Science Monitor
NEW INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES
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If you thought that gold ring you were wearing was made on Earth, you are dead wrong. A new study suggests that when Earth was born, internal processes within a subterranean ocean of molten rock could not have produced the known abundance of gold, platinum, palladium and other so-called ‘‘iron-loving’’ elements. So the findings support a competing theory of a barrage of gargantuan meteorites coated Earth with a veneer relatively rich in gold and related elements. The bombardment purportedly happened after the planet was formed, and the iron-rich core had separated from the silicate-rich mantle. ‘‘The gold is a relative latecomer to our planet,’’ geochemist Richard J. Walker of University of Maryland said.

With millions of dollars in funding pledged by two of the men behind software giant Microsoft, the search for intelligent life on other planets got a big boost as officials unveiled plans for a massive new telescope to scan the skies. The Allen Telescope Array — named after Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, who put up $11.5 million for the project — will be ‘‘the world’s most powerful instrument designed to seek out signals from civilisations elsewhere in our galaxy,’’ the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute said. ‘‘While the best scientific estimates tell us the probability of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is fairly high, there is great uncertainty and some controversy in the calculation,’’ said former Microsoft chief technology officer Nathan Myhrvold. ‘‘They are going to be single, backyard style dishes, arrayed together in a field,’’ said Greg Klerkx, the SETI Institute’s director of development.

Surprise. Men have a biological clock too. Like women their ability to procreate decreases with age. Scientists at Bristol and Brunel universities in England have discovered that when a man is less than 25 years old the chance of his partner not getting pregnant after a year of trying is about eight per cent. By the age of 35, it nearly doubles to 15 per cent. ‘‘To our knowledge this is the first study to demonstrate epidemiologically that male fertility declines with age,’’ said Dr Chris Ford, of the University Division of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at St Michael’s Hospital, Bristol. ‘‘People have long suspected that male fertility declines with age but there wasn’t any definitive demonstration of it,’’ he further said.

The Pacific has mood swings that can last up to 70 years. The phenomenon, known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), could provide clues that will help scientists better predict the Earth’s climate, said NASA oceanographer Yi Chao. Chao discovered the long-term shifts in sea temperature — its moods — while studying records of the past 92 years in the North and South Pacific. El Nino, the Pacific Ocean current that brought floods, droughts and other dramatic shifts in weather, is a fairly well-defined scientific phenomenon that takes place about every 15 or 20 years and is caused by one to two degree Centigrade change in sea surface temperatures. ‘‘But the PDO is larger, longer and more difficult to visualise,’’ said Chao. .

If Mars seems too far to travel for the average space enthusiast, a tourism company has perhaps the next best offer: a week-long hunt for Martian meteorites in Antarctica. Space Adventures of Alexandria, Virginia, is seeking seven to 10 individuals to scan for space rocks in sub-zero temperatures along the frozen, mountainous landscape of the South Pole, where the majority of meteorites have been found in the past. The troupe will spend seven days searching for meteorites and exploring the landscape. Participants will use a metal detector to probe the density of the once-hot rocks that lurk near the surface.The price tag of the trip — taking 16 days, all told — is $29,995 per person.

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