Two rings discovered around an asteroid
Scientists have discovered a double ring system around a dark, icy asteroid in the outer solar system.
The discovery marks the first time that rings have been found around any object that is not a planet. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
"It is amazingly cool - until now, we had no idea that anything but the giant planets could have rings," said Amy Mainzer, an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in the study.
Observations made with seven different telescopes in June suggest that the two rings are dense and thin. One is about 2 miles wide; the other is about 4 miles wide. They are separated by a gap of about 5.5 miles, and they are likely made of water ice.
Baseball players keep bone strength for life
Young men who exercise keep some of the benefits to their bones into old age, even if they don't keep at it, according to researchers who compared the throwing arms and the nonthrowing arms of professional baseball players over time.
Bone mass, size and strength increase with physical activity in youth, but it was unclear whether those benefits carried into later years. The researchers looked at the arms of 103 pro baseball players - major and minor leagues - and at the arms of 94 "regular" men; they reported their findings in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Half of the bone size and one-third of the bone strength benefits of throwing baseballs as young people were maintained lifelong, the scientists said. "In players who continued throwing during aging, some cortical bone mass and more strength benefits of the physical activity during youth were maintained."
Groups oppose plan for coastal blasting
Environmental and fishing groups are opposing a plan by three universities and the National Science Foundation to carry out seismic blast tests on the ocean floor off the New Jersey coast this summer.
The groups say the tests could harm or kill marine life, including dolphins, whales and many types of fish.
The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed granting permission for the tests, which would run from early June to mid-July about 15 miles off Barnegat Bay. The tests are designed to study the arrangement of sediments deposited on the ocean floor during times of changing global sea levels dating back 60 million years.
Clean Ocean Action and other groups want an extended comment period and a public hearing on the plan.
Russian wins $1M Norwegian math prize
Russian mathematician Yakov G. Sinai, Ph.D., has won this year's $1 million Abel Prize in mathematics.
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters said the 78-year-old researcher and teacher is one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century. He won the prize for his "fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory and mathematical physics."
Dr. Sinai, of Princeton University and the Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Russian Academy of Sciences, has written more than 250 research papers, with much of his work becoming a standard toolbox for mathematical physics. He has received numerous international awards and is an honorary member of mathematical societies and academies.
He will receive his award in Oslo on May 20.