Discovery crew readies for return to Earth

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Discovery crew readies for return to Earth CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (UPI) -- The six crew members of the U.S. space shuttle Discovery climbed back into their spaceship Sunday to get ready for their descent to Earth, NASA said. The space agency said on its Web site the hatches between the shuttle and the International Space Station were closed at 4:11 p.m. EST. The shuttle had docked with the space station on Feb. 26 and the hatches had been open for 7 days, 23 hours and 55 minutes. The shuttle and space station crews bid each other farewell before the Discovery crew members ducked back into their vehicle. "It was a very successful time on board," Discovery commander Steve Lindsey said while thanking station commander Scott Kelly for the hospitality. Kelly responded in kind. "We enjoyed having you as guests, we're going to miss you and we're going to miss space shuttle Discovery," Kelly said. "This is the first group of guests I've had in about 150 days since I've been up here. "Discovery has been a great ship and has really supported ISS more than any other shuttle and we wish her fair winds and following seas." Discovery's crew will wake up at 3:23 a.m. Monday to a special song with a surprise twist -- "Theme from Star Trek" by Alexander Courage. It was the runner-up in the wake-up song contest. At 7 a.m. Monday, Discovery will detach from the space station. The shuttle is to land back in Florida where it launched. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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British launch broadband wiring program LONDON (UPI) -- The British government is beginning an ambitious program to wire the country with broadband Internet. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced Friday local governments will get $80 million for the first phase, The Daily Telegraph reports. Speaking at a Hewlett Packard facility in Bristol, Osborne said, "Broadband is crucial for the country's economic future; that's why the coalition government is investing over half a billion pounds in its infrastructure. We want to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015, and today's 50 million pounds will benefit up to 800,000 homes and businesses." The government plans to spend $860 million over four years to connect areas where it is not profitable for the market to provide high-speed Internet. An additional $490 million will come from the TV license fee for work after 2015. The fiber upgrades will enable connection speeds of up to 100 megabits per second and services such as movie downloads and television streaming for 85 percent to 90 percent of the country. Britain is lagging behind the rest of the Europe, with only 0.2 percent of the country currently on rapid fixed broadband networks. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Killer whales found to hunt by 'stealth' RALEIGH, N.C. (UPI) -- Killer whales in the Pacific Ocean avoid being heard by their prey as they hunt by going into a cooperative "stealth mode," U.S. and Scottish researchers say. Scientists from North Carolina State University and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland studied how orcas, commonly known as killer whales, communicate when hunting mammals that can hear their distinctive calls, the BBC reported Friday. They thought the orcas might be changing their calls to a higher frequency, but they discovered instead that the whales go completely silent and yet are still able to form organized hunting groups. The researchers focused on transient orcas in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Canada and Alaska that tend to live in smaller social groups and change locations more than resident orcas. "The most striking difference between the two is their diet," Volker Deecke from St. Andrews said. Resident orcas eat fish, whereas transients hunt and eat marine mammals including seals and porpoises. "In the 40 years that these animals have been studied, scientists have never seen a resident eat a mammal and never seen a transient eat a fish," Deecke said. Resident orcas hunt salmon using echolocation, emitting audible clicking sounds that travel through water and bounce off the fish, revealing their location. "But all marine mammals have excellent underwater hearing," Deecke said. "If a (transient) killer whale swam along clicking like mad, all the seals and porpoises would think -- here comes a predator, let's get away." The transient orcas' solution surprised the researchers. "They go into stealth mode -- completely silent," Deecke said. "This raises the question: How are they communicating?" The orcas apparently can carry out complex, coordinated mammal-hunting trips without "talking to each other" at all. Deecke says the orcas might be "rehearsing" their hunting routines to learn the position of each group member. "They tend to be very predictable," he said. "I often know exactly where they are going to surface." Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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Wormholes linking stars theorized BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (UPI) -- European physicists say some stars could contain wormholes, tunnel-like passages connecting distant points in space-time, a concept sparking much debate. Physicist Vladimir Folomeev in the Kyrgyz Republic and his colleagues suggest pairs of stars could be joined by wormholes full of an exotic material known as "phantom matter," ScienceNews.org reported Friday. Strictly hypothetical, phantom matter has been put forward as a possible explanation for the accelerating expansion of the universe, and its exotic properties -- if it even exists -- could also enable a wormhole to be kept propped open, Folomeev and his colleagues say. They have come up with a preliminary mathematical model suggesting the possible existence of such a phenomenon but acknowledge their analysis isn't complete. Other scientists aren't quite ready to buy the idea. "It's a nice piece of speculative work, but it is speculation," says theoretical physicist Matt Visser of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. "I am pretty sure that once you admit exotic matter of some suitable kind, you can mathematically construct a star with a wormhole inside," says relativity theorist Dieter Brill of the University of Maryland in College Park. For now, this is just an idea that still must be refined by further calculations, Folomeev says. Copyright 2011 by United Press International
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