Check out the live stream of asteroid 2012 DA14 passing by Earth. It should be visible from Australia at 2PM Eastern time today, which is just 10 minutes away!
Date: 02.15.2013
A meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere today above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in the Ural Mountains. It left this trail in an otherwise clear blue sky.
A meteorite entered the atmosphere over the Ural mountains in Russia this morning causing a sonic boom and leaving many blown out windows. Check out this Q & A for more information on meteors.
The NPR points out a new trend in science – turning to the internet to raise funds for research. Scientist are starting to turn to sites like Kickstarter to look for funding for some of their projects:
People’s fascination with their inner workings may provide a new way for scientists to raise money for basic research. Just ask the folks at uBiome and American Gut.
Both are basic science projects aimed at understanding how microbiomes influence health. And in return for funding from individuals, both will provide donors with an analysis of the bacteria in their very own digestive track.
Using the Internet to crowd fund, the uBiome and American Gut projects have together raised more than $600,000.
Researchers are saying that it allows them to engage more with the public, which may lead to questions that they had never thought of.
“There’s something magical that happens with crowd funding where you start getting 500 emails from people telling you, ‘well, does it do this?’ Or, ‘what about that?’ Or, ‘why doesn’t it do that?’ And that really helps you refine what you’re doing and understand better what people’s questions and needs are,” Richman says.
More here.