Gorkhali samachar

The past few decades have ushered in an amazing era in the science of cosmology. A diverse array of high-precision measurements has allowed us to reconstruct our universe’s history in remarkable detail. And when we compare different measurements – of the expansion rate of the universe, the patterns of light released in the formation of the first atoms, the distributions in space of galaxies and galaxy clusters and the abundances of various chemical species – we find that they all tell the same story, and all support the same series of events. This line of research has, frankly, been more successful than I think we had any right to have hoped. We know more about the origin and history of our universe today than almost anyone a few decades ago would have guessed that we would learn in such a short time. But despite these very considerable successes, there remains much more to be learned. And in some ways, the discoveries made in recent decades have raised as many new questions as they

He is known as one of the great minds in 20th-century science. But this week, Albert Einstein is making headlines for his advice on how to live a happy life — and a tip that paid off. In November 1922, Einstein was traveling from Europe to Japan for a lecture series for which he was paid 2,000 pounds by his Japanese publisher and hosts, according to Walter Isaacson’s biography, “Einstein: His Life and Universe.” During the journey, the 43-year-old learned he’d been awarded his field’s highest prize: the Nobel Prize in physics. The award recognized his contributions to theoretical physics. News of Einstein’s arrival spread quickly through Japan, and thousands of people flocked to catch a glimpse of the Nobel laureate. Impressed but also embarrassed by the publicity, Einstein tried to write down his thoughts and feelings from his secluded room at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. That’s when the messenger arrived with a delivery. He either “refused to accept a tip, in line with local pract

NASA Cassini spacecraft performed its final, fateful dive into Saturn several weeks ago, destroying itself in the planet's atmosphere and ending an incredible mission that spanned nearly two full decades. Today, even though its mechanical body has been vaporized, the information it sent back during its time in orbit continues to surprise scientists. The most recent example of this is a newly-discovered quirk with Saturn's atmosphere which researchers are struggling to explain. During Cassini's daring trips between Saturn and its iconic rings, the spacecraft's powerful mass spectrometer picked up a puzzling mix of chemicals that made NASA's scientists scratch their heads. The most likely explanation? Saturn's gorgeous rings are shedding. Cassini's discovery wasn't just blind luck; NASA's earlier missions, dating back to the 1970s, provided data that suggested Saturn's upper atmosphere was littered with bits of ice, and scientists believed it w

People who have obsessive-compulsive disorder can get trapped inside a thought. It repeats itself, like a stuck song. Did I lock the door? Is that doorknob is clean enough to touch? I better wash my hands again – and again. The biology underpinning this loop remains murky to scientists, but scientists are beginning to sniff out potential genetic factors behind OCD and shed light on how the disorder affects the brain. Research published Tuesday in Nature Communications identifies four genes with the strongest links to OCD to date. "There had been a few studies that looked for genes associated with OCD, and they found some interesting ones, but they were never able to achieve statistical significance," says Elinor Karlsson, a senior author on the study and a geneticist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University. To identify the genes, Karlsson and her collaborators searched three sets of DNA. Two came from dogs and mice that had compulsive tendencies. "Dogs, i

When NASA scientists want to follow the path of the Curiosity rover on Mars, they can don a mixed-reality headset and virtually explore the Martian landscape. Starting today, everyone can get a taste of what that feels like. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, collaborated with Google to produce Access Mars, a free immersive experience. It's available for use on all desktop and mobile devices and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR) headsets. That includes mobile-based virtual reality devices on Apple and Android. The experience was adapted from JPL's OnSight software, which assists scientists in planning rover drives and even holding meetings on Mars. Imagery from NASA's Curiosity rover provided the terrain, allowing users to wander the actual dunes and valleys explored by the spacecraft. Since being rolled out to JPL's scientists in 2015, OnSight has made studying Martian geology as intuitive as turning your head and walking around. A

A year after a computer beat a human world champion in the ancient strategy game of Go, researchers say they have now constructed an even stronger version of the program — one that can teach itself without the benefit of human knowledge. The program, known as AlphaGo Zero, became a Go master in just three days by playing 4.9 million games against itself in quick succession. "In a short space of time, AlphaGo Zero has understood all of the Go knowledge that has been accumulated by humans over thousands of years of playing," lead researcher David Silver of Google's DeepMind lab said in remarks on YouTube. "Sometimes it's actually chosen to go beyond that and discovered something that the humans hadn't even discovered in this time period." The work, published today in the journal Nature, could provide a foundation for machines teaching themselves to solve other complex problems in ways that could be applied to health, for example, or the environment. But

gorkhali samachar: Swayambhu: The eyes that keep watch over Kathmandu... : Legend has it that Swayambhu emerged out of a lotus flower that bloomed in the middle of the ancient lake that covered the Kathmandu Valley ...

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photograph of Lagoa dos Barros and crescent-shaped barchan dunes on the Atlantic coastline of southern Brazil. Lagoa dos Barros is approximately 4.5 kilometers (2.8 mile) long. The lagoons along the Brazilian coast formed around 400,000 years ago as part of the cyclic rise and fall of sea level—known to geologists as the transgression-regression cycle. The formation of Lagos dos Barros is similar to what occurred alongside Lagoa Mirim, 340 kilometers to the south-southwest. Strong winds blowing in from the Western Atlantic sculpt the sand along the coast into distinctive crescent shapes. Multiple dunes have overlapped and coalesced to form dune fields, with prominent examples visible to the northeast and southwest of the lake. The tips of barchan dunes point downwind, indicating the prevailing wind direction. These fragile formations act as barriers keeping the wind and waves from penetrating inland, blunting the effect

A material with random irregularities scatters an incident light wave into all directions.  (TU Wien) Once thought of as the province of only "Star Trek" or "Harry Potter," cloaking technologies could become a reality with a specially designed material that can mask itself from other forms of light when it is hit with a "beam of invisibility," according to a new study. Theoretically, most "invisibility cloaks" would work by smoothly guiding light waves around objects so the waves ripple along their original trajectories as if nothing were there to obstruct them. Previous work found that cloaking devices that redirect other kinds of waves, such as sound waves, are possible as well. But the new study's researchers, from at the Technical University of Vienna, have developed a different strategy to render an object invisible — using a beam of invisibility. [Now You See It: 6 Tales of Invisibility in Pop Culture] Complex materials such as sugar cu

As NASA looks to explore deeper into our solar system, one of the key areas of interest is studying worlds that can help researchers better understand our solar system and the universe around us. One of the next destinations in this knowledge-gathering campaign is a rare world called Psyche, located in the asteroid belt. Psyche is different from millions of other asteroids because it appears to have an exposed nickel-iron surface. Researchers at Arizona State University, Tempe, in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, believe the asteroid could actually be the leftover core of an early planet. And, since we can't directly explore any planet's core, including our own, Psyche offers a rare look into the violent history of our solar system. "Psyche is a unique body because it is, by far, the largest metal asteroid out there; it's about the size of Massachusetts," said David Oh, the mission's lead project systems engine

Scientists taking a new look at older data from NASA's longest-operating Mars orbiter have discovered evidence of significant hydration near the Martian equator -- a mysterious signature in a region of the Red Planet where planetary scientists figure ice shouldn't exist. Jack Wilson, a post-doctoral researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, led a team that reprocessed data collected from 2002 to 2009 by the neutron spectrometer instrument on NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. In bringing the lower-resolution compositional data into sharper focus, the scientists spotted unexpectedly high amounts of hydrogen -- which at high latitudes is a sign of buried water ice -- around sections of the Martian equator. An accessible supply of water ice near the equator would be of interest in planning astronaut exploration of Mars. The amount of delivered mass needed for human exploration could be greatly reduced by using Martian natural res

This view of a portion of the Eridania region of Mars shows blocks of deep-basin deposits that have been surrounded and partially buried by younger volcanic deposits. The image was taken by the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and covers an area about 12 miles wide. (Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS) A recent discovery made by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows the evidence of ancient sea-floor hydrothermal deposits that may offer clues about life on the Red Planet and Earth as well. The authors of the study, Paul Niles and Joseph Michalski, believe there were volcanoes on the planet long ago that led to water being heated and may provide clues on how life began. "Even if we never find evidence that there's been life on Mars, this site can tell us about the type of environment where life may have begun on Earth," said Niles, who works at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, in a statement. "Volcanic activity combined wit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rocky outcrops in eastern Canada contain what may be some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth, dating back about 3.95 billion years. Scientists said on Wednesday they found indirect evidence of life in the form of bits of graphite contained in sedimentary rocks from northern Labrador that they believe are remnants of primordial marine microorganisms. The researchers carried out a geological analysis of the Labrador rocks and measured concentrations and isotope compositions of the graphite, and concluded that it was produced by a living organism. They did not find fossils of the microorganisms that may have left behind the graphite, a form of carbon, but said they may have been bacteria. "The organisms inhabited an open ocean," said University of Tokyo geologist Tsuyoshi Komiya, who led the study published in the journal Science. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago and the oceans appeared roughly 4.4 billion years ago. The new study and some

After Hurricane Maria tore across Puerto Rico, it quickly became clear that the destruction would pose daunting challenges for first responders. Most of the electric power grid and telecommunications network was knocked offline. Flooding, downed trees, and toppled power lines made many roads impassable. In circumstances like this, quickly knowing where the power is out—and how long it has been out—allows first responders to better deploy rescue and repair crews and to distribute life-saving supplies. And that is exactly why teams of scientists at NASA are working long days to make sure that groups like the National Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) get high-quality satellite maps of power outages in Puerto Rico. These before-and-after images of Puerto Rico’s nighttime lights are based on data captured by the Suomi NPP satellite. The data was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) “day-night band,” which detects light in a range of w

An astronaut took this photograph of the Aurora Australis in August 2017. At the time, the International Space Station was moving over the southern Indian Ocean towards the Great Australian Bight and Melbourne, Australia. Click here to see a video of the flight over the aurora. Auroras are created in the upper atmosphere when the solar wind (a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun) interacts with the Earth’s protective magnetic field. Charged particles within the magnetosphere are accelerated down field lines toward the ionosphere, where they collide with different gases (particularly oxygen and nitrogen) and emit light as a reaction. Auroras often appear as neon green, purple, yellow, or red, depending on the gas molecules being excited. Green, for example, indicates collisions with oxygen. Astronaut photograph ISS052-E-63378 was acquired on August 19, 2017, with a Nikon D4 digital camera using a 22 millimeter lens, and is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facil

A fragment of a Bronze-Age elm wood bow found during an excavation in the Lötschberg Pass.  (Kathrin Glauser/Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern) Pieces of a 4,000-year-old bow, arrows and a wooden food container that belonged to a Bronze Age mountaineer have been found in a high alpine pass in Switzerland. The artifacts are among several items found in what appears to have been a rock shelter beside a glacier near the top of the nearly 8,800-foot (2,700 meters) Lötschberg Pass, or Lötschenpass, in the Bernese Alps. The bow and arrows, food box and other items are thought to have belonged to Bronze Age hunters or animal herders who took shelter beneath a large rock near the top of the pass around 4,000 years ago, said Regula Gubler, an archaeologist for the Canton of Bern government, which announced the finds this week. [See More Photos of the Bronze-Age Artifacts Found in Switzerland] The site was discovered in 2011 by Beat Dietrich, the warden of a nearby mountain hut, w

In my work and my world, I am dealing routinely with whiplash-inducing headlines about health, and nutrition in particular (“no, wait, fruits and vegetables are bad for us this week!”) that raise questions about science, sense, and knowledge. When whatever we think we know, however reliably we think we know it, is called into question so routinely, it begs the question: how do we know? My question is not how do we know any given thing, but rather - how do we know anything, ever, at all? The surprising answer is, we do not. Not unless we decide to trust our nervous systems and the perceptions they engender, for which there is a compelling case. We do not, truly, know anything because all we can do is perceive. Were we in a virtual reality, like the one portrayed in the science fiction classic, The Matrix, we would likely be unable to know it, or prove it. We cannot disprove it now, either, since all of our perceptions of all of our disproofs would take place in the same virtual realit

We see them — but can they see us? Robert Wells, a doctoral student in mathematics and physics at Queens University in Ireland, couldn’t get that question out of his mind. In recent years, astronomers have discovered more than 2,500 planets orbiting other stars by observing the subtle dimming of light as these exoplanets pass in front of their host stars. Wells wondered if alien scientists on some distant world might be doing exactly same thing but in the opposite direction: pointing a telescope our way and noting the flickering of starlight caused by our very own Earth as it “transits” the sun. Wells sifted through astronomical catalogs and identified nine known exoplanets in one of the celestial sweet spots from which an Earth transit would be visible. Alas, it seems unlikely that any of these worlds could be home to alien skywatchers looking our way. Most are Jupiter-sized gas-ball worlds so hot that they’re unlikely to harbor life. But it turns out there’s more to the story. Al

In 1915, Albert Einstein concluded his General Theory of Relativity, a theory that would revise our understanding of gravity in radical ways. Before Einstein, the dominant description of gravitational phenomena was based on Isaac Newton's theory, proposed in 1687. According to Newton, every two objects with mass attract one another with a force proportional to their masses and inversely proportional to the square of their distance: double the distance, the attraction falls by a factor of four. Newton knew that his theory had a fundamental flaw, a mysterious "action at a distance." Somehow, and he wouldn't speculate how, the force of gravity propagated instantaneously across space like a sort of omnipresent ghost. Despite this, the theory was so successful at describing so many phenomena that Newton rested his case: "I feign no hypotheses," he famously wrote. Einstein would have none of that. In 1905, in his Special Theory of Relativity, he established tha

Elon Musk has unveiled his ambitious plans to build both a lunar base and a city on Mars. And he plans to start in just five years. Using his SpaceX company’s upcoming BFR rocket, Musk hopes to send two unmanned cargo ships to the Red Planet in 2022 and human passengers just two years later. “That’s not a typo,” Musk said on Friday during his presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Australia. “Although it is aspirational.” If that timeframe isn’t met, he said, it will be “soon thereafter.” What will begin as a small settlement on Mars is expected to grow into a city: Supporting the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars. https://t.co/kCtBLPbSg8pic.twitter.com/ra6hKsrOcG — SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 29, 2017 Over time, Mars will be terraformed, Musk said, “making it really a nice place to be.” The CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla also said the BFR would refuel in space for trips to the moon, meaning a lunar base would not need to keep a s