NASA wants to put a lander on Europa’s surface to look for life

The search for life on Europa is inching closer to reality. NASA has released a report outlining an initial set of objectives for a proposed mission to the surface of Jupiter’s icy moon.

The primary objective of this mission, the report says, is to search directly for evidence of life. Europa has been a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life since the mid-1990s when the Galileo orbiter indicated that a huge saltwater ocean may exist beneath its icy crust.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

El Niño has an uncle that could send global warming into overdrive

You've probably heard about El Niño, the climate system that brings dry and often hotter weather to Australia over summer.

You might also know that climate change is likely to intensify drought conditions, which is one of the reasons climate scientists keep talking about the desperate need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the damaging consequences if we don't.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

'Superflares' Likely Made Proxima b Uninhabitable Long Ago

The nearby alien planet Proxima b is not a great candidate to host life as we know it, a new study suggests.

Immensely powerful flares from Proxima b's parent star likely stripped some of life's key building blocks from the Earth-size alien world's atmosphere long ago, according to the study, which investigated the life-hosting potential of planets circling the small, dim stars known as red dwarfs.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

TIL of a monk who had taken an old book written by Archimedes, erased the contents, and wrote over it with prayers. Scientists have determined that that monk erased a previously unknown book by Archimedes, that laid out the foundations of Calculus thousands of years before Newton and Leibniz.

Wikipedia
Via Reddit
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

SpaceX is about to send a lethal superbug into orbit

SpaceX is preparing to launch a lethal, antibiotic-resistant superbug into orbit on February 14, to live its days in the microgravity environment of the International Space Station (ISS).

The idea is not to weaponise space with MRSA - a bacterium that kills more Americans every year than HIV/AIDS, Parkinson's disease, emphysema, and homicide combined - but to send its mutation rates into hyperdrive, allowing scientists to see the pathogen's next moves well before they appear on Earth.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

Scientists Just Found One of the Most Promising Malaria Vaccine Targets to Date

In spite of a decade of intense research, we still don't have a commercially available vaccine for malaria.

While a candidate vaccine is being piloted next year, scientists have found a potentially more promising target in the bridge malaria makes with our red blood cells, which could lead to a more effective, cheaply made vaccine.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

Physicists Calculate Long-Lost Signals Emitted Fractions of a Second After the Big Bang

For the first time, theoretical physicists have calculated the precise frequency of specific gravitational wave signals that would have emerged fractions of a second after the Big Bang.

Just like we had to figure out the frequency of the Higgs boson before scientists could detect it, this means scientists can now start to track down the signals of long-lost cosmological phenomena called 'oscillons', allowing us to peer back further into the Universe than ever before.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

Join @ESHub for all things science; such as episodes of Mars, Mindfield, Cosmos and more!
The easiest way to keep up with everything science!

Emergency Evacuations Underway Amid Fears of "Immediate Failure" at America's Tallest Dam

Emergency evacuations are currently underway in Oroville, California, as locals fear that a gaping hole in the severely eroded auxiliary spillway of America's tallest dam could give way at any moment.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

27 years ago today, Voyager 1 took its last photos ever. Turning its cameras inward toward the sun, it captured the only portrait of our solar system. Including the famous "Pale Blue Dot".
@ESHub

Google's New AI Has Learned to Become "Highly Aggressive" in Stressful Situations

Late last year, famed physicist Stephen Hawking issued a warning that the continued advancement of artificial intelligence will either be "the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity".

We've all seen the Terminator movies, and the apocalyptic nightmare that the self-aware AI system, Skynet, wrought upon humanity, and now results from recent behaviour tests of Google's new DeepMind AI system are making it clear just how careful we need to be when building the robots of the future.

In tests late last year, Google's DeepMind AI system demonstrated an ability to learn independently from its own memory, and beat the world's best Go playersat their own game.

It's since been figuring out how to seamlessly mimic a human voice.

Now, researchers have been testing its willingness to cooperate with others, and have revealed that when DeepMind feels like it's about to lose, it opts for "highly aggressive" strategies to ensure that it comes out on top.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

Monkeys master a key sign of self-awareness: recognizing their reflections

Strange as it might seem, not all animals can immediately recognize themselves in a mirror. Great apes, dolphins, Asian elephants, and Eurasian magpies can do this—as can human kids around age 2. Now, some scientists are welcoming another creature to this exclusive club: carefully trained rhesus monkeys. The findings suggest that with time and teaching, other animals can learn how mirrors work, and thus learn to recognize themselves—a key test of cognition.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

MindField (Ep5)
@ESHUB

NASA Plans to Send This Robot Lander to Look for Alien Life on Europa

Is there life on Europa – that scarred, icy moon orbiting Jupiter? NASA is determined to find out, with the space agency having just revealed plans to drill into the moon's crust in search of extraterrestrials.

A new report details plans for a lander that could drill roughly 10 cm (4 inches) deep into the moon's surface, and analyse samples using on-board instruments to give researchers vital information on what Europa's made up of, and whether life could flourish there.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

Earth Has a New Continent Called
'Zealandia', Study Reveals

Kids are frequently taught that seven continents exist: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.

Geologists, who look at the rocks (and tend to ignore the humans), group Europe and Asia into its own supercontinent - Eurasia - making for a total of six geologic continents.

But according to a new study of Earth's crust, there's a seventh geologic continent called 'Zealandia', and it has been hiding under our figurative noses for millennia.

Article
@EverythingScience
@ESHub

It's Time: Scientists Are Getting Really Close to a Malaria Vaccine

A new malaria vaccine candidate has proven up to 100 percent effective in clinical trials.

The potential vaccine introduces live malaria parasites into patients, paired with the medication needed to combat them. It was given to 67 healthy humans, and the nine participants given the highest dose were 100 percent protected against the disease for at least 10 weeks after vaccination.

Article
@EverythingScience

Mars Rover Curiosity's Drill Malfunction Puts Organics Hunt at Risk

Scientists hoping for a more detailed look at organic material on Mars — possibly including molecules relevant to life — are patiently awaiting an act of engineering genius from NASA.

Since December, the team in charge of NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has been working to resolve a problem with the robot's drill, an essential tool for obtaining powered samples from inside Martian bedrock for chemical analysis.

Such sample analysis already has shown that Mars once had ingredients and habitats suitable for microbial life. Curiosity also has found chlorinated organics, though their origins remain unknown.

Article
@EverythingScience

For full 'New Scientist' magazines visit @newscientist
Now partnered with @ESHub