Is it true that there are other factors besides ice that triggered the Titanic tragedy?

The tragedy of the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912 is still a debate despite having lasted more than a century ago. 

Recently, in a documentary entitled 'Titanic: The New Evidence' that aired on Channel 4 in the UK, a journalist and writer named Senan Molony outlines the causes of the sinking of the Titanic.

(Pictured: RMS Titanic) New evidence suggests there was something very wrong with the Titanic before the iceberg. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1hcr39)

"It was not as simple as collision with an iceberg and sank. It's a combination of many factors, such as fire, ice, and negligence," said Molony as quoted by Science Alert, on Tuesday, January 3, 2017.

The sinking factors of the Titanic is often overlooked is the fire. The Titanic photographs were auctioned showed black spots. Based on the photos, Molony said the black spots on the ship located near the coal bunker number six after the ship left Belfast in Northern Ireland bound for Southampton on the south coast of England.

New photos show dark marks on the hull, seen here near the centre of the image, just to the right of a group of people. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1hcr39)

The flame heats the walls of the vessel to a temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius. High temperature makes the vessel wall became soft and not strong enough to survive when struck an iceberg.

"We had a metallurgist who said that the steel that reaches high temperatures will be fragile, its strength is reduced 75 percent," said Molony.

The sinking of the Titanic because of a fire ever put forward by Roben Essenhigh of Ohio State University in 2004. Titanic has been known to move faster than they should. Essenhigh said the ship fast motion may be triggered by an attempt to extinguish the fire.

Not all agree with the fire factors on the sinking of the Titanic. The British Titanic Society, David Hill, said, "The fire is definitely there."

"Does it have a big impact? In my opinion it does not make any difference. It just shows that after all these years, the old ship is still presenting new facts," he said. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | SCIENCE ALERT]

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Scientists found a new organ in the human body after centuries

Scientists have discovered a new organ in the human body? Yes, J. Calvin Coffey a professor of surgery at University of Limerick, Ireland has announced that the membrane which meander in the human gut is a new organ with the name of the mesentery.

"Reclassification of mesentery as an organ was universally relevant because it affects us all," Coffey said in a statement, as quoted by LiveScience, Tuesday, January 3, 2017.

The mesentery (yellow) connects the small and large intestines (pink). (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1hVz9O)

Scientists from the Mayo Clinic has previously been aware of the structure that connects the small and large intestines to the abdominal wall and tied in place. However, until now, the structure was considered a separate membrane by most scientists. And interestingly, in one of the initial description, Leonardo da Vinci was identified this membrane as a single structure. 

And Proff. Calvin Coffey and his colleagues looked at the past studies and literatures of the mesentery. He noted that throughout the 20th century, many anatomy books have explained the mesentery as a series of fragmented membrane. It's mean, the mesentery associated with various parts of the intestine. 

He led the study to view the mesentery in patients undergoing colorectal surgery and corpses. The findings of a study which concluded that these membrane is a separate organ, as published in The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology journal in November 2016 edition.

Proff. J. Calvin Coffey, a professor of surgery at the University of Limerick in Ireland, has concluded that the mesentery, which is a membrane found in the gut, is its own organ. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1hVz9O)

"By recognizing anatomy and structure of the mesentery, now scientists can focus on learning more about how the organ functions," said Coffey. According to him, scientists can learn about the diseases associated with the mesentery. If you can also understand the functions, and you can identify abnormal function, he said further.

According to the article, the continuous nature of the mesentery, for example, can serve as a means for the disease to spread from one part of the stomach to the other.

"In addition to studying the disease, researchers are also able to see a new approach to the mesentery for surgery," said the authors. The authors noted that many anatomical and other features of the mesentery that still need to be explained.

For example, mesentery classified into what kind of body system? "Do the mesentery should be seen as part of the intestine, vascular, endocrine, cardiovascular or immunological system, it was remain unclear because it has an important role in all of them," the authors write.

While many organs have different functions in the body, the different functions of the mesentery is still unknown.. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | LIVESCIENCE]

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Not a comet or asteroid, this strange celestial object is being approaching the Earth

An infrared telescope belonging to the NASA detects two objects that are approaching the Earth. But one of them, identified as 2016 WF9 made the scientists confusion.

NEOWISE telescope first spotted the WF9 on November 27, 2016. The object was apparently shot from the direction of the Jupiter and entered the path of Earth's orbit in 4.9 years.

An illustration of a comet pass through the moon and Earth. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1hVrqV)

And the WF9 estimated to be close to the Earth orbit on February 25, 2017. At that time the WF9 will be racing at a distance of about 51 million kilometers from the Earth. NASA said at that distance, the WF9 not endanger the inhabitants of Earth.

However, the astronomers are very curious about WF9 due to the object characteristic was unique, that is between the asteroids and comets.

According to NASA, the comet is a cosmic snowball, which is composed of gas, rocks, and frozen dust. The size is usually equivalent to a small town. When approaching the sun and exposured to heat, the comet is usually releasing dust and gas into space.

NASA NEOWISE Telescope was made to find potentially hazardous celestial objects. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1hVrqV)

And in 2015 Rosetta spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA) was recording the activity of comet 67P that produces a burst of gas and dust when the streaking toward the sun.

But the WF9 could not be classified as a comet. Its diameter is only about 0.5 to 1 kilometer. The color is darker and reflect less light that hits its surface. The amount of reflected light and orbits similar to other comets, but the WF9 not have the cloud of gas and dust that commonly owned by comets in general.

While the asteroid is a rock that surrounds the sun, size ranges from 1,000 km to the most minor form of dust particles. Usually they are found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter's, though some are approaching even entered the Earth (then called as a meteor).

The astronomers said that the space objects came from the same pathways of the WF9 possibility of having multiple places of origin. That means the possibility of WF9 previously was a comet. In addition, the object also alleged was thrown from a group of dark objects in an asteroid belt.

"Perhaps, in the course of time this object lost the majority of content," said James Bauer, a NASA astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California.

If the WF9 confirmed to be a comet, it will be the 10th comet that discovered by NEOWISE since the telescope was activated in December 2013. But if it is defined as an asteroid, the WF9 will become the 100th asteroid discovered by NEOWISE.

NEOWISE itself is a NASA telescope has a task to detect the space objects approaching the Earth and potentially endanger civilization on this planet. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | THE SUN]

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Scientists developed an advanced robotic hand technology

Scientists from Cornell University succeeded in making history. They have managed to develop an advanced robotic hand which has the sensitivity like a human hand.

A robotic team of Cornell University has managed to develop an advanced robotic hand technology. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1guzfb)

Yes, this robotic hand developed by a robotic team led by Robert Shepherd, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Cornell University was filled with optical fibers that can detect how light passed through the hands changes as it moves and comes into contact with other objects. 

Unlike other robotic hand that has a sensor on the outside, this product puts the sensors inside making it more similar to the human hands. Typically, robots that sense what they touch rely on the object being able to conduct electricity, which the robot could then detect to try to learn things about what it’s touching.

The Cornell researchers said, that the technology is expected to help the disabled people with prosthetic hands to get their lives back. Due to these robotic hand has the ability to restore people’s sense of touch, or could give biologically inspired robots a more delicate and sensitive style of physical contacts.

As quoted from Recode on Monday, December 19, 2016, according to Huichan Zhao the Cornell doctoral candidate who is the lead author on the research on the soft robo-hand published in the Science Robotics journal this month said that she estimates that her team’s soft robotic hand could be made for as cheap as US. $50 (approx Rp.677 thousand). *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | RECODE]

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The scientists recorded the sightings of a mysterious Ghost shark

In a rare sighting, scientists recorded the image of a scary shark with a bluish color and gray that was swimming in the waters of the northern hemisphere. "The ghost sharks" recorded was actually not a shark, but chimaera, or relatives who split from the evolutionary cousin sharks approximately 300 million years ago.

These water crature is only known to live near New Zealand and Australia. However, the marine biologists say that this video footage could show a greater range of locations than they previously realized.

Is this Hydrolagus Trolli or the pointy-nosed blue chimaera? (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1gtEsm)

"Usually, people probably would not have seen them around this area, so it is a little bit lucky this discovery," said Program Director for Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories Dave Ebert, as quoted from National Geographic on Monday, December 19, 2016.

Researchers did not set out to find Hydrolagus Trolli or pointy-nosed blue chimaera when they sent a remotely operated underwater vehicle to explore the waters off of California and Hawaii in 2009. Instead, the scientists involved in this project is a geologist but they studied motherlode marine biology also.

Chimaera which is also known as baronang, ratfish, ghost sharks or chimaeras were prefer cold water from the deep sea. Physically, chimaeras have a bit of their sea dinosaur-like ancestors with scary stripes along the head and body.

Footage of the divers was finally released this week by Monteray Bay Aquarium Research Institute. If the creatures featured in the video confirmed was true the pointy-nosed blue chimaera, it would be the first time for scientists to see one of them is in the northern hemisphere. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC]

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The dwarf planet Ceres turned out to be covered by ice

The dwarf planet Ceres is a rocky place that is located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is based on research done by NASA, it also contains a lot of ice on its dark surface.

The study, published in several reports in the journals Science and Nature Astronomy can lead to commercial mining on asteroids for both robotic and human expeditions to the moon.

A snapshot of Ceres' surface, with overlaid animation showing the locations of "bright spots" that reflect sunlight. Scientists have discovered that one of these bright spots contain water ice. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1grVRl)

Is a NASA spacecraft named Dawn was surrounding the Ceres since March 2015, in the 14-months mission to study Vesta, the second largest object in the belt.

Based on the study, Ceres contains 10 percent water, now frozen into ice, according to a physicist named Thomas Prettyman of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, which is also one of the researchers.

Dawn, a NASA's spaceprobe in an artist illustration. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1AcjFfG)

By studying the solar system on the objects like Ceres will provide an overview of how the system is formed. When compared with Vesta is dry, then the condition of Ceres is more like Enceladus and Europa, the frozen moon of Saturn and Jupiter. So also when compared with Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars, Prettyman said further.

The concentration of hydrogen on Ceres (right) and Vespa (left). Blue areas are where hydrogen content is higher, while red areas have lower levels of hydrogen. (Picture from: http://adf.ly/1grVFj)

Scientists were still debating whether Ceres has a salty sea, which creates a perception will grow dwarf planet outside the solar system that might be able to accommodate life, said the deputy leader of Dawn mission, Carol Raymond of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

"By finding a place rich in water in the past, we can find clues to the likely life of the early solar system," Raymond said through a written statement.

The informations collected by Dawn shown, that Ceres using the water to form minerals. Then the scientists combining the mineral data with computer models to study the interior.. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | POPULAR MECHANICS | SPACE]

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