Steven Benton
While the Hubble Space Telescope has provided us with a wealth of data, getting it into orbit and servicing it have proven to be very expensive. The SuperBIT telescope is an intriguing alternative, as it hangs beneath a balloon instead of being launched by a fuel-hungry rocket.
Its name an acronym for Superpressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope, SuperBIT is being developed via a collaboration between the University of Toronto, Princeton University, Britain s Durham University, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency. With a budget of US$5 million for its construction and operation, it is claimed to cost about one one-thousandth as much as a similarly equipped satellite.
A low-cost balloon-borne telescope promises Hubble-like images inceptivemind.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from inceptivemind.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Steve Lindsay
There are already places where homes are built on stilts, to avoid seasonal floods. A new study, however, suggests that doing so may also significantly reduce the risk of being bitten by malaria-carrying mosquitos.
According to Britain s Durham University, approximately 80 percent of malaria-causing mosquito bites within Africa occur indoors at night. Additionally, although mosquitos are known to fly up to about 8 meters (25 ft) above the ground, they typically stay much lower. With these facts in mind, scientists from the university collaborated with colleagues from the Royal Danish Academy to build four experimental huts in The Gambia.
Over the course of 40 days, two men slept in each hut every night, under separate mosquito nets. Additionally, each week one hut remained on the soil, while the other three were raised so that their floors were respectively 1, 2 and 3 meters (3.3, 6.6 and 9.9 ft) above the ground. Different huts were set at different levels every wee
LONDON: Ice sheet melting at the end of the last ice age may have caused sea levels to rise at 10 times the current rate, a study published on Thursday by a team led by scientists from Britain’s Durham University said.
Based on geological records, the researchers estimate that oceans worldwide rose 3.6 metres per century over a 500-year period some 14,600 years ago.
The findings raise a red flag about the potential today for rapid sea level rise that could swamp coastal cities and densely populated deltas around the world.
The team found that the approximately 18-metre sea level rising event may have originated primarily from melting ice sheets in the northern hemisphere and not Antarctica as previously thought.
Past ice melts may have caused seas to rise 10 times faster than today — study jamaicaobserver.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from jamaicaobserver.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.