High Flying Internet

Summary: Google will soon be launching Project Loon, a fleet of high altitude balloons that could provide Internet to people in hard to reach areas. The huge balloons are incredibly thin (.3in) and will fly in the Earth's Stratosphere (double the height at which planes fly). The balloons are predicted to stay afloat for 100 days before landing and being picked up. The balloons will be carefully programmed and monitored to keep them in the correct area of sky by manoeuvring them up and down to catch the right air currents. The project will be tested first in New Zealand before progressing to more remote areas. 

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22905199

New evidence for water

Summary: NASA's Opportunity rover has just discovered clay on Mars. This leads further credence to Mars having water in its past. The significance here is that clay usually forms in water of a neutral pH, thus safe to drink.



BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22832673

Rivers of Mars

Summary: Scientists have confirmed that there was water in Mars's past. This conclusion is based on rocks found in Peace Vallis. Upon examining the rocks they found three things that pointed to signs of water.
1) The rocks were smooth like pebbles here on Earth found in river beds that had been worn by the water. It was previously thought that this could have been wind erosion but the size of some rocks and the distinctive domino-like placement of the rocks points to water.
2) The rocks found are many different colors due to different chemical make ups so scientists know that these rocks were moved from their original locations. Something a river would do.
3) Using Curiosity's Chemcam, they were able to detect feldspar in the pebbles, a common mineral on Earth that weathers quickly in the presence of water.
Based on this, scientists estimate that the water flow would be about walking pace and the water depth to be anywhere between ankle-height and waist-height.



BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22708902

Clouds could reveal black hole details

Summary: A cloud of gas (called G2) that was discovered in 2011 is due to pass by the center of our galaxy where is it speculated that a cluster of black holes resides. Scientists have never been able to definitively prove that these black holes exist but are hopeful that when the cloud passes in September it could give us the proof. "The idea is that as the cloud speeds past these small black holes - some slightly more massive than our Sun but just a few tens of km across - gas will spiral around them faster and faster, heating up to millions of degrees and emitting X-ray light." Telescopes could then see these emitted rays and know for sure that the black holes exist. This indirect method of detection has been compared to watching the swirls in the water as a giant bathtub drains though thousands of little drains.



BBC News:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22694229

Tiny Film

Summary: Scientists have created the world's smallest movie. Using only atoms as pixels, they have created a short story about a boy and his toy. Though this seems trivial, it demonstrates the control scientists have over individual atoms in a creative way.


BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22364761

28 neutrinos spotted!

Summary: Scientists working on the IceCube experiment have successfully identified 28 neutrinos of, what looks to be, cosmic origin. These have energies far greater than is possible at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
As predicted in the 1950s when neutrinos were first discovered, this could lead to a new way of studying the night sky using particles rather than wavelengths.


BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22540352

Dark Matter article

This month's (May) Discover magazine has a fantastic article on the history of Dark Matter, what we know know, and what is planned in the future. It's a great read for anyone who is interested.