SAN FRANCISCO : Twitter co-founders on Wednesday expressed hope that the globally popular microblogging service will help thwart efforts by China to censor information in that country.
“Censorship sucks,” Twitter co-founder Evan Williams said during an on-stage chat on the opening day of a Chirp developers conference at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
“We would love to enable freedom of expression and freedom of information in China.”
Twitter has no plans to open an office in China but is working to make the service available in Chinese, according to company co-founder Biz Stone.
Meanwhile, Twitter wants to avoid putting computer servers in countries where oppressive regimes might want to get their hands on the San Francisco-based firm’s data.
“We have to translate the service and make it accessible in as many languages as possible without putting any servers into these countries,” Stone said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
Google last month stopped filtering its search results and effectively shut down its Chinese search engine, re-routing mainland users to its uncensored site in Hong Kong.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Facts about Nasa, the world’s biggest space agency
WASHINGTON : The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has the world’s largest budget for space exploration, with some 19 billion dollars budgeted this year alone for space missions and robotic research.
The US Congress created the space agency in July 1958 to challenge the former Soviet Union’s rise in the space race, one year after the Soviets launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space.
The agency known as Nasa officially began operations on October 1, 1958.
Nasa employs some 19,000 people at its Washington headquarters and in its 10 command centers around the United States, as well as some 40,000 contractors.
The best known Nasa sites are the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where space shuttles are prepared and launched, and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where the shuttle mission control and International Space Station operators are located.
Nasa designs its robotic missions to comets, Mars and other planets at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
In addition to the Apollo missions to the moon and the construction of the ISS through multiple shuttle missions, Nasa missions have including placing in orbit and then repairing the Hubble telescope, which revolutionized astronomy.
Other high moments for Nasa include missions to Mars by the twin robots Spirit and Opportunity, which landed in 2004, and the June 2008 launch of the Phoenix, a probe that confirmed the presence of water on Mars.
Last November, the space agency said it had found “a significant amount” of water on the Moon.
Nasa is in the process of winding down its long-running shuttle program, which is scheduled to end later this year.
The program was originally going to be superceded by the Constellation program, with plans for Constellation’s Orion capsule to return US astronauts to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars.
But President Barack Obama, who wants Nasa to partner with private industry to develop new ways to transport US astronauts to the ISS and beyond, scrapped the Constellation program.
Since July 2009 Nasa has been led by retired Marine Corps Major General Charles Frank Bolden.
The US Congress created the space agency in July 1958 to challenge the former Soviet Union’s rise in the space race, one year after the Soviets launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space.
The agency known as Nasa officially began operations on October 1, 1958.
Nasa employs some 19,000 people at its Washington headquarters and in its 10 command centers around the United States, as well as some 40,000 contractors.
The best known Nasa sites are the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where space shuttles are prepared and launched, and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, where the shuttle mission control and International Space Station operators are located.
Nasa designs its robotic missions to comets, Mars and other planets at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
In addition to the Apollo missions to the moon and the construction of the ISS through multiple shuttle missions, Nasa missions have including placing in orbit and then repairing the Hubble telescope, which revolutionized astronomy.
Other high moments for Nasa include missions to Mars by the twin robots Spirit and Opportunity, which landed in 2004, and the June 2008 launch of the Phoenix, a probe that confirmed the presence of water on Mars.
Last November, the space agency said it had found “a significant amount” of water on the Moon.
Nasa is in the process of winding down its long-running shuttle program, which is scheduled to end later this year.
The program was originally going to be superceded by the Constellation program, with plans for Constellation’s Orion capsule to return US astronauts to the moon by 2020 and eventually send them to Mars.
But President Barack Obama, who wants Nasa to partner with private industry to develop new ways to transport US astronauts to the ISS and beyond, scrapped the Constellation program.
Since July 2009 Nasa has been led by retired Marine Corps Major General Charles Frank Bolden.
Obama sets new course to conquer the final frontier
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER : President Barack Obama Thursday set a bold new course for the future of US space travel, planning to send American astronauts into Mars orbit within the next three decades.
And he sought to quell a storm of outrage that met earlier plans unveiled by his administration, vowing before NASA staff that he was “100 percent committed” to their mission and the US space agency’s future.
“As president, I believe that space exploration is not a luxury, it’s not an afterthought in America’s quest for a brighter future. It is an essential part of that quest,” he said at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The US president made a whirlwind trip to the heart of the US space industry after stinging criticism of his decision to drop the costly Constellation project that had aimed to return Americans to the moon.
Obama, who was accompanied by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, said his administration would pump six billion more dollars into the NASA budget over the next five years.
But he had specific ideas how it should be spent.
“We should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say, pretty bluntly here, we’ve been there before. Buzz has been there,” Obama said.
“There’s a lot more of space to explore and a lot more to learn when we do,” he said, to loud applause.
“By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crew missions beyond the moon into deep space.
“So, we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on Mars will follow.”
In a nod to critics who say the new approach will costs jobs and undermine American leadership in space exploration, Obama said he was retaining part of the Constellation project, the Orion capsule.
Obama said he had instructed NASA administrator Charles Bolden to immediately begin the design of a rescue vehicle using technology already developed for the Orion capsule.
And the United States would also invest some three billion dollars in research on a heavy-lift rocket to send crew capsules and supplies into deep space, with the design to be finalized by 2015.
His plan includes ramping up “robotic exploration of the solar system, including a probe of the sun’s atmosphere, new scouting missions to Mars and other destinations, and an advanced telescope to follow Hubble,” he said.
Obama also pledged the new plan would create some 2,500 jobs along the so-called space coast in the next two years — aiming to bring new hope to a region blighted by high unemployment.
Critics, including the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, were angered by Obama’s decision earlier this year to scrap the bloated and behind-schedule
Constellation program.
The aging US space shuttle fleet, which carries astronauts to the International Space Station, is due to be grounded at the end of the year, leaving the United States to hitch rides on Russian spacecraft to station until a replacement is developed.
“Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity,” Armstrong wrote in a letter, co-signed by two other astronauts.
After the speech, leading Republicans went on the attack.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas said Obama’s vision for NASA “continues to leave America grounded,” and complained that without a shuttle, US space flight options will continue to depend on countries like Russia and China.
“The president’s plan fails to guarantee American leadership in space and the American people and Congress will not settle for it,” said Senator John Cornyn, also from Texas.
But Obama anticipated his critics Thursday, saying: “We will actually reach space faster and more often under this new plan in ways that will help us improve our technological capacity and lower our costs.
“The bottom line is, nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space, than I am. But we’ve got to do it in a smart way.
“And we can’t just keep on doing the same old things we’ve been doing and thinking that somehow it’s going to get us to where we want to go.”
And he sought to quell a storm of outrage that met earlier plans unveiled by his administration, vowing before NASA staff that he was “100 percent committed” to their mission and the US space agency’s future.
“As president, I believe that space exploration is not a luxury, it’s not an afterthought in America’s quest for a brighter future. It is an essential part of that quest,” he said at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The US president made a whirlwind trip to the heart of the US space industry after stinging criticism of his decision to drop the costly Constellation project that had aimed to return Americans to the moon.
Obama, who was accompanied by astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to set foot on the moon, said his administration would pump six billion more dollars into the NASA budget over the next five years.
But he had specific ideas how it should be spent.
“We should attempt a return to the surface of the moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say, pretty bluntly here, we’ve been there before. Buzz has been there,” Obama said.
“There’s a lot more of space to explore and a lot more to learn when we do,” he said, to loud applause.
“By 2025 we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crew missions beyond the moon into deep space.
“So, we’ll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history. By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth, and a landing on Mars will follow.”
In a nod to critics who say the new approach will costs jobs and undermine American leadership in space exploration, Obama said he was retaining part of the Constellation project, the Orion capsule.
Obama said he had instructed NASA administrator Charles Bolden to immediately begin the design of a rescue vehicle using technology already developed for the Orion capsule.
And the United States would also invest some three billion dollars in research on a heavy-lift rocket to send crew capsules and supplies into deep space, with the design to be finalized by 2015.
His plan includes ramping up “robotic exploration of the solar system, including a probe of the sun’s atmosphere, new scouting missions to Mars and other destinations, and an advanced telescope to follow Hubble,” he said.
Obama also pledged the new plan would create some 2,500 jobs along the so-called space coast in the next two years — aiming to bring new hope to a region blighted by high unemployment.
Critics, including the first man on the moon Neil Armstrong, were angered by Obama’s decision earlier this year to scrap the bloated and behind-schedule
Constellation program.
The aging US space shuttle fleet, which carries astronauts to the International Space Station, is due to be grounded at the end of the year, leaving the United States to hitch rides on Russian spacecraft to station until a replacement is developed.
“Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity,” Armstrong wrote in a letter, co-signed by two other astronauts.
After the speech, leading Republicans went on the attack.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas said Obama’s vision for NASA “continues to leave America grounded,” and complained that without a shuttle, US space flight options will continue to depend on countries like Russia and China.
“The president’s plan fails to guarantee American leadership in space and the American people and Congress will not settle for it,” said Senator John Cornyn, also from Texas.
But Obama anticipated his critics Thursday, saying: “We will actually reach space faster and more often under this new plan in ways that will help us improve our technological capacity and lower our costs.
“The bottom line is, nobody is more committed to manned space flight, to human exploration of space, than I am. But we’ve got to do it in a smart way.
“And we can’t just keep on doing the same old things we’ve been doing and thinking that somehow it’s going to get us to where we want to go.”
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Aspirin can reduce migraine symptom pain, review says
ISLAMABAD : Taking aspirin can reduce the pain of a migraine headache within two hours for over 50 per cent of people, research says.
The results come from a Cochrane Systematic Review using data from 13 studies, BBC reported.
Researchers found that a high dose of aspirin also reduces nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light or sound-other symptoms of a migraine.
But experts stress aspirin can cause side effects and some people will still need to rely on migraine medication.
The results come from a Cochrane Systematic Review using data from 13 studies, BBC reported.
Researchers found that a high dose of aspirin also reduces nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light or sound-other symptoms of a migraine.
But experts stress aspirin can cause side effects and some people will still need to rely on migraine medication.
Depressed adults smoke more: study
WASHINGTON : Adults who suffer from depression are twice as likely to smoke and also smoke more heavily than adults who are not depressed, a study released Wednesday shows.
Forty-three percent of all adults aged 20 and older who suffer from depression smoked cigarettes, compared with 22 percent of adults who were not depressed, data compiled by the US National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
The phenomenon was the most marked among men between the ages of 40 and 54 and women between the ages of 20 and 39.
More than half of men with depression, aged 40-54, were smokers compared to less than a quarter of men in the same age group who were not depressed, while half of women aged 20-39 who suffered depression smoked compared with 21 percent of women who were not depressed.
Nearly three in 10 adults with depression smoked more than a pack of cigarettes per day, which was almost twice the rate for adult smokers who were not depressed.
Even adults with mild depressive symptoms were more likely to smoke than adults with no symptoms at all of the chronic illness.
Symptoms of depression can be physical or psychological and include changes in sleeping and eating patterns, excessive fatigue or feelings of worthlessness or guilt.
Smokers who were depressed were more likely than non-depressed smokers to light up within five minutes of waking up: 51 percent of depressed smokers did so compared to three in 10 smokers who were not depressed.
Smokers with depression also had more difficulty kicking the habit.
Around seven percent of US adults aged 20 and over suffered from depression in 2005-2008, the study said.
The percentage of US adults who smoke cigarettes has fallen by half since the US Surgeon General issued the first report on smoking and health in 1964, but around one in five US adults still smoke, the study says.
Forty-three percent of all adults aged 20 and older who suffer from depression smoked cigarettes, compared with 22 percent of adults who were not depressed, data compiled by the US National Center for Health Statistics, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.
The phenomenon was the most marked among men between the ages of 40 and 54 and women between the ages of 20 and 39.
More than half of men with depression, aged 40-54, were smokers compared to less than a quarter of men in the same age group who were not depressed, while half of women aged 20-39 who suffered depression smoked compared with 21 percent of women who were not depressed.
Nearly three in 10 adults with depression smoked more than a pack of cigarettes per day, which was almost twice the rate for adult smokers who were not depressed.
Even adults with mild depressive symptoms were more likely to smoke than adults with no symptoms at all of the chronic illness.
Symptoms of depression can be physical or psychological and include changes in sleeping and eating patterns, excessive fatigue or feelings of worthlessness or guilt.
Smokers who were depressed were more likely than non-depressed smokers to light up within five minutes of waking up: 51 percent of depressed smokers did so compared to three in 10 smokers who were not depressed.
Smokers with depression also had more difficulty kicking the habit.
Around seven percent of US adults aged 20 and over suffered from depression in 2005-2008, the study said.
The percentage of US adults who smoke cigarettes has fallen by half since the US Surgeon General issued the first report on smoking and health in 1964, but around one in five US adults still smoke, the study says.
Powerful presentation skills
In almost all the business roles today, presentation skill has become a core competency and an inevitable prerequisite for any reasonable job. One of the popular fears among the people, after dogs, snakes heights, water, is public speaking. This category of people usually experience abnormal heartbeats, cold sweats, shivering and the worst, low or high blood pressures.
Contrary to this, presentation skill can be developed and achieved through practice and observation. It’s exactly like learning to ride the bike. Here are some quick, tried and tested tips, if followed carefully they will make you a powerful presenter as well as an influential public speaker.
Why do we give the presentations?
Basically, there are four purposes of giving a presentation. Firstly, to inform your audience about what you know. In other words, it is called informative presentation. Secondly, to train, all the effectiveness of teaching and training activities for students and staff solely depend on the presentation skill of the teacher or trainer. The third purpose of giving a presentation is to persuade the public, our politicians are a very good example of that. During the election campaign, the politicians give persuasive presentations to convince the public to give them the vote. Lastly, sales people give presentations about their products to the customer and clients for the marketing.
Pre-presentation Tips
* Objective
Before preparing any presentation one must be clear about the purpose of giving the presentation. Because, if you know clearly what you have to deliver it will help you find how to do it.
* Content
Once the objective is clearly defined, now you should focus the contents of your presentation. It means what is the scope of your talk. What is included and excluded. The contents must be according to the objective and the need of the audience. Through brainstorming, keeping in view your knowledge, audience and the topic, the parameters can be defined to cover the topic extensively.
* Audience
Jim Rohn, the American motivational speaker and writer, says, “Consider your audience”. It means who they are, what they already know about the topic, how old they are and what language and style they prefer etc. Once you are fully aware of all the facts it will help you tailor your presentation according to the needs of your audience.
* Time and length
People have their peak and low time according to the time of the day. Some people tend to be more active and alert in the morning. Therefore, if you present in the morning you might get positive feedback from your audience. On the other hand after lunch and in the evening people are likely to be drowsy and may not focus on what the presenter says. There, audience should be energized through activities and questions to keep them awake. Whereas, length means the time you are allotted to present. If it exceeds the timeline, you will lose the interest of the audience and the required purposes may not be achieved.
* Structure
One of the important components of success of any presentation is its structure. About the structure of the presentation, Jim Rohn says “Tell your audience what you are going to say, then say it all and at the end tell them again what you have just told them. In other words, it means introduction, body of the presentation and summary.
* Take care of yourself
The presenter’s health, mood, feelings and emotions matter a lot because if you are suffering from cough, sore throat or otherwise sad and sleepy you can not give a good first impression. So it’s a good idea to take care of your health to avoid any physical or mental distraction.
* Practice makes perfect
Mock presentations given to a group of friends, family members, colleagues or in front of a mirror, will help you grasp the subject and learn the content. As it is said, practice makes perfect. Rehearsal of your presentation will also increase your confidence.
Contrary to this, presentation skill can be developed and achieved through practice and observation. It’s exactly like learning to ride the bike. Here are some quick, tried and tested tips, if followed carefully they will make you a powerful presenter as well as an influential public speaker.
Why do we give the presentations?
Basically, there are four purposes of giving a presentation. Firstly, to inform your audience about what you know. In other words, it is called informative presentation. Secondly, to train, all the effectiveness of teaching and training activities for students and staff solely depend on the presentation skill of the teacher or trainer. The third purpose of giving a presentation is to persuade the public, our politicians are a very good example of that. During the election campaign, the politicians give persuasive presentations to convince the public to give them the vote. Lastly, sales people give presentations about their products to the customer and clients for the marketing.
Pre-presentation Tips
* Objective
Before preparing any presentation one must be clear about the purpose of giving the presentation. Because, if you know clearly what you have to deliver it will help you find how to do it.
* Content
Once the objective is clearly defined, now you should focus the contents of your presentation. It means what is the scope of your talk. What is included and excluded. The contents must be according to the objective and the need of the audience. Through brainstorming, keeping in view your knowledge, audience and the topic, the parameters can be defined to cover the topic extensively.
* Audience
Jim Rohn, the American motivational speaker and writer, says, “Consider your audience”. It means who they are, what they already know about the topic, how old they are and what language and style they prefer etc. Once you are fully aware of all the facts it will help you tailor your presentation according to the needs of your audience.
* Time and length
People have their peak and low time according to the time of the day. Some people tend to be more active and alert in the morning. Therefore, if you present in the morning you might get positive feedback from your audience. On the other hand after lunch and in the evening people are likely to be drowsy and may not focus on what the presenter says. There, audience should be energized through activities and questions to keep them awake. Whereas, length means the time you are allotted to present. If it exceeds the timeline, you will lose the interest of the audience and the required purposes may not be achieved.
* Structure
One of the important components of success of any presentation is its structure. About the structure of the presentation, Jim Rohn says “Tell your audience what you are going to say, then say it all and at the end tell them again what you have just told them. In other words, it means introduction, body of the presentation and summary.
* Take care of yourself
The presenter’s health, mood, feelings and emotions matter a lot because if you are suffering from cough, sore throat or otherwise sad and sleepy you can not give a good first impression. So it’s a good idea to take care of your health to avoid any physical or mental distraction.
* Practice makes perfect
Mock presentations given to a group of friends, family members, colleagues or in front of a mirror, will help you grasp the subject and learn the content. As it is said, practice makes perfect. Rehearsal of your presentation will also increase your confidence.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Distant planets turn space theory upside down
LONDON : A dominant theory about planets has been challenged by the discovery of nine worlds transiting distant stars, astronomers reported on Tuesday.
The belief that planets always orbit their sun in the same direction, imitating the rotation of the star itself, has been turned upside down, they said.
"This is a real bomb we are dropping into the field of exoplanets," said Geneva Observatory astronomer Amaury Triaud, referring to planets outside the Solar System.
Triaud's team are to report their findings at a meeting this week of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in Glasgow, Scotland.
Their revolutionary notion is based on the discovery of nine exoplanets, which bring the tally of these phenomena to a grand 452 since they first came to light in 1995.
The latest planets are especially useful, as they were not discovered indirectly -- by calculating their gravitational pull on the star's light -- but because they passed directly in front of the sun.
These rarely-captured "transit" events are especially coveted, for they can yield much more information about the planet.
After combining the new results with previous observations of transiting exoplanets, Triaud and fellow astronomers Andrew Cameron and veteran exoplanet hunter Didier Queloz were stunned.
Six of 27 exoplanets they sampled were found to orbit in the opposite direction of their host star.
The big hypothesis about planets is that they coalesce from a disc of dust and gas orbiting a young star and move in the same direction of the star's own rotation.
"The new results really challenge the convention wisdom that planets should always orbit in the same direction as their stars spin," said Cameron, of the University of St. Andrews, Edinburgh.
The transiting planets are so-called "hot Jupiters," or planets with a mass similar to or greater than Jupiter.
Unlike our Jupiter, which encircles the Sun at a great distance, hot Jupiters are found very close to their star, sometimes roastingly so.
Until now, hot Jupiters were believed to form from material far from the host star and then gradually migrate to a closer orbit as a result of gravitational interaction between the star and the proto-disc of planetary dust.
How the "renegade" hot Jupiters came to exist dents this theory, too.
It could be that, in their infant stage, these planets became caught up in a "gravitational tug-of-war" with distant planets or even nearby stars, the astronomers suggest in a press release.
As a result, the exoplanet would have been hauled into a tilted or elongated orbit. Eventually, due to a phenomenon called tidal friction, it would have been snared by the star, parked in a weird, randomly tilted orbit close by.
Another question is what this means about hopes for finding another Earth -- a small, rocky planet that is in the "Goldilocks zone," where it is neither too hot nor too cold but just right so that water can exist in liquid form.
The Jupiter in our Solar System is believed to play a protective role, its huge mass taking the hit from rogue comets or asteroids that could smack into the small, vulnerably rocky planets nearer the Sun, including Earth.
But the new retrograde hot Jupiters would be killers, not guardians.
Essentially, they would be like a giant ball in a game of space billiards, wiping out any smaller planet in the vicinity as they lurched around.
"A dramatic side-effect of this process is that it would wipe out any other smaller Earth-like planet in these systems," said Queloz, also of Geneva Observatory.
The discoveries, made using the European Southern Observatory's giant 3.6-metre (11.7-feet telescope in La Silla, Chile, have been submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication, ESO said.
The belief that planets always orbit their sun in the same direction, imitating the rotation of the star itself, has been turned upside down, they said.
"This is a real bomb we are dropping into the field of exoplanets," said Geneva Observatory astronomer Amaury Triaud, referring to planets outside the Solar System.
Triaud's team are to report their findings at a meeting this week of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in Glasgow, Scotland.
Their revolutionary notion is based on the discovery of nine exoplanets, which bring the tally of these phenomena to a grand 452 since they first came to light in 1995.
The latest planets are especially useful, as they were not discovered indirectly -- by calculating their gravitational pull on the star's light -- but because they passed directly in front of the sun.
These rarely-captured "transit" events are especially coveted, for they can yield much more information about the planet.
After combining the new results with previous observations of transiting exoplanets, Triaud and fellow astronomers Andrew Cameron and veteran exoplanet hunter Didier Queloz were stunned.
Six of 27 exoplanets they sampled were found to orbit in the opposite direction of their host star.
The big hypothesis about planets is that they coalesce from a disc of dust and gas orbiting a young star and move in the same direction of the star's own rotation.
"The new results really challenge the convention wisdom that planets should always orbit in the same direction as their stars spin," said Cameron, of the University of St. Andrews, Edinburgh.
The transiting planets are so-called "hot Jupiters," or planets with a mass similar to or greater than Jupiter.
Unlike our Jupiter, which encircles the Sun at a great distance, hot Jupiters are found very close to their star, sometimes roastingly so.
Until now, hot Jupiters were believed to form from material far from the host star and then gradually migrate to a closer orbit as a result of gravitational interaction between the star and the proto-disc of planetary dust.
How the "renegade" hot Jupiters came to exist dents this theory, too.
It could be that, in their infant stage, these planets became caught up in a "gravitational tug-of-war" with distant planets or even nearby stars, the astronomers suggest in a press release.
As a result, the exoplanet would have been hauled into a tilted or elongated orbit. Eventually, due to a phenomenon called tidal friction, it would have been snared by the star, parked in a weird, randomly tilted orbit close by.
Another question is what this means about hopes for finding another Earth -- a small, rocky planet that is in the "Goldilocks zone," where it is neither too hot nor too cold but just right so that water can exist in liquid form.
The Jupiter in our Solar System is believed to play a protective role, its huge mass taking the hit from rogue comets or asteroids that could smack into the small, vulnerably rocky planets nearer the Sun, including Earth.
But the new retrograde hot Jupiters would be killers, not guardians.
Essentially, they would be like a giant ball in a game of space billiards, wiping out any smaller planet in the vicinity as they lurched around.
"A dramatic side-effect of this process is that it would wipe out any other smaller Earth-like planet in these systems," said Queloz, also of Geneva Observatory.
The discoveries, made using the European Southern Observatory's giant 3.6-metre (11.7-feet telescope in La Silla, Chile, have been submitted to peer-reviewed journals for publication, ESO said.
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