Ancient Water Streambed Discovered On Mars

A NASA rover's discovery of an ancient streambed on Mars is exciting, but it’s far from the first solid evidence that the Red Planet was once a warmer and wetter place. On Thursday (Sept. 27), scientists announced that the Curiosity rover had found rocky outcrops containing large and rounded stones cemented in a conglomerate matrix. The discovery suggests that water had flowed fast and relatively deep — perhaps hip-deep, in fact — through the area billions of years ago.

But Curiosity's find didn't exactly surprise mission scientists. They chose to set the $2.5 billion robot down in the Red Planet's huge Gale Crater, after all, because Mars-orbiting spacecraft have spotted signs there of long-ago water activity — from channels and alluvial fans to minerals that form in the presence of liquid water.And these more recent observations build on evidence for a wet ancient Mars that goes back four decades and has been accumulating ever since. 

Curiosity's mission may also shed light on when and why Mars dried out long ago. Scientists plan to drive the 1-ton robot partway up Mount Sharp, which rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Red Planet sky from Gale's center. They're keen to explore Mount Sharp's base, which harbors clays and sulfates, orbital observations have shown. About 2,300 feet (700 meters) up, however, these deposits peter out. If Curiosity climbs high enough to cross this threshold, it could help scientists piece together a history of wet Mars, dry Mars and the transition between the two, researchers have said. Space.com

8 Ingredients You Never Want to See on Your Nutrition Label

BHA

This preservative is used to prevent rancidity in foods that contain oils. Unfortunately, BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) has been shown to cause cancer in rats, mice, and hamsters. The reason the FDA hasn’t banned it is largely technical—the cancers all occurred in the rodents’ forestomachs, an organ that humans don’t have. Nevertheless, the study, published in the Japanese Journal of Cancer Research, concluded that BHA was “reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen,” and as far as I’m concerned, that’s reason enough to eliminate it from your diet. You’ll find it in: Fruity Pebbles, Cocoa Pebbles

Parabens

 These synthetic preservatives are used to inhibit mold and yeast in food. The problem is parabens may also disrupt your body’s hormonal balance. A study in Food Chemical Toxicology found that daily ingestion decreased sperm and testosterone production in rats, and parabens have been found present in breast cancer tissues.
You’ll find it in: Baskin-Robbins sundaes

Partially Hydrogenated Oil

 I’ve harped on this before, but it bears repeating: Don’t confuse “0 g trans fat” with being trans fat-free. The FDA allows products to claim zero grams of trans fat as long as they have less than half a gram per serving. That means they can have 0.49 grams per serving and still be labeled a no-trans-fat food. Considering that two grams is the absolute most you ought to consume in a day, those fractions can quickly add up. The telltale sign that your snack is soiled with the stuff? Look for partially hydrogenated oil on the ingredient statement. If it’s anywhere on there, then you’re ingesting artery-clogging trans fat. You’ll find it in: Long John Silver’s Popcorn Shrimp, Celeste frozen pizzas

Sodium Nitrite

 Nitrites and nitrates are used to inhibit botulism-causing bacteria and to maintain processed meats’ pink hues, which is why the FDA allows their use. Unfortunately, once ingested, nitrite can fuse with amino acids (of which meat is a prime source) to form nitrosamines, powerful carcinogenic compounds. Ascorbic and erythorbic acids—essentially vitamin C—have been shown to decrease the risk, and most manufacturers now add one or both to their products, which has helped. Still, the best way to reduce risk is to limit your intake. You’ll find it in: Oscar Mayer hot dogs, Hormel bacon

Caramel Coloring

This additive wouldn't be dangerous if you made it the old-fashioned way—with water and sugar, on top of a stove. But the food industry follows a different recipe: They treat sugar with ammonia, which can produce some nasty carcinogens. How carcinogenic are these compounds? A Center for Science in the Public Interest report asserted that the high levels of caramel color found in soda account for roughly 15,000 cancers in the U.S. annually. Another good reason to scrap soft drinks? They’re among The 20 Worst Drinks in America.
You’ll find it in: Coke/Diet Coke, Pepsi/Diet Pepsi

Castoreum

 Castoreum is one of the many nebulous “natural ingredients” used to flavor food. Though it isn’t harmful, it is unsettling. Castoreum is a substance made from beavers’ castor sacs, or anal scent glands. These glands produce potent secretions that help the animals mark their territory in the wild. In the food industry, however, 1,000 pounds of the unsavory ingredient are used annually to imbue foods—usually vanilla or raspberry flavored—with a distinctive, musky flavor.  You’ll find it in: Potentially any food containing “natural ingredients”

Food Dyes

Plenty of fruit-flavored candies and sugary cereals don’t contain a single gram of produce, but instead rely on artificial dyes and flavorings to suggest a relationship with nature. Not only do these dyes allow manufacturers to mask the drab colors of heavily processed foods, but certain hues have been linked to more serious ailments. A Journal of Pediatrics study linked Yellow 5 to hyperactivity in children, Canadian researchers found Yellow 6 and Red 40 to be contaminated with known carcinogens, and Red 3 is known to cause tumors. The bottom line? Avoid artificial dyes as much as possible. You’ll find it in: Lucky Charms, Skittles, Jell-O

THE DOMINO EFFECT: Sugar doesn’t just come in the form of cookies and candy. Discover the insidious ways it can creep into your diet with 9 Sneaky Sources of Sugar.

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein

 Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, used as a flavor enhancer, is plant protein that has been chemically broken down into amino acids. One of these acids, glutamic acid, can release free glutamate. When this glutamate joins with free sodium in your body, they form monosodium glutamate (MSG), an additive known to cause adverse reactions—headaches, nausea, and weakness, among others—in sensitive individuals. When MSG is added to products directly, the FDA requires manufacturers to disclose its inclusion on the ingredient statement. But when it occurs as a byproduct of hydrolyzed protein, the FDA allows it to go unrecognized. You’ll find it in: Knorr Noodle Sides, Funyuns

FIGHT FAT EVERY DAY: Knowledge is your best defense in the battle against flab.

Parts of Mars Interior as Wet as Earth's

The interior of Mars holds vast reservoirs of water, with some spots apparently as wet as Earth's innards, scientists say. The finding upends previous studies, which had estimated that the Red Planet's internal water stores were scanty at best — something of a surprise, given that liquid water apparently flowed on the Martian surface long ago. The scientists examined two Martian meteorites that formed in the planet's mantle, the layer under the crust. These rocks landed on Earth about 2.5 million years ago, after being blasted off the Red Planet by a violent impact. Using a technique called secondary ion mass spectrometry, the team determined that the mantle from which the meteorites derived contained between 70 and 300 parts per million (ppm) of water. Earth's mantle, for comparison, holds roughly 50-300 ppm water, researchers said.

"The results suggest that water was incorporated during the formation of Mars and that the planet was able to store water in its interior during the planet’s differentiation."  Some of this water apparently made its made to the surface in the ancient past. NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004, have found plenty of evidence that Mars was far warmer and wetter billions of years ago than it is today. The two golf-cart-size robots have even spotted signs of ancient hydrothermal systems, suggesting that some places on the Red Planet once had both water and an energy source — two key ingredients for the existence of life as we know it.

While the new results should help scientists better understand Mars and its history, they could also shed light on the evolution of large, rocky bodies in a more general sense, researchers said.

"Not only does this study explain how Mars got its water, it provides a mechanism for hydrogen storage in all the terrestrial planets at the time of their formation," lead author Francis McCubbin, of the University of New Mexico, said in a statement. Space.com / MadOne

DNA Inside Cells Can Serve As Rewritable Data Storage

DNA is the blueprint for life, and now it can serve as a computer to monitor life’s processes. Bioengineers transformed DNA into a one-bit memory system that can record, store and erase data within living cells. A future DNA memory device could be used to track cell division and differentiation in cancer patients, perhaps, or to monitor what happens as cells get sick or age. We’ve seen plenty of body-monitoring computer systems, from chips that can swim through the bloodstream to nanowires that can tap the heart or other muscle. But so far, these systems are limited to a few processes. This system could work like rewritable memory in your computer, recording and erasing information again and again. 


The system flips DNA sequences back and forth between two states, basically the genetic equivalent of a binary switch. One DNA orientation equates to “one,” and the other equates to “zero.” The process uses an enzyme taken from bacteriophages to cut and recombine the DNA. The recombinase enzyme moves to a particular swath of DNA and flips it around so its base pairs basically read backward, and a second signal flips it back.

Stanford researchers Jerome Bonnet and Drew Endy call it a “recombinase addressable data” module, or RAD. The team worked for three years to find the right balance of proteins that would reliably flip the DNA sequences back and forth without degrading. To test whether it worked, the team modified E. coli bacteria to fluoresce in different colors depending on the state of the DNA bit. In lab tests so far, it’s been able to monitor the activity of E. coli as they double more than 100 times. The team’s goal is to produce a byte, combining 8 of these RAD bits to build a larger memory system. Popsci

Saturn's Two Largest Moons Line Up

 
Saturn's two biggest moons hang together in a stunning new photo from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. The image shows the heavily cratered Rhea in the foreground, while the hazy orb of the huge moon Titan looms in the distance. Cassini snapped the shot in visible green light on Dec. 10, 2011, and it was released to the public on Monday (Feb. 13). Cassini was about 808,000 miles (1.3 million kilometers) from Rhea and 1.2 million miles (2 million km) from Titan when it took the picture, researchers said. Titan is the largest of Saturn's many satellites; at 3,200 miles (5,150 km) wide, it's nearly 1.5 times bigger than Earth's moon. The only moon in our solar system larger than Titan is Ganymede, which orbits Jupiter. 

 
Titan has a thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere that shrouds the frigid body in a soupy brown shroud. Complex organic molecules — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it — swirl about in this atmosphere. The huge moon also has a hydrocarbon-based weather system, with methane rain falling from the sky and pooling in liquid-methane lakes. Astrobiologists speculate that Titan may be one of the best places in the solar system to search for life beyond Earth.

Rhea is Saturn's second-largest moon, but it's a shrimp compared to Titan, measuring just 949 miles (1528 km) across. As the new photo shows, Rhea's icy surface is battered and pocked with many craters. Like Titan, Rhea has an atmosphere. But Rhea's is very different; it's much wispier and composed primarily of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Researchers think the oxygen comes from Rhea's surface ice, liberated from water molecules that get blasted apart by charged particles streaming from Saturn's magnetosphere. The source of the carbon dioxide, however, is more mysterious. Space.com

McDonald’s no longer using ‘pink slime’ chemical in hamburgers

McDonald's announced last week that, as of last August, is has stopped using ammonium hydroxide in the production of its hamburgers. MSNBC reports that the chemical, used in fertilizers, household cleaners and even homemade explosives, was also used to prepare McDonalds' hamburger meat. And while the announcement is making headlines, you may (or may not) want to know about some other unusual chemicals being used in the production of some of our most-popular foods: The International Business Times lists some other questionable chemicals showing up in our foods:

Propylene glycol: This chemical is very similar to ethylene glycol, a dangerous anti-freeze. This less-toxic cousin  prevents products from becoming too solid. Some ice creams have this  ingredient; otherwise you'd be eating ice.

Carmine: Commonly found in red food coloring, this chemical comes from crushed cochineal, small red beetles that burrow into cacti. Husks of the beetle are ground up and forms the basis for red coloring found in foods ranging from cranberry juice to M&Ms.

Shellac: Yes, this chemical used to finish wood products also gives some candies their sheen. It comes from the female Lac beetle.

L-cycsteine: This common dough enhancer comes from hair, feathers, hooves and bristles.

Lanolin (gum base): Next time you chew on gum, remember this. The goopiness of gum comes from lanolin, oils from sheep's wool that is also used  for vitamin D3 supplements.

Silicon dioxide: Nothing weird about eating sand, right? This anti-caking agent is found in many foods including shredded cheese and fast food chili.

The food industry uses ammonium hydroxide as an anti-microbial agent in meats, which allows McDonald's to use otherwise "inedible meat."

On his show, Jamie Oliver said of the meat treatment: "Basically we're taking a product that would be sold in the cheapest form for dogs and making it 'fit' for humans." Even more disturbing, St. Louis-based dietician Sarah Prochaska told NBC affiliate KSDK that because ammonium hydroxide is considered part of the "component in a production procedure" by the USDA, consumers may not know when the chemical is in their food. MadOne

NASA Telescope Confirms Alien Planet in Habitable Zone

This artist's conception illustrates Kepler-22b, a planet known to comfortably circle in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.
CREDIT: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — NASA's planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft has confirmed the discovery of its first alien world in its host star's habitable zone — that just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist — and found more than 1,000 new explanet candidates, researchers announced today (Dec. 5). The new finds bring the Kepler space telescope's total haul to 2,326 potential planets in its first 16 months of operation.These discoveries, if confirmed, would quadruple the current tally of worlds known to exist beyond our solar system, which recently topped 700. The potentially habitable alien world, a first for Kepler, orbits a star very much like our own sun. The discovery brings scientists one step closer to finding a planet like our own — one which could conceivably harbor life, scientists said. 

The newfound planet in the habitable zone is called Kepler-22b. It is located about 600 light-years away, orbiting a sun-like star. Kepler-22b's radius is 2.4 times that of Earth, and the two planets have roughly similar temperatures. If the greenhouse effect operates there similarly to how it does on Earth, the average surface temperature on Kepler-22b would be 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius).

This diagram compares our own solar system to Kepler-22, a star system containing the first "habitable zone" planet discovered by NASA's Kepler mission.
CREDIT: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech

Of the total 2,326 candidate planets that Kepler has found to date, 207 are approximately Earth-size. More of them, 680, are a bit larger than our planet, falling into the "super-Earth" category. The total number of candidate planets in the habitable zones of their stars is now 48. To date, just over two dozen of these potential exoplanets have been confirmed, but Kepler scientists have estimated that at least 80 percent of the instrument's discoveries should end up being the real deal. Space.com

New Finding Ups the Chances of Life on Jupiter's Moon Europa

Europa, as viewed from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. Visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to the horizon, and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt.

 
Europa, Jupiter's icy moon, meets not one but two of the critical requirements for life, scientists say. For decades, experts have known about the moon's vast underground ocean — a possible home for living organisms — and now a study shows that the ocean regularly receives influxes of the energy required for life via chaotic processes near the moon's surface. Lead author Britney Schmidt, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin, explained that her team studied ice shelves and underground volcanoes on Earth in order to model the formation of odd features called "chaos terrains" that appear all over Europa. The researchers determined that it was heat rising from the moon's deep subterranean ocean and melting ice near the surface, creating briny lakes inside the moon's thick ice shell, that may have caused the collapse of these roughly circular structures above them. These dynamic lakes, which melt and refreeze over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years, lie beneath as much as 50 percent of Europa's surface, the scientists said. 

Europa's liquid water ocean "meets one of the critical requirements for life," Hoehler said, noting that its ocean chemistry is believed to be suitable for sustaining living things. "And what you're hearing about today from Britney bears on a second crucial requirement, and that is the requirement for energy." Cut off from the sun, Europa's subterranean ocean would need some other energy source to sustain life. Hoehler said spacecraft observations show that there is a huge amount of stored energy in Europa's mineral-rich crust, but it is separated from the liquid ocean below by at least 6 miles (10 km) of ice. Like the two terminals of a battery, energy can flow from the surface material to the ocean only if the two are somehow connected, he said. Europan life isn't a done deal just yet, though. Water and energy aren't the only ingredients on the checklist for life, and scientists aren't sure whether Europa has the others, such as the necessary organic chemicals. SPACE.COM

Newly found 'super-Earth' could potentially support life

 

More than 50 new alien planets — including one so-called super-Earth that could potentially support life — have been discovered by an exoplanet-hunting telescope from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The newfound haul of alien planets includes 16 super-Earths, which are potentially rocky worlds that are more massive than our planet. One in particular - called HD 85512 b - has captured astronomers' attention because it orbits at the edge of its star's habitable zone, suggesting conditions could be ripe to support life. 

The potentially habitable super-Earth, officially called HD 85512 b, is estimated to be only 3.6 times more massive than Earth, and its parent star is located about 35 light-years away, making it relatively nearby. HD 85512 b was found to orbit at the edge of its star's habitable zone, which is a narrow region in which the distance is just right that liquid water could exist given the right conditions. Astronomers have previously discovered 564 confirmed alien planets, with roughly 1,200 additional candidate worlds under investigation based on data from the Kepler space observatory, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Space.com

 

Potential Liquid Water On Mars 'A Big Deal

Picture of Martian Surface from NASA's Spirit Rover

 

Claims of water on Mars have been made before, but a new discovery of potential liquid water on the Red Planet's surface last week is still making waves in the science world. What differentiates the new find from previous discoveries is the fact that it's the strongest evidence yet for liquid water, as opposed to ice, and it's on the Martian surface, as opposed to miles underground where it would be difficult to verify its presence. The research is based on observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which observed seasonal changes in slopes carved into the planet's surface that appear most likely to have been formed by flowing salty, briny water. Scientists not involved with the project agree that the discovery could be big.

Not only does the new discovery rekindle hopes that Mars hosts life, but it offers the chance that finding it might not be as difficult as once thought. Until now, many searches for life have also focused on the Red Planet's potential for past habitability on the surface, when Mars was thought to be a much wetter world. "Identification of environments where life might be able to survive on present-day Mars could shift our focus from past to present-day habitability," Carr said. "The subsurface might be one good place to look, but areas with potential liquid brines at the surface are much more accessible." 

But before we start counting our Martians before they hatch, all the scientists advised caution until more data is available to prove that the slopes are actually caused by water. Space.com

Scientists Find Way To Genetically Alter DNA

What if scientists could genetically alter cells to produce substances not found in nature? No, this isn’t the plot of that sci-fi flick you watched last night; it’s a remarkable scientific achievement by a group of researchers from Harvard and MIT. The new technology allows scientists to engineer large-scale changes within the genetic code of a living cell by replacing specific DNA sequences. "We're essentially programming the cell to do our bidding," said Harris Wang, one of the lead researchers on the project. "[This technology] enables us to manipulate the genome as if it’s a scaffold, and build upon it." 

The innovation, Carr said, "opens up the opportunity to program new things into the genetic code," allowing scientists to create "new building blocks for the machines of life." One possible application would be to alter the genes of certain crops — such as potatoes, for instance — to make them invulnerable to viruses. Technews Daily

NASA's Next Mars Rover to Land at Huge Gale Crater

 

WASHINGTON — It's official: NASA's next Mars rover has a landing site, and it's a giant crater called Gale. NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is slated to launch in late November, and will drop a car-size rover named Curiosity at the Gale crater. Gale crater is about 96 miles (154 kilometers) wide and has a mountain at its center that rises higher, from the crater floor up, than Mount Rainer near Seattle. The crater, which is named after Australian astronomer Walter F. Gale, is so large that the U.S. states of Connecticut and Rhode Island could fit inside it, NASA officials said. 

Gale crater is also thought to harbor clues of ancient water activity on the Martian surface, and one of Curiosity's primary tasks will be to root around for evidence that Mars is, or was, capable of supporting microbial life. 

The agency revealed the landing site (July 22) in a briefing hosted by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The announcement coincides with the museum's celebration of Mars Day, which commemorates the 35th anniversary of NASA's Viking 1 Mars landing on July 20, 1976. Space.com

Extreme Weather On the Horizon

Epic floods, massive wildfires, drought and the deadliest tornado season in 60 years are ravaging the United States, with scientists warning that climate change will bring even more extreme weather. The human and economic toll over just the past few months has been staggering: hundreds of people have died, and thousands of homes and millions of acres have been lost at a cost estimated at more than $20 billion. And the United States has not even entered peak hurricane season. 

Climate change could bring less tornadoes, because while a warmer atmosphere will absorb more precipitation, causing more storms, it could also reduce the wind shear that builds storm intensity when cold and warm fronts collide. However, the intensity of future droughts, heat waves, storms and floods is expected to rise drastically if greenhouse gas emissions don't stabilize soon, said Michael Mann, a scientist at Penn State University. "Even a couple degree warming can make a 100-year event a three-year event," Mann, the head of the university's earth systems science center, told AFP.

More extreme weather is expected in the coming months, said Jon Gottschalck, head of forecast operations at NOAA's climate prediction center. 
Mira Oberman | AFP

Genetically Engineered Cell Shoots Out First-Ever Biological Laser

Some cells fight disease. Other cells form hair and bone. And now, thanks to some fancy genetic engineering and a pair of tiny mirrors, a specially altered kidneycells shoot the first-ever biological laser beams. By harnessing the light-emitting power of green florescent protein (GFP), scientists working at Massachusetts General Hospital created the biological laser merely as a proof of concept. Aside from implying the future possibility of a self-healing laser that requires no battery, this breakthrough could allow doctors and scientists to view the inner workings of individual cells without a microscope. GFP protein acts as a copy machine of sorts, absorbing regular blue light and releasing identical particles of green light. Whereas regular light contains light particles in a range of different wavelength frequencies, laser beams contain only coherent light particles with the same profile. Since GFP always releases light particles with the same profile, the scientists simply needed to funnel the light into a single beam to create the biological laser. 

As expected, the laser emitted by Gather′s cells lacks the power of commercial lasers, limiting immediate practical uses. However, since the internal components of the cell shapes the laser beam, this technology could provide researchers with a tool for producing detailed images of microorganisms without using a microscope. "One neat application of a living laser beam is that, GFP, like most laser materials, degrades over time. But the fact that the cell is alive means that the laser can self-heal," Gather said. "Lasers have the notorious quality of just dying sometimes. If the GFP gets degradeds, the cells can just make more of it. Very long term, this could be an interesting advantage to having a living cell producing laser light." Technews Daily

China Genetically Modifying Cows To Produce Human Breast Milk

Chinese scientists have genetically modified dairy cows to produce human breast milk, and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years. The milk produced by the transgenic cows is identical to the human variety, with the same immune-boosting and antibacterial qualities as breast milk, scientists at China’s Agricultural University in Beijing said. 

The transgenic herd of 300 was bred by inserting human genes into cloned cow embryos which were then implanted into surrogate cows. The technology used was similar to that used to produce Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned by scientists, in Scotland. InfoWars

First human lung stem cell

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US researchers said Wednesday they have identified for the first time human lung stem cells that are self-renewing and could offer important clues for treating chronic lung diseases. Previous studies have shown researchers were able to create lung cells using human embryonic stem cells, but this lung stem cell was isolated using surgical samples of adult human lung tissue. The discovery of this stem cell has the potential to offer those who suffer from chronic lung diseases a totally novel treatment option by regenerating or repairing damaged areas of the lung.

Stem cell therapy on lung diseases has long been elusive because the lung is a highly complex organ with a variety of cell types that can renew at different rates, experts say. Lung disease is the third leading killer in the United States after heart disease and cancer, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Second spinal cord injury patient in stem cell trial

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Doctors have begun treating a second patient injected with human embryonic stem cells in the spine as part of a landmark Geron Corp clinical trial testing the cells in spinal cord injuries. The patient, who is not being identified, will undergo a progressive course of rehabilitation at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago after receiving an injection of stem cells at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwestern officials said Tuesday. 

Geron's stem cells come from human embryos left over from fertility treatments. They have been manipulated to become precursors to certain types of nerve cells. It is hoped they will travel to the site of a recent spinal cord injury and release compounds that help the damaged nerves in the cord regenerate. The Phase I trial will not be aiming to cure patients but to establish that the cells are safe to use. But the team will also look to see if the stem cells improve patients' control or sensation in the trunk or legs. Under the guidelines of the trial, the patients must have very recent injuries.

All Signs Point to Hidden Ocean on Saturn Moon Titan

A huge ocean of liquid water may indeed slosh about beneath the frigid surface of Saturn's moon Titan, according to new evidence collected by a NASA spacecraft. 

The observations were made by NASA's Cassini probe, which has been eyeing Saturn and its rings and moons from orbit since arriving at the gas giant in 2004.
Certain details of Titan's orbit and rotation aren't compatible with the behavior of a celestial body that is completely solid all the way through. But these details make a lot of sense if the huge moon is assumed to have a subsurface ocean, likely of liquid water, researchers said.

Titan, the largest of Saturn's more than 60 known moons, is considered one of the leading candidates to host life beyond Earth. Space.com

Alien Bacteria Could Breed in Extreme 'Hypergravity'

If alien life is out there, it may be able to exploit more-extreme environments than scientists think, because huge gravitational forces don't seem to pose much of a problem for microbes.

Several different species of bacteria can survive and reproduce in "hypergravity" more than 400,000 times stronger than that of the Earth, a new study reports. The find suggests that alien life could take root in a wide range of conditions -- and that it could survive the high G-forces imposed by meteorite impacts and ejections, making the exchange of life between planets a distinct possibility. "The number and types of environments that we now think life can inhabit in the universe has expanded. The results also suggest that the transport of viable lifeforms between worlds is a real possibility, researchers said.


Over the ages, Earth has been showered with perhaps 1 billion tons of Mars rocks, which were liberated from the Red Planet via meteorite strikes. Such interplanetary exchanges, in our solar system or others, could theoretically transfer microbes as well -- an aspect of the "panspermia" hypothesis, which posits that the seeds of life are everywhere and hopscotch from world to world. Space.com

Live human heart grown lab using stem cells

Scientists are growing human hearts in laboratories, offering hope for millions of cardiac patients. American researchers believe the artificial organs could start beating within weeks. The experiment is a major step towards the first ‘grow-your-own’ heart, and could pave the way for  livers, lungs or kidneys to be made  to order.

The organs were created by removing muscle cells from donor organs to leave behind tough hearts of connective tissue. Researchers then injected stem cells which multiplied and grew around the structure, eventually turning into healthy heart cells. 

‘There are many hurdles to overcome to generate a fully functioning heart, but my prediction is that it may one day be possible to grow entire organs for transplant.’