.uk Space Science Source Type: news

What will be the next great invention? Ask a teenager
From the lightbulb to the web, the British have a great history of innovation. We must help young people to keep inspiring usFrom the sewing machine to ice cream, the railway to the telegraph, the 19th century was awash with invention. It seems you couldn't turn your back without someone inventing the flushing toilet, the typewriter, the light bulb, X-ray, or the wireless.The Victorians certainly had a knack for recognising a need, an opportunity, a better way of doing things – as a recent poll of Britain's greatest inventions shows. And recognising needs is what innovation is all about. It's not about widgets for the sa...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - January 9, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Maggie Philbin Tags: Comment guardian.co.uk Society Technology UK news Young people Education Science Comment is free Source Type: news

Paralysed people could get movement back through thought-control
Brain implant could allow people to 'feel' the presence of infrared light and one day be used to move artificial limbsScientists have moved closer to allowing paralysed people to control artificial limbs with their thoughts following a breakthrough in technology that gave rats an extra sense.A brain implant that allows the animals to "feel" the presence of invisible infrared light could one day be used to provide paralysed people with feedback as they move artificial limbs with their thoughts, or it could even extend a person's normal range of senses.Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University in North Carolina w...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - February 17, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Alok Jha Tags: The Guardian Animal research United States AAAS World news Technology Neuroscience Source Type: news

Brain-to-brain interface transmits information from one rat to another | Mo Costandi
Electronically-linked brains could facilitate rehabilitation and revolutionize computingIn Star Trek, the Borg is a menacing race of cybernetically-enhanced beings who conquer other races and assimilate them. They do not act as individuals, but rather as an interconnected group that makes decisions collectively. Assimilation involves integrating other life forms into the Collective, using brain implants that connect them to the "hive mind," such that their biology and technology can help the Borg to become the perfect race. This is a popular concept that can be found elsewhere in science fiction, but scientists have now mo...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - February 28, 2013 Category: Science Tags: Blogposts guardian.co.uk Technology Neuroscience Source Type: news

If only a Scotsman had boldly gone… | Kevin McKenna
The UK Space Conference opens in Glasgow this week – where better to hold it with all these UFOs around?Like many Scots, I am proud of my country's role in Earth's understanding of outer space. When it first dawned on me as a child that the most important member of Captain James T Kirk's Starship Enterprise was Scottish, I was bursting with pride. Neither do you get to have names such as Neil Armstrong or John Glenn unless there is a significant quotient of Scots blood in you. And when it was revealed many years later that Obi-Wan Kenobi too was Scottish, well… our place in cosmology was finally secured. There have eve...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - July 13, 2013 Category: Science Authors: Kevin McKenna Tags: Comment UFOs Star Trek UK news Scotland The Observer Space Comment is free Source Type: news

Music gives people a voice when words fail them at the end of their lives | Bob Heath
A music therapist describes how improvising songs can open a vital channel of communication in palliative careAll that was dear to me, down below the seaI cannot hold this piece of driftwoodWhen life abandons meLiz, a patient at the Sobell House hospice, 2013In palliative care, when clients and their therapists get to know one another they do so with a shared knowledge, whether voiced or not, that while both of them are going to die eventually, at least one of them is going to be doing it very soon.The relationship between client and therapist is always unique. And whatever you may think about "therapy", all (or most) of i...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - November 5, 2013 Category: Science Tags: Psychology theguardian.com Music Health Medical research & wellbeing Society Life and style Editorial Science Source Type: news

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery review
Patients see neurosurgeons as gods, but what is the reality? Henry Marsh has written a memoir of startling candourWe go to doctors for help and healing; we don't expect them to make us worse. Most people know the aphorism taught to medical students, attributed to the ancient Greek Hippocrates but timeless in its quiet sanity: "First, do no harm." But many medical treatments do cause harm: learning how to navigate the risks of drug therapies, as well as the catastrophic consequences of botched or inadvised surgical operations, is a big part of why training doctors takes so long. Even the simplest of therapies carries the ri...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - March 19, 2014 Category: Science Authors: Gavin Francis Tags: The Guardian Private healthcare Culture Society Reviews Books Neuroscience UK news Hospitals NHS Source Type: news

If you can't imagine things, how can you learn?
We know some people can’t conjure up mental images. But we’re only beginning to understand the impact this “aphantasia” might have on their educationNever underestimate the power of visualisation. It may sound like a self-help mantra, but a growing body of evidence shows that mental imagery can accelerate learning and improve performance of all sorts of skills. For athletes and musicians, “going through the motions,” or mentally rehearsing the movements in the mind, is just as effective as physical training, and motor imagery can also help stroke patients regain function of their paralysed limbs.For most of us,...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - June 4, 2016 Category: Science Authors: Mo Costandi Tags: Students Education Higher education Neuroscience Psychology Source Type: news

The robot suit providing hope of a walking cure
Clothing that can help people learn how to walk again after a stroke is the brainchild of a Harvard team reinventing the way we use robot technologyConor Walsh ’s laboratory at Harvard University is not your everyday research centre. There are no bench-top centrifuges, no fume cupboards for removing noxious gases, no beakers or crucibles, no racks of test tubes and only a handful laptop computers. Instead, the place is dominated by clothing.On one side of the lab stands a group of mannequins dressed in T-shirts and black running trousers. Behind them, there are racks of sweatshirts and running shoes. On another wall of s...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - November 20, 2016 Category: Science Authors: Robin McKie Tags: Medical research Robots Technology Science Source Type: news