The Rosser’s sac spider, which had not been seen for 10 years, has been discovered at Chippenham Fen in Cambridgeshire.

It makes its home in wetland areas and had been found only once before, at Lakenheath Fen in Suffolk.

Fears were growing that the spider had died out due to loss of habitat.

The light brown spider was first discovered in the 1950s, but the draining of the fens and changing farming practices since the World War II had put it under threat.

Spider enthusiast Ian Dawson spotted a Rosser’s sac spider in September at the Cambridgeshire site, and a further search in October revealed 10 spiders.

He said: “I was extremely surprised to find the first one and then when we went back a month later it was great to find more of them.

“If we’ve managed to find 10 of them, I think there must be quite a sizeable population of Rosser’s at that particular site.”

The first photographs of live Rosser’s sac spiders were taken by Peter Harvey, who took part in the second survey.

‘Still creeping around’
 
Matt Shardlow, chief executive of insect conservation charity Buglife said: “This spider is globally endangered.

“It’s fantastic that it’s still creeping around in the British countryside and we’re ecstatic that people can now see what it looks like for the first time in history.

“If we want future generations to be able to see the live animal, we will need to take great care of the tiny remaining fragments of wild wetlands in this country and reinstate large areas of lost fen.”

Mike Taylor, of Natural England, which manages the Chippenham Fen reserve, said: “Rosser’s sac spiders spend their days hidden in tubular silken retreats, often in a folded leaf, a bit like a sleeping bag.

“It’s a member of the clubionid family of spiders who like to hunt their prey rather than catch them in a web.

“We were delighted that they have been spotted recently.”

Source: BBC News

After more than 18 years studying the Sun, the plug is finally being pulled on the ailing spacecraft Ulysses.

Final communication with the joint European-US satellite will take place on 30 June.

The long-serving craft, launched in October 1990, has already served four times its expected design life.

The Esa-Nasa mission was the first to survey the environment in space above and below the poles of the Sun.

Data from the craft, published last year, also suggested that the solar wind – the stream of charged particles billowing away from the Sun – is at its weakest for 50 years.

“We expected the spacecraft to cease functioning much earlier,” said Paolo Ferri of the European Space Agency (Esa).

“Although it is always hard to take the decision to terminate a mission, we have to accept that the satellite is running out of resources and a controlled switch-off is the best ending.”

Long life

Ulysses has already defied the odds several times. In its 18-year life, the mission has been extended four times.

But its protracted mission has taken its toll. Ulysses’ main transmitter no longer works and its back-up systems are also beginning to fail.

Last year, the space agencies finally announced that they were finally ready to pull the plug after the satellite’s power supply had weakened to the point where the craft could no longer prevent its hydrazine fuel from freezing.

Engineers believed the craft would become uncontrollable and its end of life was scheduled for 1 July 2008.

However, mission scientists came up with a short-term fix whereby the fuel could be kept circulating by performing a short thruster burn every two hours.

The ingenious fix gave the craft another year of life. But, now, scientists believe it is time to switch off the mission.

In particular, they feel the scientific return has reached a level where it is hard to justify the operational costs.

Final communication with the craft will begin at 1635 GMT and run until 2120 GMT on 30 June, after which no further contact is planned. The craft will in effect become a man-made comet.

“[It] will be a very sad day when we send the last commands to Ulysses,” said Nigel Angold, Esa Mission Operations Manager.

Source: BBC News

The flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer could allow criminals to take control of people’s computers and steal their passwords, internet experts say.

Microsoft is investigating the problem and preparing an emergency software patch to resolve it, it says.

Internet Explorer is used by the vast majority of the world’s computer users.

"Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer," said the firm in a security advisory alert about the flaw.

Microsoft says it has detected attacks against version seven of the browser – its most widely used edition.

But the company warned that other versions were also potentially vulnerable.

Story from BBC NEWS

A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France’s Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world’s mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

Source:AFP

Brain scans of teens with a history of aggressive bullying behavior suggest that they may actually get pleasure out of seeing someone else in pain, U.S. researchers said on Friday.

While this may come as little surprise to those who have been victimized by bullies, it is not what the researchers expected, Benjamin Lahey of the University of Chicago, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

"The reason we were surprised is the prevailing view is these kids are cold and unemotional in their aggression," said Lahey, whose study appears in the journal Biological Psychology.

"This is looking like maybe they care very much," said Lahey, who worked on the study with Jean Decety, also of the University of Chicago.

The researchers compared eight boys ages 16 to 18 with aggressive conduct disorder to a group of eight adolescent boys with no unusual signs of aggression.

The boys with the conduct disorder had exhibited disruptive behavior such as starting a fight, using a weapon and stealing after confronting a victim.

They showed both groups video clips of someone inflicting pain on another person and tracked brain activity with a type of imaging called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI.

In the aggressive teens, areas of the brain linked with feeling rewarded — the amygdala and ventral striatum — became very active when they observed pain being inflicted on others.

But they showed little activity in an area of the brain involved in self-regulation — the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction — as was seen in the control group.

"It is entirely possible their brains are lighting in the way they are because they experience seeing pain in others as exciting and fun and pleasurable," Lahey said.

"We need to test that hypothesis more, but that is what it looks like," he said.

Lahey said the differences between the two groups were strong and striking, but cautioned that the study was small and needs to be confirmed by a larger study.

Source:Reuters

A computer simulation showing the formation and evolution of a galaxy like the Milky Way points to where scientists should look to spot dark matter, international researchers reported on Wednesday.

The findings published in the journal Nature move researchers a step closer to unraveling the mystery of the substance that makes up most of the universe, said Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at Durham University in Britain.

"Discovering what dark matter is, is one of the most fundamental questions scientists can ask," Frenk, who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

"Uncovering the identity of the main component of the universe. That is what this is about."

Astronomers believe dark matter — as opposed to ordinary matter making up the stars, planets and the like — comprises about 85 percent of the universe’s material, but evidence has been difficult to come by because it cannot be directly seen.

It does not reflect light nor normally shine, but astronomers infer its existence in galaxy clusters by observing how its gravity bends the light given off by even more faraway galaxies. They do not know what it is made of, but think it could be a kind of particle.

The international research team looked at a dark matter halo — structures surrounding galaxies which weigh a trillion times more than the sun.

Their simulations showed how the galaxy’s halo grew through a series of violent collisions between much smaller clumps of dark matter that emerged from the Big Bang.

In the densest part of the halo, the dark matter particles collide at high speed to produce a form of radiation called gamma rays. These gamma rays make the halo glow, giving scientists a potential way to detect dark matter.

The findings mean that NASA’s Fermi Telescope should search in the part of the galaxy where the researchers predict dark matter should glow in "a smoothly varying and characteristic pattern" where it is easier to see, the researchers said.

That location is near the sun, just off the center of the Milky Way, Frenk said.

"What we have shown through a gigantic simulation is where the gamma rays would come from," he said. "We have given a blueprint for people on where to look and how the signal should appear."

Source:Reuters

Benedict, who briefly met the wheelchair-bound physicist at an event hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, described science as the pursuit of knowledge about God’s creation.

"There is no opposition between faith’s understanding of creation and the evidence of the empirical sciences," the pontiff said.

"Galileo saw nature as a book whose author is God."

The Catholic Church found the 17th-century astronomer Galileo guilty of heresy for insisting the earth revolved around the sun. It did not rehabilitate him until 1992.

Hawking is a guest at the week-long event, which will explore the theme: "Scientific Insights into the Evolution of the Universe and of Life."

In an interview with Reuters last year, Hawking said he was "not religious in the normal sense."

"I believe the universe is governed by the laws of science," he said. "The laws may have been decreed by God, but God does not intervene to break the laws."

The Catholic Church teaches "theistic evolution," which accepts evolution as scientific theory. Proponents see no reason why God could not have used an evolutionary process in forming the human species.

The Pontiff admired the technology that allows Hawking to speak through a voice synthesizer. Hawking is crippled by a muscle disease and has lost the use of his natural voice.

Hawking, author of the best-selling "A Brief History of Time," will speak about the origin of the universe at the closed-door event.

Source:Reuters

Seven astronauts climbed aboard the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour on Wednesday in a practice run for a mission to deliver equipment needed to prepare the International Space Station for a larger crew.

Endeavour is tentatively scheduled for launch on November 14 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA managers will review flight preparations and set a firm launch date on Thursday.

The shuttle is slated to spend 15 days in orbit, 11 of them parked at the space station.

The delivery will help expand the station’s live-aboard crew from three astronauts to six.

"We’re turning the space station from a three-bedroom, one-bath outpost to a five-bedroom, two-bath orbiting laboratory from which we can conduct science for years to come," Endeavour commander Chris Ferguson told reporters during an informal briefing at the launch pad.

For Endeavour’s three rookies, the dress rehearsal was the first time they were able to sit inside the space shuttle, which is poised at a seaside launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center.

"It’s just a great opportunity to get in the real vehicle and just get more comfortable," said Shane Kimbrough, who will be making his first spaceflight along with Endeavour pilot Eric Boe and flight engineer Steve Bowen.

Astronaut Sandra Magnus will be swapping places with station flight engineer Greg Chamitoff, who has been aboard the outpost since May. Rounding out the crew are Donald Pettit and lead spacewalker Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper.

In addition to delivering new sleeping quarters, a second toilet and a system to recycle wastewater, the astronauts hope to repair a rotary joint needed to pivot the station’s solar arrays so they can track the sun for power.

Also on Wednesday, NASA managers defended progress on a new ship to replace the shuttle, saying reports of engineering problems with the craft’s design are overblown and inaccurate.

Doug Cooke, the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s exploration program, said engineers expected to have to solve such problems with a new spacecraft and they were not insurmountable.

"We haven’t done something of this magnitude in over three decades," Cooke told reporters on a conference call.

NASA is designing a new rocket and capsule that will be able to ferry astronauts to and from the space station as well as the moon. The first flight is expected in 2015, about five years after the space shuttles are retired.

Source:Reuters

A new study shows that humans had the ability to make fire nearly 790,000 years ago, a skill that helped them migrate from Africa to Europe.

By analyzing flints at an archaeological site on the bank of the river Jordan, researchers at Israel’s Hebrew University discovered that early civilizations had learned to light fires, a turning point that allowed them to venture into unknown lands.

A previous study of the site published in 2004 showed that man had been able to control fire — for example transferring it by means of burning branches — in that early time period. But researchers now say that ancient man could actually start fire, rather than relying on natural phenomena such as lightning.

That independence helped promoted migration northward, they say.

The new study, published in a recent edition of Quaternary Science Reviews, mapped 12 archaeological layers at Gesher Benot Yaaqov in northern Israel.

"The new data shows there was a continued, controlled use of fire through many civilizations and that they were not dependent on natural fires," archaeologist Nira Alperson-Afil said on Sunday.

While they did not find remnants of ancient matches or lighters, Alperson-Afil said the patterns of burned flint found in the same place throughout 12 civilizations was evidence of fire-making ability, though the methods used were unclear.

And because the site is located in the Jordan valley — a key route between Africa and Europe — it provides evidence of the human migration, she said.

"Once they mastered fire to protect themselves from predators and provide warmth and light, they were secure enough to move into and populate unfamiliar territory," Alperson-Afil said.

Source:Reuters

Europe’s gravity mission has been bumped to next year because of ongoing technical problems with its launcher.

The arrow-shaped Goce satellite will map tiny variations in the pull of gravity experienced across the world.

The information will give scientists a clearer insight into how the oceans move, and provide a universal reference to measure height anywhere on Earth.

But concerns about the reliability of its Russian rocket mean a lift-off is now unlikely before February.

It is a frustrating delay for the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce).

The satellite was already two years behind schedule when it was sent to the launch pad because engineers had to work through immense technical difficulties in building it.

The super-sleek spacecraft was due to go into orbit on a modified intercontinental ballistic missile, known at the Rockot, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia in the spring.

It was held on the ground while an investigation was undertaken into the performance of a different, failed rocket system that shared key components.

Once that was cleared, Goce’s own launcher then became the focus of separate investigations that have now resulted in a further, extended delay.

The problem is centred on the guidance and navigation units of the Breeze upper stage that has been added to the ICBM to inject satellite payloads into their correct orbits.

Goce is a remarkable mission by any standards. It will sense the very subtle gravity anomalies that exist across the planet.

There is a misconception that Earth’s pull is the same everywhere. In reality, it differs ever so slightly from place to place.

One of the reasons is that our planet is not a perfect sphere – it is flatter at the poles, fatter at the equator. Its interior layers are also not composed of uniform shells of homogenous rock – some regions are thicker or denser.

This leads to an irregular distribution of mass; and as everything that has mass is pulled by gravity, that tug becomes irregular, too.

The variations, though, are tiny – almost imperceptible. Goce will carry a special device known as a gradiometer to measure these anomalies.

The gradiometer incorporates precision-built accelerometers that sense accelerations that are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth.

But for optimal performance, Goce needs to fly low – below 300km. This is difficult because the residual atmosphere at that altitude can jostle the spacecraft and introduce "noise" into the data.

Just how much air is present at the flight altitude is linked indirectly to activity on the Sun, which heats the upper reaches of the atmosphere, altering its density on an 11-year-cycle.

If, as expected, the Sun gets more active in the coming months and years, Goce may have to fly higher than was anticipated, limiting the resolution of its data.

GRAVITY FIELD AND STEADY-STATE OCEAN CIRCULATION EXPLORER 1. Goce senses tiny variations in the pull of gravity over Earth 2. The data is used to construct an ‘idealised’ surface, or geoid 3. This traces gravity of equal ‘potential’; balls won’t roll on its ‘slopes’ 4. It is the shape the oceans would take without winds and currents 5. So, comparing sea level and geoid data reveals ocean behaviour 6. Gravity changes can betray magma movements under volcanoes 7. A precise geoid underpins a universal height system for the world 8. Gravity data can also reveal how much mass is lost by ice sheets

GRAVITY FIELD AND STEADY-STATE OCEAN CIRCULATION EXPLORER 1. The 1,100kg Goce is built from rigid materials and carries fixed solar wings. The gravity data must be clear of spacecraft ‘noise’ 2. Solar cells produce 1,300W and cover the Sun-facing side of Goce; the near side (as shown) radiates heat to keep it cool 3. The 5m-by-1m frame incorporates fins to stabilise the spacecraft as it flies through the residual air in the thermosphere 4. Goce’s accelerometers measure accelerations that are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth 5. The UK-built engine ejects xenon ions at velocities exceeding 40,000m/s; Goce’s mission will end when the 40kg fuel tank empties 6. S Band antenna: Data downloads to the Kiruna (Sweden) ground station. Processing, archiving is done at Esa’s centre in Frascati, Italy 7. GPS antennas: Precise positioning of Goce is required, but GPS data in itself can also provide some gravity field information

Story from BBC NEWS