The Salt Lake Tribune from Salt Lake City, Utah • 18

The Salt Lake Tribune HEALTH SCIENCE Thursday May 14 1998 SCIENCE tjl MATTERS Radio Host Makes Science Understandable 9 Continued from B-l Antimatter Search Prompts Disagreement SI Continued from B-l About 2000 asteroids pose a potential threat to Earth but fewer than 10 of them have been discovered Eyen though computers have sped up the process the task of finding them is a daunting one Searching the Right sky A Scientists really are detectives they come up with a problem and try to solve it and they use detective tools" He enjoys bringing working scientists to the public in a forum where anyone can ask a question and with luck get an under 8 I jMj 1973: The deliberate hunt for asteroids began On photographic images taken through a telescope stars show up as dots and asteroids appear as streaks 1989: Spacewatch telescope at Kitt Peak Ariz started taking electronic images of star fields to find asteroids standable answer Or no real answer at all "I had one woman call from New Jersey who couldn't believe that she heard two scientists arguing on the 11 Huge telescope dish of the radio observatory at Arecibo Puerto Rico one of the world's two primary centers for asteroid detection It is able to map the size and shape of an asteroid Asteroid moving across a field of stars Computers can be used to search for streaks like this I ra Flatow Apoilo asteroids swing inside Earth's orbit but spend most of the time outside it Aten asteroids orbit sun in less than a year stay mostly inside Earth's orbit Asteroid groups targe and small Asteroid belt: About 95 of asteroids lie between Mars and Jupiter Gravity of may keep them from combining to form a planet stars in the universe Gamma rays also can be generated by the unseen "dark matter" that makes up most of the universe Once the AMS experiment is modified as suggested by Salamon and an Italian colleague the magnet not only will be able to detect cosmic antimatter directly but also gamma ray flashes from dark matter or from distant annihilation of matter and cosmic antimatter "Mike Salamon is basically a high priest for us" Ting quipped "Mike plays an important role Mike is the one who realized we can use this experiment to measure very high-energy gamma rays" AMS will look for gamma rays that may have been created by dark matter that may form a halo around our galaxy Some dark matter may be in the form of shrunken stars called white dwarfs Jupiter-like planets dense neutron stars and black holes But scientists suspect much dark matter may be WIMPs weakly interacting massive particles that surround galaxies but pass through Earth because they interact so weakly with other particles WIMPs include theorized never-seen particles called neutralinos Neutralinos can be either matter or antimatter so when they collide they annihilate each other to produce gamma rays antiprotons and positrons AMS will try to detect antiprotons from dark matter during its shuttle flight but it mainly will look for dark matter neutralinos by trying to detect gamma rays when it rides on the space station The project has been criticized by other scientists on two counts: They believe there are better ways to find gamma rays from dark matter and they share Salamon's doubts it will find cosmic antimatter "The scientific goal is considered to be like looking for little green men on the moon" said Dietrich Muller a University of Chicago physicist Muller contends the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) decided to fly the experiment to counter criticism the multibillion-dollar space station will be short on science "NASA and Energy are tinder pressure to produce scientific results which are going to be reported on the first page of the New York Times things that sound sexy" Muller said "Looking for antiworlds antistars and antigalax-ies sounds sexy" Ting accepts skepticism about the antimatter search "but it's also good to look If you don't search you don't know" Mark Sistilli NASA's program manager for AMS replied: "The greatest breakthroughs sometimes come where people say you're never going to find anything" The DOE will pay $38 million of AMS' $20 million cost Other nations will pay the rest The $20 million excludes labor costs any share of space station expenses and the $500 million cost of a shuttle flight Trojan Amor asteroids such as the one named Eros approach but do not cross Earth's orbit Trojan asteroids stay close Jo Jupiter's orbit in two groups one leading and one trailing the giant planet Jupiier More than 1 000 have been cataloged Asteroid materials the experiment will find cosmic antimatter because such a discovery would overturn fundamental physics theories that explain why the observable universe is made of matter So Salamon helped convince Ting to modify the experiment so it also can detect gamma rays The gamma rays could betray the existence of so-called "dark matter" Based on motions of galaxies scientists believe perhaps 95 percent of the universe is made of unseen dark matter but they haven't identified what it all is What is antimatter? "It's stuff just like we are" Salamon said "Antimatter is just like matter except it's sort of the opposite Once you get used to it it's just like regular staff" Matter is made up of particles such as protons neutrons and electrons in atoms Antimatter particles have the same mass but opposite electrical charge of their matter counterparts Protons are positive antiprotons are negative Electrons are negative antielec-trons known as positrons are positive Positrons and antiprotons made by atom smashers survive only an instant and in amounts too tiny to cause big explosions In our corner of the universe exploding stars produce antimatter positrons When billions of collapsed stars collect at the center of a galaxy they form a supermassive black hole that produces positrons and perhaps antiprotons Antiprotons also are made when gases in our galaxy are hit by high-speed particles of matter called cosmic rays The AMS experiment will look for other cosmic ray particles that may be made of antihelium or anti-carbon hurled toward Earth from at least 100 million light years beyond our galaxy or at least 600 billion billion miles away Salamon said If antistars existed in our part of the universe we would detect certain gamma rays generated by the annihilation of matter and antimatter Salamon doubts AMS will find cosmic antimatter because such gamma rays have not been seen by other experiments and because if cosmic antimatter exists it meanders through space and might not have had time to reach Earth Gamma rays are photons particles of light with "a billion times more energy than photons emitted by a light bulb" Salamon said They are generated by numerous phenomena including black holes and exploding stars Astronomers recently reported a gamma ray burst from a distant mysterious explosion so powerful it released almost as much energy as all the Asteroids up close The Galileo and Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft have photographed asteroids up close NEAR will meet and go into orbit around the asteroid Eros in January Carbonaceous: More than 75 of known asteroids made of rock ana tar dark color Stony: About 17 of known asteroids made of metallic nickel-iron "Earth asteroids Some asteroids cross Earth's orbital path making them a potential hazard About 300 have been identified About 135000 larger than 100 meters (330 feet) in diameter are believed to exist with 1 500 of them more than a kilometer (06 mile) across mixed with magnesium silicates brighter color Gaspra a stony asteroid 19 km long (12 miles) was visited by the Galileo spacecraft in 1991 Metallic: Most of the Sj rest ot Known asteroids niuKei-irun wnn a small amount of iron and magnesium silicates lightest color air with each other" Flatow said "That's what's so exciting it's a process of finding the truth and it changes all the time as the data changes" Topics on the show recently have been literally enormous: discovery of the second-biggest bang in the history of the universe and the possibility that the universe is expanding at a far greater rate than most scientists believed possible "They're having to rip up the textbooks everything's changing!" said Flatow Recent revelations if accurate show that the theory of the universe that Albert Einstein called his "biggest blunder" may have been on target "Even when Einstein was wrong he was right" Flatow said There is nothing artificial about Flatow's enthusiasm for his subject His NPR biography reveals he was always experimenting with gizmos as a child and was a regular on the school science-fair circuit After 25 years covering science and technology he considers himself "an educated layman" able to converse with his sometimes brilliant guests in a way that brings their research down to earth Flatow is also an author His most recent book is They All Laughed From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives He says one of his own favorite inventions (besides the microwave oven) is a device that never really took off the pantelegraph "It's a fax machine and it's older than the telephone" Flatow said Developed in Europe in the mid-1800s the pantelegraph used telegraph-like transmissions to put transmitted signals into words Invented by Giovanni Caselli pante-legraphs operated between Paris and Lyon London and Liverpool and St Petersburg and Moscow Flatow said he was thrilled when on a trip to Europe he saw an old pantelegraph in a museum in Milan It was huge making its marks using pendulums directed by the signals The exhibit also had some papers bearing messages sent through the machine One was in a old Chinese dialect Flatow said and translated it began "To the emperor of China Flatow said he was amazed He wasn't looking at some dusty museum exhibit He was seeing something completely familiar "It was the world's oldest cover sheet" he said That's the thing about science journalist Ira Flatow: He describes the most amazing things in a way anybody can understand SOURCES: NASA Johns HopKins University Applied Physics Laboratory University of Tennessee Department of Physics 8 Astronomy-University ot Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory: Space Telescope Institute Kniffht-Ritidewr Tribune Regular Exercise Seems to Prevent Gallstones thereafter they filled out detailed questionnaires about their medical condition diet and health habits including exercise Participants reported their average weekly time spent walking hiking jogging running bicycling swimming laps or playing tennis squash or racquetbalL Researchers compared 800 men who had newly diagnosed gallstone disease against the rest In reporting their results researchers called for a similar study in women who are twice as likely as men to have gallstones About 800000 Americans go to the hospital each year for treatment of gallstones which cause an estimated $2 billion in direct medical expenses annually according to the National Center for Health Statistics cise such as rapid walking or hiking" the study concluded A team of researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston reported their findings recently in the Annals of Internal Medicine Most previous studies had found no clear link between exercise and gallstones but the studies were small and imprecise The few studies that did suggest a decreased risk of gallstones in physically active people could not rule out the effect of other factors such as diet The new study is based on medical records and follow-up data about more than 45000 male health professionals over age 40 In 1986 and every two years BY DON COLBI RN THE WASHINGTON POST The risk of gallstones appears to be lowered by regular exercise and raised by a sedentary lifestyle according to an eight-year study of more than 45000 men One-third of all cases of gallstone disease in men could be prevented by 30 minutes of vigorous exercise five times per week researchers concluded Men in the study who watched at least 40 hours of television per week an indication of sedentary habits had more than twice the risk of gallstones compared with those who watched less than six hours a week The findings suggest that exercise can help prevent gallstones in ways that go "beyond its benefit for control of body weight" a factor in gallstone disease researchers said "The apparent protective effect is greatest for vigorous physical activity but can also be achieved through moderate exer The Best Reason to Access the Internet Just Landed On xYour Doorstep ttli4 ncws? 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