Modern Humans Had Sex With Denisovan Cousins Too:

Our ancestors didn't just have inter-species sex with Neanderthals. A new DNA study has found that our forefathers interbred with another mysterious group of hominins, the Denisovans. 

Now, researchers have found two distinct modern human genomes - one from Oceania and another from East Asia - both have distinct Denisovan ancestry. 

The genomes are also completely different, suggesting there were at least two separate waves of prehistoric intermingling between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago.

In a paper published in Cell on March 15, scientists at the University of Washington studied more than 5,600 whole-genome sequences from individuals from Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania and detected Denisovan DNA in Han Chinese, Chinese Dai, and Japanese populations. 

“Although the Papuans ended up with more Denisovan ancestry, it turns out to be less similar to the sequenced Denisovan,” Browning explained. The study also indicates that there were at least two distinct populations of Denisovans living in Asia. 

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Solar Storms Can Crash Communications On March 18th

Scientists at the Russian Academy of Sciences have warned that a massive magnetic storm is going to hit the Earth on March 18, as it has been shown by the magnetic activity graph designed by the Russian X-ray Solar Astronomy Laboratory

This strong magnetic storm is the third one in this year, first one on Jan 15 and second one is on Jan 19

What is a magnetic storm?

Magnetic storms are temporary disturbances in the Earth’s magnetosphere due to the exchange of energy from the solar wind. Magnetic storms usually affect the satellite and it causes some brilliant auroras around the Arctic Circle. Auroras occur when electrically charged solar particles hit the atoms and molecules in the Earth’s magnetosphere, causing them to light up.

Is this affect human health?

According to Russian scientist, the March 18 magnetic storm could cause dizziness, headache, and sleep disturbances to some people around the world.

The geomagnetic storms can also affect the power grids and cause power fluctuations or even shut down.

To forecast geomagnetic storms disturbances in communication satellite, human health and power grids etc., NASA scientists recently modeled the Earth data in 3D, an upgrade from one-dimensional predecessors. This will help full for better understating of the geomagnetic storms and its affects

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Elon Musk: SpaceX Mars spaceships ready by next year

Mars spaceships will be ready for short flights by the first half of next year, predicts Elon Musk. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO was taking questions during an on-stage appearance at the SXSW conference in Austin.

Musk, 46, who's long dreamed of creating a human colony on Mars, revealed in 2017 that he was building the new rocket ship with the code name "BFR" that would be capable of traveling anywhere on Earth in under an hour. The spacecraft would ultimately be able to make missions to the moon or Mars, Musk said.

“People have told me my timeline is very optimistic,” he said. “We are building the first Mars interplanetary ship. It’ll be able to do short up and down flights in the first half of next year.”

He expects the ship to be capable of moving 150 metric tons into orbit with double the amount for the payload. As expected, the ship and the rockets will be reusable, which he explained will reduce the cost per flight dramatically.

Once the ship is built, he hopes other countries and companies will now have proof that space travel is viable so they can “up their game.” When interplanetary travel becomes available, he believes that will open up many entrepreneurial opportunities including some Mars entertainment.

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NASA Releases Twin Study for Scott and Mark Kelly - DNA changed in space

Space travel is something makes changes in human DNA also. That is takeaway from a long term study of NASA. For that study NASA took Kelly brothers (Scott Kelly and his twin brother Mark, who is a retired astronomer).Scott Kelly who spend 520d 10h 33m in space overall, but a huge one is a single mission which he stay in ISS for around 1 year(342 days).

NASA took study on both twin brothers, how the space makes change in human body and genes, because both Scott Kelly and Mark Kelly both have same DNA.   When Scott return to earth NASA discovered that his DNA has significantly changed.

NASA’s Human Research Program 2017 Investigators' Workshop (IWS) researchers finds that the endcaps of Scott Kelly’s chromosomes—his telomeres—had become longer while he was in space. Further testing confirmed this change, and revealed that most of the telomeres had shortened again within just two days of his return.

After Scott return to earth his 93% of DNA came back to normal, but the remaining 7% of DNA indicating a long term changes in DNA connected to the immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, oxygen deprivation and elevated carbon dioxide levels.

The Twin study is first step for the long-haul manned mission to mars. NASA has currently working on a Mars mission would last as long as three years, which would obviously be the longest stretch that any human has been away from Earth.

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Tiangong-1 Chinese Space Station Will Crash to Earth?

Tiangong-1 was the first space lab built by China. It launched in late September 2011, to help the nation master the technologies needed to construct and operate a crewed space station. China aims to have such a station up and running in Earth orbit by the 2020s.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a new re-entry forecast for China's Tiangong-1 space lab

The 8.5-ton spacecraft is now expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere between March 24 and April 19, though ESA officials stressed that this is a rough estimate.

"Re-entry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (e.g. Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, etc.)" latitude, officials with the Space Debris Office at ESA’s European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, wrote in an update last week. "Areas outside of these latitudes can be excluded. At no time will a precise time/location prediction from ESA be possible."

Hurtling around the Earth at about 18,000mph, the module ranks as one of the larger objects to re-enter the atmosphere without being steered towards the ocean

Western analysts cannot be sure how much of the spacecraft will survive re-entry, because China has not released details of the design and materials used to make Tiangong-1. But the spacecraft may have well-protected titanium fuel tanks containing toxic hydrazine that could pose a danger if they land in populated areas.

Source:

https://www.space.com/39862-china-tiangong-1-spacecraft-re-entry-estimate.html

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/09/tiangong-1-scientists-unsure-where-chinese-space-station-will-crash-to-earth

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Intel Optane 800P SSD launched for consumers:

The Optane SSD 800P series consists of two stick-shaped models designed to plug into your PC’s internal M.2 slot. Both are NVMe-class devices using two PCI Express 3.0 lanes and its providing sequential read speed of maximum upto 1,450MB per second.

On a more technical note, each “level” of 3D XPoint memory consists of memory cells connected to selectors residing at the intersection of two perpendicular wires. A memory controller can access each memory cell individually by sending a current to the wires residing above and below the memory cell. Each cell is one bit, meaning it can only store a one or zero value. But the technology itself can stack layers, building storage capacity vertically.

The 800p comes in two capacities, 58GB or 118GB, both in M.2 format. Where things take a turn for the strange is the PCIe x2 interface—it's almost like Intel looked at the performance and thought it was too close to the 900p. The 58GB model takes things a step further, since it's a bit less than half the capacity of the 118GB model but costs a bit more than half as much.

The people that need fast storage also tend to need more fast storage, and 58GB or 118GB just isn't going to cut it. If you don't need ultra-fast storage, which is most of us, then just about any modern SSD will suffice. Intel makes a point about how the 800p delivers great performance

Here are the specifications:

Memory type:	3D XPoint
Capacity:	58GB ($129) 118GB ($199)
Sequential read:	1,450MB per second
Sequential write:	640MB per second
Random read:	250,000 IOPS
Random write:	145,000 IOPS
Write latency:	18 microseconds
Read latency:	7 microseconds
Power (active):	3.75 watts
Mean time between failures:	1.6 million hours
Lifetime writes:	365 TBW
Warranty period:	5 years
Size:	22mm x 80mm

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POCKETS WATER MAY LAY DEEP BELOW EARTH'S SURFACE

IMAGE CREDITS: DEERHEARTE SHAMANIC 

An international team of scientists have decoded one of those messages, which came in the form of high-pressure ice crystals present in diamonds. Perhaps confusingly, this ice is a sign of liquid water from deep in the mantle. These diamonds could help researchers understand just how much water hides beneath our planet’s crust.

“One essential question that we are working on is how much water is actually stored in the mantle. Is it oceans, or just a little bit?” study first author Oliver Tschauner from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas told Gizmodo. “This work shows there can be free excess fluids in the mantle, which is important.”

The upper layer has a little bit of water, but scientist estimate 10 times more water may be in the transition zone, where minerals seem to be more soluble. The lower layer’s minerals don’t seem to hold water as well. There’s already evidence of water in the mantle in different forms, such as water that has been broken up and incorporated into other minerals. But these diamonds contain water frozen into a special kind of ice crystal, called ice-VII. There are lots of different ways water can crystallize into ice, but ice-VII is formed under higher pressures.

Essentially, while the diamond was forming, it must have encapsulated some liquid water from around the transition zone. The high temperatures prevented this water from crystalizing under the high pressures. As geologic activity moved the diamonds to the surface, they maintained the high pressures in their rigid crystal structures—but the temperature dropped. This would have caused the water to freeze into ice-VII.

Panero, who was not involved in this study, again stressed that this isn’t the first evidence of fluid water in the mantle. Study author Tschauner pointed out that others have found diamonds with chemically bound water—but this, instead, is free water that’s frozen into ice. Panero also reminded me that the Earth’s mantle is solid, but this offers evidence of fluid flowing around inside the transition zone.

Among other things, the varying composition of materials at different layers of the mantle can affect where and how well tectonic slabs that have sunk back into Earth’s interior melt and release their minerals, Tschauner and his team contend. For instance, the density and viscosity of Earth’s interior affect the level at which sinking slabs reach neutral buoyancy, thus stalling their descent. 

That, in turn, influences where the slabs melt and release the water and other minerals they hold. Overall, the team’s new findings may lead to more accurate models of what’s going on at different depths deep within Earth

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