Inside Science News Service

A collection of brief stories from the world of science

August 7, 2008
By Jim Dawson
Inside Science News Service

Maybe We Are Special, Solar System Says

Historically, humans have often felt the need to be special, and just as often have been disappointed. The Earth, as it turned out, wasn't at the center of the universe. Humans are smart, but in the end, evolve, live and die just like all the other living things on the planet. In astronomy, the prevailing theoretical models of how the solar system got here have assume that, based on past experience, we're probably just an average solar system. But according to a new study by Northwestern University astronomers looking at 300 planets orbiting other stars, we might really be special. "We now know that these other planetary systems don't look like [our] solar system at all," said Frederic Rasio, an astronomer at Northwestern, in Chicago.

Computer simulations used by Rasio's team showed that the birth of a planetary system is a very violent affair, with the gas disk that gives birth to the planets pushing them toward the central star, where they often crowd together to be e! ngulfed. Gravitational encounters between growing planets fling some across the planetary system, or into deep space. "Such a turbulent history would seem to leave little room for the sedate solar system, and our simulations show exactly that," said Rasio in a news release from Northwestern University. Our solar system "had to be born under just the right conditions to become the quiet place we see," he said. "The vast majority of other planetary systems didn't have these special properties at birth and became something very different."

Hubble Space Telescope Odometer Nearing 2.72 Billon Miles

The Hubble Space Telescope, viewed by many scientists as perhaps the most valuable scientific instrument ever developed, is about to complete its 100,000 orbit of the Earth, which will bring its total mileage to 2.72 billion miles. The HST was launched on April 24, 1990, and has been sailing through space about 380 miles overhead at a pace of just less than five miles per second ever since. In celebration of the upcoming 100,000 orbit mark, which will happen at 7:42 a.m. EDT on August 11, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore calculated that 2.72 billion miles is the equivalent of 5,700 round trips to the moon. It is also, according to STSI, the number of miles that will be driven by vehicles in the U.S. every three hours. The Hubble, they note, uses gravity, not fuel, to move through space.

Drugs Create Mighty Mice with Marathon Potential

While bulking up with steroids is a well-known practice among some athletes, a new drug developed to treat a metabolic disease has also given exercising mice the ability to run up to an hour longer, which is a lot in mouse time. "When we gave the mice a small amount of daily exercise in the presence or not of the drug, all showed an increased ability to run," said Ronald Evans, a researcher with the Salk Institute. Once the mice had trained, Evans gave some of them the drug, known as GW1516, and discovered the drug mice kept on running. In what Evans called the "couch potato" experiment, the researchers also discovered that treating the mice with yet another drug gave even non-exercising mice greater endurance when they hit the track. "It's tricking the muscle into 'believing' it's been exercised daily," he said. "It proves you can have a pharmacologic equivalent to exercise." He noted that the drugs could be a boon to people who can't exercise due to health problems, b! ut also have a "high potential for abuse" by athletes.

Tasting Wine with an Electronic Tongue

Scientists in Spain have developed an "electronic tongue" designed to distinguish a good Pinot Noir from a cheap Chablis. The "e-tongue" is designed for wine quality control in the field and is based on tiny synthetic membranes on a silicone chip. The device, developed at the Barcelona Institute of Microelectronics, can distinguish between four grape varieties and its developers are working to extend its ability. Cecilia Jimenez-Jorquera said the device is similar to the human tongue in that it is sensitive to five different tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, acidic and umami (savory). The e-tongue can determine the age and variety of wine, and eventually might be able to "detect frauds committed regarding the vintage year of the wine, or the grape varieties used."

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