PARIS (AFP) – – The night sky will sparkle with “falling stars” on Tuesday and Wednesday as Earth passes through a trail of dusty debris from the Swift-Tuttle Comet, say scientists.

The light show, called the Perseid meteor shower, kicks off each year in late-July and increases in intensity, peaking a couple of weeks later.

On a clear night in a dark sky “you should see dozens of meteors per hour,” notes Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office.

East Asia is best placed to see the shower at its most intense moment, which is predicted for 1800 GMT on August 12, according to the US publication Sky and Telescope (skyandtelescope.com).  Read more... (168 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)

• 0 Comments

Charles Darwin would no doubt be surprised to learn that, 127 years after his death, people around the world will be celebrating his 200th birthday on Thursday.

Biology’s “reluctant revolutionary,” as English historian James Moore calls him, was a quiet man and frequently ill. But there will be nothing low-key about “Darwin Day,” the anniversary of the English naturalist’s Feb. 12, 1809, birth.

The official celebration website (darwinday.org) lists 281 events in 31 nations, including more than 170 in the USA. Events range from “Evolutionpalooza!” at the San Francisco Main Branch Public Library to an all-day reading of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (its 150th anniversary year) at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.  Read more... (140 words, estimated 34 secs reading time)

• 0 Comments

WASHINGTON  (Xinhua) — Scientists at the US Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and several partner institutions have published the sequence and analysis of the complete genome of sorghum, a major food and fodder plant with high potential as a bioenergy crop.

The genome data will aid scientists in optimizing sorghum and other crops not only for food and fodder use, but also for biofuels production. The comparative analysis of the sorghum genome appears in the January 29 edition of the journal Nature.

Prized for its drought resistance and high productivity, sorghum is currently the second most prevalent biofuels crop in the United States, behind corn.  Read more... (236 words, estimated 57 secs reading time)

• 0 Comments