Space.com: Opportunity Spots Curious Object On Mars

By Leonard David
Senior Science Writer
posted: 13 January 2005
12:08 pm ET

"NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover has come across an interesting object -- perhaps a meteorite sitting out in the open at Meridiani Planum. Initial data taken by the robot’s Mini-Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) is suggestive that the odd-looking “rock” is made of metal.



The curious-looking object stands out in the parking-lot like landscape of Meridiani Planum.

“We're curious about it too. We have Mini-TES data on it now, and they suggest that it may actually be made of metal,” said Steve Squyres, lead scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover mission from Cornell University.

“So we are beginning to suspect that it may be a meteorite. I stress that this is very preliminary!”, Squyres told SPACE.com.

Opportunity has been busy at work inspecting entry debris -- hardware that fell to Mars during the robot’s entry, descent, and landing over a year ago.

Not too distant from the debris field, the odd-looking rock sits alone atop the sandy terrain.

Squyres cautioned that it is too early to identify the rock as a meteorite.

The next step by rover scientists is to carefully examine the object with Opportunity’s Instrument Deployment Device, or IDD. This robot arm is tipped with scientific instruments.

Once extended out to the object, the arm-mounted devices can study the object’s structure in great detail. The instruments on the IDD are the Microscopic Imager, the Mössbauer Spectrometer, the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer, and a Rock Abrasion Tool.

“We're going to look at it carefully with the IDD instruments next, and that should enable us to determine for sure what it is,” Squyres said."

The New York Times > Chess Players Give 'Check' a New Meaning

The New York Times
January 13, 2005
Chess Players Give 'Check' a New Meaning
By DYLAN LOEB McCLAIN

JAY BONIN, an international chess master who lives in New York, is one of the busiest players in the country. He takes part in face-to-face tournament matches every week and also regularly participates in games of speed chess at chessclub.com, the Internet Chess Club. He estimated that he has played more than 20,000 games online in the last three or four years.

Mr. Bonin is much more active than most elite players, but he is doing what most serious players have long thought is necessary: playing frequently to stay in peak form. Now, however, because of the widespread availability of databases of games and the growing strength of chess software, such activity may actually be making it easier to beat him.

Mr. Bonin said that he recently lost a tournament game to a weaker player who had not competed in years, but who had sprung a surprise move on him in one of Mr. Bonin's favorite openings.

"The line he played reeked of preparation," he said.

The problem for elite players is that while practice is important, so too is study and preparation - knowing the best moves and knowing what opponents like to play.

There are many ways to play a chess game, particularly in the opening sequences, and some players may have studied the first 15 or 20 moves of their favorite openings, like the Kings Indian defense, the Ruy Lopez or hundreds of others that are known by shorthand names.

Game databases, many of which are online, give players information about what opening strategies their opponents use. And rapidly improving chess computer programs can analyze games and make suggestions about what to play. In many cases, electronic game collections are replacing books as chess players' primary source of information.

Using computers and databases during tournament matches is not allowed, and most players say that cheating is rare. But using such systems to help prepare has become ubiquitous.

Gregory Shahade, an international master, said he has used databases, partly because everyone else does, too. Mr. Shahade said that he did not think that he had ever lost a game because an opponent prepared a special opening, but that he felt computers and databases have made chess more predictable and probably less fun. "It seems there is less creativity now," he said.

Garry Kasparov, a former world champion and still the world's top ranked player, agreed that electronic aids may have stifled creativity, at least in the openings.

It certainly has made things more difficult for the more innovative players. Before people started using databases, a player who came up with a new move in an opening might be able to use it several times before enough people found out about it to start preparing for it. Now innovations are known almost as soon as they are played. "The profit maybe is very small," Mr. Kasparov said. "You can only use it one game."

Mr. Kasparov himself may be most responsible for the widespread adoption of electronic aids by chess players.

André Schulz, editor of Chessbase (chessbase.com), an online database and news site based in Hamburg, Germany, said that Mr. Kasparov met one of the company's founders, Matthias Wullenweber, in 1985, when Mr. Kasparov was preparing for his second world championship match against Anatoly Karpov. With suggestions from Mr. Kasparov, Mr. Wullenweber created a program that would allow someone to search a database of games based on different specifications, like player names, positions and opening names.

Mr. Kasparov was enthusiastic about the resulting program and when Mr. Wullenweber started selling it, Mr. Kasparov gave it an endorsement sure to catch the attention of other players. "It's the greatest development for chess since the invention of the printing press," Mr. Kasparov said.

Chessbase.com, which now has more than three million games, is updated every week. Mr. Schulz said that many of the new games are supplied by tournament directors who collect them from the players. Most of the games are in the public domain, so there is no cost to acquire them. The games are entered using notation that has a designation for each piece and each square.

Many games are from elite players - including some played hundreds of years ago - but there are also a great many games from average players. That way, Mr. Schulz said, it is possible to look up games played by your next opponent.

Mr. Schulz, who is about master strength, plays in a league in Hamburg and knew who his likely opponent was going to be in a match Monday. Although his opponent was ranked lower than him, Mr. Schulz found some of his opponent's games to see what he usually plays. Their game ended in a draw.

Mr. Schulz said that in this match and others, having access to archived games was useful. "I have a better feeling now than if I come to the board cold," he said, adding that he was not worried that opponents probably prepare for him in the same way.

Not all players are so unconcerned.

For the last three years, Mr. Shahade has organized a tournament, the New York Masters, every Tuesday night at the Marshall Chess Club in the West Village in Lower Manhattan. One game from each round can be seen live on the Internet Chess Club. Mr. Shahade said one prominent player, whom he did not identify, had complained because he did not want people seeing what he plays.

The Internet Chess Club, which is based in Pittsburgh, archives all of the games from top players who play at the site, which is one reason so many people know what Mr. Bonin plays. Hal Bogner, a consultant to the site, said players can preserve anonymity if they log on as a guest. Although no one knows how often that happens, Nigel Short, a British grandmaster, wrote in an article several years ago that he was certain that a guest he played at the site was the former world champion Bobby Fischer.

While databases have changed preparation, chess programs may be changing how people play.

Alexander Shabalov, 37, a grandmaster, said he had noticed that players ages 15 to 25 play differently than older players because they have spent so much time going up against computers. Because computers are so good at tactics, younger players are more tactical, Mr. Shabalov said, and more willing to take risks.

"They will take a pawn or a piece if they don't see the refutation," Mr. Shabalov said. "When I was younger, I assumed that stronger opponents knew what they were doing and I wouldn't do that. The computers make them bolder. They defend better."

Not all strong players believe that electronic aids are equalizers.

Jaan Ehlvest, 42, an Estonian grandmaster, said that better players are more able to take advantage of the abundant information provided by computers and databases because they have the expertise to identify the ideas that are worth pursuing. For lesser players, he said, computers can actually slow development because they cannnot separate the good ideas from the bad.

Mr. Ehlvest added that in any case he did not believe that computers made people better than they otherwise would be. Instead, they can help them reach their potential sooner.

"Now you see 14-year-old grandmasters because they accumulate information much faster than in my day," he said.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

NASA - Get Ready for the Largest Demolition Derby on the Planet

"Scientists say Slow-Motion Collision Near Antarctic Research Station Imminent"




"It is an event so large that the best seat in the house is in space: a massive iceberg is on a collision course with a floating glacier near the McMurdo Research Station in Antarctica. NASA satellites have witnessed the 100-mile-long B-15A iceberg moving steadily towards the Drygalski Ice Tongue. Though the iceberg's pace has slowed in recent days, NASA scientists expect a collision to occur no later than January 15, 2005."

The New York Times > Is It Dutch? Japanese? Why Not Ask the Rat?

Is It Dutch? Japanese? Why Not Ask the Rat?
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: January 11, 2005

If you talk to a rat, you will not get an answer. But a team of Spanish neuroscientists has shown that a well-trained rat may be able to determine what language you are speaking.



Every language has distinctive rhythms and intonations, and awareness of them is an important step in acquiring language. Only humans can learn to speak, but it has been demonstrated that tamarin monkeys, like newborn human infants, can distinguish the unique rhythms of a language even though meaning escapes them.

In other words, they know when someone is speaking their language, even though they have no idea what is being said. Researchers have theorized that this ability extends to other mammals as well, but until now no nonprimate has ever demonstrated the capacity.

In the new study, led by Juan Toro, a doctoral candidate at the University of Barcelona, researchers found that rats trained in either Dutch or Japanese appeared able to distinguish the two languages. The rats were trained by having them listen to synthesized sentences in the languages. Dutch and Japanese were chosen because of their vastly different rhythms. The sentences had no semantic content, but were intended to reproduce the rhythms of the language without using any real words.

This simplified form of language, when spoken in a synthesized voice, leaves only rhythm as a cue, eliminating complicating factors like semantic content or the quality of the voice of a particular speaker.

For the Dutch group, the rats were rewarded with food only when they pressed a lever after hearing Dutch sentences. The Japanese group was rewarded only after hearing Japanese sentences. Eventually, both groups learned to press the lever only when hearing a sentence in their own languages.

Next, the rats listened to four synthesized sentences in the language they had not learned. When the Dutch mice were presented with Japanese sentences, they showed no recognition; when the Japanese mice were presented with Dutch, they were similarly baffled. But when presented with a sentence in their own languages, even a sentence they had never heard before, the rats recognized the characteristic rhythm and pressed the lever correctly.

The researchers said the rats appeared to have generalized some of the rules of their language and, at least in this limited way, were able to understand an entirely new sentence, a distinctive mark of language acquisition. When the researchers played the same sentences with the tape running backward, the rats were unable to understand what language was being spoken - exactly what happens with tamarins and human infants.

Rats, of course, have limitations. They had considerably more difficulty in telling one language from another when listening to normal speech, especially when uttered by different speakers, the researchers found. The multiplicity of cues in ordinary conversation - intonation, the speaker's sex, pitch and so on - utterly confused them.

Human infants have some difficulty with different voices, too, but they quickly overcome it, learning to recognize their own language no matter who is talking and however varied the pitch and intonation. 'What these results suggest,' Mr. Toro said in an e-mail interview, 'is that we share with other animals the ability to perceive some regularities, such as rhythm, in the speech signal. This is interesting because several studies with human infants have shown that these regularities may open the door to language acquisition.'

Does this mean rats and monkeys have the potential to understand human speech? No, said Mr. Toro. But he added, 'Even though human language is special and does not seem to have parallels in the communicative systems of other species, some basic abilities we use for acquiring it may be present in other animals.'"

A simple 'thank you' accomplishes so much

By JOAN MOUNTFORD
For the Concord Monitor

"Last week, after the Christmas gifts had been put away and the last of the leftovers consumed, I sat down at the oak table in my dining room with my list, fountain pen and note cards to write thank-you notes.

It wasn't long before I was transported, as I often am when I undertake this chore, to the kitchen of the house where I grew up. The table I sat at then had a red Formica surface edged with aluminum. My mother was often in the room baking or cooking dinner. And I was faced with a list, a pen and note cards.

Even then I understood why a thank-you note was needed sometimes. My father's boss often sent a gift, and when my mother asked, 'How will he know you received it and liked it if you don't tell him?' I could see her point. So, while I grumbled, I wrote.

'But what about Aunt Bernie and Uncle Al?' I'd argue. Aunt Bernie worked in a factory that made pajamas, and my Christmas present every year was a pair of warm flannel pj's. Aunt Bernie and Uncle Al spent every Christmas Eve with us; they were there when I opened their gift, and they had been thanked and hugged as enthusiastically as a child who has just received pajamas for Christmas could manage.

My mother would sigh. 'Manners,' she'd say. 'When someone goes out of his way to do something nice for you, it's polite to say thank you in writing. Just get it done.'
She was right, of course, and I've had plenty of reasons as an adult to be grateful for that early training. And I've received more than enough thank-you notes myself to be able to attest to the lift they can give to the spirit of the giver.

For 35 years, I was a teacher. Notes from students written on stationery, on index cards, on pages torn from spiral notebooks have long since overflowed their drawer in my antique desk. College freshmen wrote their thanks for being disciplined as writers. Students wrote their gratitude for a lesson that spoke to them, for having someone listen, for being understood. Sometimes a parent would write about a change in confidence or ability visible in a son or daughter and say, 'Thank you.'

On days in those 35 years when I was exhausted and out of ideas and it seemed nobody wanted to buy what I had to sell, I would sit on the floor by that desk, pull out a random handful of those notes and read myself back into the optimism without which good teachers cannot function. Those notes, some written no doubt during a few odd moments in study hall, had an impact far greater than their writers could know.

So is it worth it, in this age of e-mail and voice mail and instant message, to fight the battle of the thank-you notes with our kids?

You bet it is, and here's why:

First, on the practical side, it will help turn our kids into writers. Practice still makes perfect, and the emotions and abbreviated spellings that dot our e-mails are not acceptable in college application essays, academic papers and most adult writing.

In addition, the thank-you letter itself is far from obsolete. Many career counselors urge job applicants to write their thanks for an interview, for example. And a professional's career network is created in part by gratitude expressed for an introduction to a prospective employer or a term of mentoring.

Second, writing thank-you notes, even under duress, reinforces the habits of awareness of others and gratitude that are the foundation of good manners.

One of the most impeccably mannered Americans in my lifetime was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. When she died, Time magazine published an article about her that included the observation that her manners 'were the tribute she paid to those who shared the world with her.' In other words, she behaved as if every human being deserved respect. My mother called this behavior 'manners'; others have called it 'grace' or 'tolerance' or 'humanity.'

And there are, certainly, worse habits than saying 'thank you' to a harried clerk at the deli counter or to the neighbor who took your sheets off the line when it started to rain.

Third, and most important, writing our thanks makes us aware of what the world doesn't owe us but provides anyway.

The first gifts we recognize as such come wrapped in colored paper and tied up with bows. Hopefully, we grow from that stage to an awareness of gifts that don't come in packages: a job that brings satisfaction as well as money, a shared conversation about something that matters, a hand with a spare tire in the breakdown lane of a busy highway.

I even find myself wondering, as I seal my notes, if people who have learned to recognize and be grateful for the small gifts that arrive almost daily are not only more polite than their fellows but actually happier.

The people I've known who saw the world as owing them all sorts of things were perpetually whining about its failure to deliver them. The people who understand that they are owed very few things - life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come to mind - are often more aware of the good things life has provided. They're grateful for them all, and they say so."

Dolphin Rescued 10 Days After Tsunami

"Jan 5, 2:09 PM (ET)

By MIRANDA LEITSINGER

KHAO LAK, Thailand (AP) - An Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin that was dumped into a small lagoon by the Asian tsunami was returned to the Andaman Sea on Wednesday after three rescue attempts - a rare story of survival 10 days after the massive disaster.

But the fate of a second, smaller dolphin also spotted in the murky, stagnating water was unclear.

"She's out!" Edwin Wiek, a Dutchman who is director of the Wildlife Friends of Thailand Rescue Center, said jubilantly after the older dolphin swam away. "I think she's going to survive."

The dolphins, spotted Monday about a half mile from the beach by a man searching for his missing wife, had become a symbol of hope amid the death and destruction after towering waves crushed posh tourist resorts in the surrounding Khao Lak area, uprooting trees throughout the area.

But rescue efforts Monday and Tuesday failed, first because the nets were too small, then because trees and other debris on the bottom of the lagoon apparently tore holes in the nets and allowed the pink-and-gray dolphin to slip out.

The smaller dolphin wasn't seen during the rescue Wednesday, said Wiek, who planned to the lagoon Thursday.

Officials had planned to wait until Saturday to make another dolphin rescue attempt, but local fishermen and soldiers showed up Wednesday afternoon with a double net.

As about 150 people watched, soldiers lined the length of the nets, splashing to herd the dolphin into a corner of the lagoon. It jumped the first net and became trapped in between.

"She seemed to be pretty exhausted at the end, so she actually drove herself into the net," Wiek said.

The soldiers put the dolphin on a stretcher and pulled it up the muddy bank and into a pickup truck, where it was laid on an air mattress and driven to the sea.

Wiek said the dolphin, which originally was spotted with a shallow wound on her back, suffered some small injuries from the net. It was given an injection of antibiotics, which also were smeared on the wounds.

The net caught the dolphin's fins awkwardly, and the mammal, estimated at 13 to 15 years old, appeared to be crying, he added.

The rescuers carried the dolphin from the truck, walked out into the sea and released it.

"She went off like a rocket," Wiek said.

Local fishermen also managed Tuesday to trap and free a dugong - a tropical sea mammal that lives along the shores of the Indian Ocean - that had been trapped in a lagoon near a navy base in Phang Nga province.

About 500 to 600 Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins are believed to inhabit the seas around Thailand, migrating between the Indian and Pacific oceans."

New Scientist - Mystery of Mars rover's 'carwash' rolls on

" * 11:26 23 December 2004
* Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
* Philip Cohen


NASA's Mars rover Opportunity seems to have stumbled into something akin to a carwash that has left its solar panels much cleaner than those of its twin rover, Spirit. A Martian carwash would account for a series of unexpected boosts in the electrical power produced by Opportunity's solar panels.

The rovers landed on Mars in January 2004 with solar cells capable of providing more than 900 watt-hours of electricity per day. Spirit's output has dropped to about 400 watt-hours, partly because Martian dust has caked its solar panels.

Opportunity's output also declined at first - to around 500 watt-hours - but over the past six months it has regained power (New Scientist print edition, 30 October). Lately, its solar cells have been delivering just over 900 watt-hours.

Rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, told New Scientist that a process still not understood has repeatedly removed dust from the solar panels. "These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape," he says.

Whatever the process, it has taken place while Opportunity was parked during the Martian night. On at least four occasions over a six-month period, the rover's power output increased by up to 5% overnight. At the time, the team speculated that wind may have swept the dust off the panels or frost may have caused it to clump, exposing more of the panels.
Self inspection

Now an inspection of the rover's surface using its own camera has confirmed that dust has been removed from the vehicle. Erickson estimates that the cleaning accounts for about 15% of the difference between Spirit's and Opportunity's power output. Most of the remaining disparity is due to the difference in sunshine in their two locations.

But the mystery of why only Opportunity has been cleaned remains. The answer might lie in the nature of the two rovers' missions. Spirit has been prospecting in an area called Columbia Hills, while Opportunity has been exploring the wall of Endurance crater.

While climbing, Opportunity spent a lot of time with its solar panels tilted, which could have caused any dust to tumble off. And the researchers suspect the shape of the crater may encourage the development of dust devils or other wind patterns that could help scrub the panels.

If the crater does provide a natural, wind-driven car wash then Opportunity's days as a clean machine could be at an end. On 12 December, it drove out of the crater to explore the terrain beyond. "If in three or four months Opportunity is still operating and hasn't had another power boost that would suggest the crater was the key," Erickson says."

Elephants Saved Tourists from Tsunami

"Jan 3, 9:11 AM (ET)

By Mark Bendeich

KHAO LAK, Thailand (Reuters) - Agitated elephants felt the tsunami coming, and their sensitivity saved about a dozen foreign tourists from the fate of thousands killed by the giant waves.

"I was surprised because the elephants had never cried before," mahout Dang Salangam said on Sunday on Khao Lak beach at the eight-elephant business offering rides to tourists.

The elephants started trumpeting -- in a way Dang, 36, and his wife Kulada, 24, said could only be described as crying -- at first light, about the time an earthquake measured at a magnitude of 9.0 cracked open the sea bed off Indonesia's Sumatra island.

The elephants soon calmed down. But they started wailing again about an hour later and this time they could not be comforted despite their mahouts' attempts at reassurance.

"The elephants didn't believe the mahouts. They just kept running for the hill," said Wit Aniwat, 24, who takes the money from tourists and helps them on to the back of elephants from a sturdy wooden platform.

Those with tourists aboard headed for the jungle-clad hill behind the resort beach where at least 3,800 people, more than half of them foreigners, would soon be killed. The elephants that were not working broke their hefty chains.

"Then we saw the big wave coming and we started running," Wit said.

Around a dozen tourists were also running toward the hill from the Khao Lak Merlin Resort, one of a line of hotels strung along the 10 km (6-mile) beach especially popular with Scandinavians and Germans.

"The mahouts managed to turn the elephants to lift the tourists onto their backs," Kulada said.

She used her hands to describe how the huge beasts used their trunks to pluck the foreigners from the ground and deposit them on their backs.

The elephants charged up the hill through the jungle, then stopped.

The tsunami drove up to 1 km (1,000 yards) inshore from the gently sloping beach which had been so safe for children it made Khao Lak an ideal place for a family holiday. But it stopped short of where the elephants stood.

On Sunday, the elephants were back at work giving rides to the tourists on whom the area depends.

German Ewald Heeg, who said he came from a small town near Frankfurt, said his charter company had offered his family -- wife, two daughters and one of their boyfriends -- the chance to go straight home, but he had turned it down.

"Our family is OK so we stay here to make our holiday," he said.

"Today, we make a safari. We go by elephants at first, then we make a boat trip."

Tsunami Traps Rare Dolphins in Lagoon

"Jan 3, 9:10 PM (ET)

By MIRANDA LEITSINGER

KHAO LAK, Thailand (AP) - Men recovering the bodies of tsunami victims in Thailand were working Monday to keep two special survivors alive: a humpback dolphin and her calf swept into a small lagoon by powerful waves.

The animals, believed to be an Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin and her roughly 3-year-old offspring, were spotted Monday by a man searching for his wife more than a mile from the coast. The larger dolphin, about 7 feet long, appeared to have a back injury.

"I reckon ... they came in with the initial wave, and when the water retreated, they couldn't get back again," said Edwin Wiek, a Dutchman who is director of the Wildlife Friends of Thailand Rescue Center. He said the two might survive only a few days without live fish to feed on.

"We need to get them out," he said.

With the search for survivors on Thailand's devastated southwestern coast basically turning into recovery of bodies, the discovery of the dolphins energized workers.

"That's why we hope we get them out. That would be the only survivor story," Wiek said. "We need one."

About two dozen Greek divers tried to corner the dolphins Monday in what used to be a small valley before the tsunami swept in and left a lagoon about 16 feet deep. The goal was to get the mammals into black and green nets so they could be put into carriers and hauled to the sea.

But after a failed attempt, a marine biologist told them the nets were too small. A radio broadcast went out asking fishermen to bring larger nets to the area.

While the rescue attempt went on, volunteers spotted the bodies of several people in the nearby vegetation, and one body in the lake.

The divers quit Monday because of darkness, but planned to try again early Tuesday using a larger net. They also were seeking the help of a dolphin expert.

Wiek said there are about 500-600 Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins in the seas around Thailand, and that they migrate between the Indian and Pacific oceans."

Iceland tells U.S. to butt out; Fischer still welcome

"REYKJAVIK (AP) Iceland has rejected a U.S. request to drop the offer of a residency permit for former American chess champion Bobby Fischer, officials said Tuesday.

The U.S. ambassador to Iceland, James Gadsden, asked the country last week to withdraw its offer because Fischer is wanted in the United States on criminal charges.

Fischer, who is being held in Japan, is wanted in the United States on charges of violating U.N. sanctions against Yugoslavia when he played a chess match there in 1992.

But on Monday, Foreign Secretary David Oddsson invited Gadsden to a meeting and told the U.S. ambassador that the Icelandic government stood by its offer, Icelandic officials said.

Gadsden was told that Iceland wanted to recognize its historic connection with Fischer, who has been held in great esteem here since winning the chess World Championship in Reykjavik in 1972.

Oddsson also told Gadsden that Fischer's alleged crime had exceeded Iceland's statute of limitations, and for that reason Iceland would not be bound by a U.S. extradition request if the chess player moved from Japan to Iceland.

Gunnar Smari Gunnarsson, Iceland's permanent secretary of state, said in an interview Tuesday: "Nothing has been withdrawn. It is now up to the Japanese government. We are not pressing the matter, but if Fischer comes here, he will be let into the country."

Fischer, 61, is being held in detention in Japan, where he was caught trying to board a flight for the Philippines with an invalid passport in July after the United States revoked his passport.

Fischer, who has said he would like to move to Iceland, is fighting a deportation order to the United States."