Strange Green Comet Passing by Earth Next Week

Feb. 1: Comet Lulin as photographed by amateur astronomer Jack Newton in Arizona.
Jack Newton/NASA

From FOX News:

WASHINGTON — An odd, greenish backward-flying comet is zipping by Earth this month, as it takes its only trip toward the sun from the farthest edges of the solar system.

The comet is called Lulin, and there's a chance it can be seen with the naked eye — far from city lights, astronomers say. But you'll most likely need a telescope, or at least binoculars, to spot it.

The best opportunity is just before dawn one-third of the way up the southern sky. It should be near Saturn and two bright stars, Spica and Regula.

On Monday at 10:43 p.m. EST, it will be 38 million miles from Earth, the closest it will ever get, according to Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near Earth Object program.

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Deadly Bacteria Defy Drugs, Alarming Doctors

A new category of bugs becomes more resistant to treatment, and their toll -- which already includes a Brazilian beauty queen -- is expected to rise.

From the L.A. Times:

When Ruth Burns had surgery to relieve a pinched nerve in her back, the operation was supposed to be an "in-and-out thing," recalled her daughter, Kacia Warren.

But Burns developed pneumonia and was put on a ventilator. Five days later, she was discharged -- only to be rushed by her daughter to the hospital hours later, disoriented and in alarming pain.

Seventeen days after the surgery, the 67-year-old nurse was dead.

Burns had developed meningitis -- an infection of the fluid that surrounds the spinal cord and brain. The culprit wasAcinetobacter baumannii, a bug that preys on the weak in hospitals. Worse, it was a multi-drug-resistant strain.

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Prosecution Drops Some Charges Against the Pirate Bay

From The Danger Room:

STOCKHOLM — Prosecutors dropped half of the charges in the landmark trial of The Pirate Bay file sharing site Tuesday, leaving observers stunned and prompting questions about the government's preparedness in the long-awaited criminal proceeding.

"I will drop all charges that relate to producing infringing copies and will hence restrict the prosecution to the act of making works available to the public," prosecutor Hakan Roswall announced at the opening of the second day of the trial. "When I talk about making something available to the public I mean making available torrent files."

At an intermission, Roswall refused to clarify the change of heart to reporters. "As you can see I have a lot of other things to think about," he said. "There will be new adjusted charges distributed on paper tomorrow, Wednesday."

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Race For 'God Particle' Heats Up

Lyn Evans says the magnet incident was a real setback for Cern

From The BBC:

Europe's particle physics lab, Cern, is losing ground rapidly in the race to discover the elusive Higgs boson, or "God particle", its US rival claims.

The particle, whose existence has been predicted by theoreticians, would help to explain why matter has mass.

Finding the Higgs is a major goal of Cern's Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

But the US Fermilab says the odds of its Tevatron accelerator detecting the famed particle first are now 50-50 at worst, and up to 96% at best.

Both machines hope to see evidence of the Higgs by colliding sub-atomic matter at very high speeds. If it exists, the Higgs should emerge from the debris.

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Hansen On “Death Trains” And Coal And CO2

From Watts Up With That?

NASA’s Dr. James Hansen once again goes over the top. See his most recent article in the UK Guardian. Some excerpts:

“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”

And this:

Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more.

Only one problem there Jimbo, CO2 has been a lot higher in the past. Like 10 times higher.

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IBM Files Patent for Bullet Dodging Bionic Body Armor

From Tech Fragments:

IBM has filed a patent (US 7484451) for Bionic Body Armor, that could essentially allow us to dodge bullets like Neo in The Matrix. The armor would scan areas for incoming projectiles and when one is detected the system would deliver a shock to the muscles causing a swift reflexive action away from the projectile. Here's what the patent describes the body armor as:

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My Comment: Body armor of the future .... now.

How Astronomers Search for Ice Age Aliens

Some astrobiologists think plants on other worlds could have
purple, not green, chlorophyll. FNC/NASA

From FOX News/Space:

Could an alien astronomer have detected life on Earth during an ice age?

Recent work has calculated how past climate extremes affected the light reflected from vegetation out into space. The results could give hope to our own search for life on distant worlds.

From far away, our planet is a single faint speck of light in the sky. Although we have sent radio messages out to potential extraterrestrial listeners, none of these signals have traveled more than a few tens of light years.

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Stem Cells In Hair Follicles Point To General Model Of Organ Regeneration

Deep roots. For a hair follicle to begin a new phase of growth, an elusive group of cells called the hair germ (bright red) must be activated. This progression of images shows that the hair germ begins proliferating (green) before other cells do, suggesting a two-step mechanism. (Credit: Image courtesy of Rockefeller University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2009) — Most people consider hair as a purely cosmetic part of their lives. To others, it may help uncover one of nature’s best-kept secrets: the body’s ability to regenerate organs. Now, new research from Rockefeller University gets to the root of the problem, revealing that a structure at the base of each strand of hair, the hair follicle, uses a two-step mechanism to activate its stem cells and order them to divide.

The mechanism provides insights into how repositories of stem cells may be organized in other body tissues for the purpose of supporting organ regeneration.

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Blacksmithing 101: How To Make A Forge And Start Hammering Metal

PM editors Roy Berendsohn (left) and Mike Allen (right) have framed houses and built race cars—but forge steel in the garage? That was something new.

From Popular Mechanics:

PM's home and auto editors took a weekend out to teach themselves how to heat and hammer metal the old-fashioned way. They started by ordering an anvil and making their own blacksmith forge. The sparks flew from there. Click here to download an updated version of the forge plans published in Popular Mechanics in 1941.

If you want to work with metal, there’s one thing you have to confront: You need heat. With it, you can make the toughest metal submit to your will. Without it, you’ll never gain full mastery over this stubborn material.

Over the years, I have been frustrated by my inability to work hot steel. I’ve bolted metal together, welded it and soldered it. But I couldn’t shape it, and so large swaths of the mechanical realm were off-limits to me.

But blacksmithing never felt alien. My father is a metallurgist, descended from generations of 19th-century blacksmiths and born in Germany to shipbuilders whose forges scattered sparks over the shores of the Elbe River and the North Sea. I grew up in rural Connecticut among Yankee mechanics who could forge anything, machine anything, build anything, fix anything—and I’ve been trying to live up to those old-timers’ standards all my life. It wasn’t hard to finally decide to take another step, and teach myself some blacksmithing skills.

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Women Less Tolerant Of Each Other Than Men Are, Study Finds

From Telegraph:

Women are less tolerant of each other than men are, according to a new study which may explain why some women prefer to have a male boss.

The research, published in the US journal Psychological Science, found that women formed a negative view of their peers much quicker than men did.

The team from Emmanuel College in Boston asked male and female college students to rate their room-mates under different scenarios.

When asked to judge how they would rate their room-mates if they carried out a single fictional act of negative behaviour, after they had been otherwise completely trustworthy, women were far more likely to be critical of them.

Men, on the other hand, were much more tolerant.

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Empathy Partly Based On Genes, Mouse Study Shows

New research demonstrates that a highly social strain of mice can learn to associate a sound played in a specific cage with something negative simply by hearing a mouse in that cage respond with squeaks of distress. (Credit: iStockphoto/Brandon Laufenberg)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2009) — The ability to empathize with others is partially determined by genes, according to new research on mice from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).

In the study, a highly social strain of mice learned to associate a sound played in a specific cage with something negative simply by hearing a mouse in that cage respond with squeaks of distress. A genetically different mouse strain with fewer social tendencies did not learn any connection between the cues and the other mouse's distress, showing that the ability to identify and act on another's emotions may have a genetic basis.

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Infectious Superbug Invades Beaches

From Live Science:

CHICAGO — Add the MRSA "superbug" to the list of concerns you bring to the beach nowadays, a research doctor said today.

It's still safe to go in the water, especially if you shower thoroughly before and after swimming, but antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain of bacteria that can cause staph infections that are difficult to treat with traditional anti-infection drugs such as methicillin, can be caught when you take a dip in ocean water, said Dr. Lisa Plano of the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine.

MRSA stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or multiple-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It has become a deadly and growing problem in hospitals in recent years.

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Last Week's Satellite Collision Is Now Called A "Catastrophic Event"

Image: This image provided by the European Space Agency shows and artist impression of catalogued objects in low-Earth orbit viewed over the Equator. Scientists are keeping a close eye on orbital debris created when two communications satellites _ one American, the other Russian _ smashed into each other hundreds of miles above Siberia Feb. 10, 2009. (AP Photo/ESA)

"Catastrophic" Space Crash Spews Debris -- CBS News

Space Junk Generated From Satellite Collision Could Threaten Other Satellites For 10,000 Years, Experts Say

(CBS/AP) The crash of two satellites has generated an estimated tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years, space experts said Friday.

One called the collision "a catastrophic event" that he hoped would force the new U.S. administration to address the issue of debris in space.

Russian Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov said Tuesday's smashup of a derelict Russian military satellite and a working U.S. Iridium commercial satellite occurred in the busiest part of near-Earth space - some 500 miles (800 kilometers) above Earth.

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Our Eyes Constantly Flicker To Stop Us Going Blind, Experts Discover

Scientists believe flickering eye movements 'refresh' images on the retina

From The Daily Mail:

Unconscious flickering eye movements once thought to be random 'motor noise' may in fact be necessary to stop us going blind, a study has shown.

The imperceptible jumps and jiggles known as 'microsaccades' mean that a really steady stare is impossible.

Even when trying to fix a gaze on a stationary target, the eyes are always moving.

Experts have long dismissed these movements as the accidental result of spurious nerve signals. But new research shows they are actively controlled by the same brain region used to scan newspaper columns or track a moving object.

Scientists now think microsaccades provide a vital function by 'refreshing' images on the retina which would otherwise fade away.

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World's Greatest Hacker Says Obama's BlackBerry Can Be Breached

Jan. 29: President Obama checks his BlackBerry as he walks along the West Wing Colonnade towards the Oval Office at the White House in Washington. Photo AP

From FOX News:

There's a new "holy grail" for hackers — President Obama's super-secure BlackBerry.

Despite warnings from his advisers, the president insisted on keeping his beloved PDA, which now has specially designed superencrypting security software.

But that just makes cracking into it more challenging — and, yes, it can be done, says the world's most famous hacker.

"It's a long shot, but it's possible," Kevin Mitnick told FOXNews.com. "You'd probably need to be pretty sophisticated, but there's people out there who are."

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Biotechnology's Potential Barely Exploited: Scientists

This picture released by the Seoul research institute Maria BioTech shows human embryonic stem cells. New research tools will bring a boom in biotechnology that will unlock the enormous potential of using synthetic life to cure disease and develop environmentally friendly fuels, scientists say. (AFP/HO/File)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

CHICAGO (AFP) – New research tools will bring a boom in biotechnology that will unlock the enormous potential of using synthetic life to cure disease and develop environmentally friendly fuels, scientists say.

"If you look at all the things biology can do with technology, we have not yet scratched the surface," said Drew Endy, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University.

The past 35 years of biotech development have introduced a number of "tremendous applications," particularly in the area of bioengineered drugs, Endy said at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here.

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Doomed: Why Wikipedia Will Fail

From Ars Technica:

A cyberlaw professor argues that Wikipedia is doomed. The online encyclopedia will need to choose between being "high quality" and "open," but both choices are fraught with risk.

Law professor Eric Goldman loves Wikipedia, but he's also convinced that the site contains the "seeds of its own destruction." In other words, not to put too fine a point upon it, Wikipedia will fail.

Goldman made his provocative point at the Silicon Flatirons conference this weekend in Boulder, Colorado, standing at a heavy wooden podium in a multiuse room that had been donated to the University of Colorado by a graduating class back in the 1960s. Those students could not have foreseen Wikipedia at the time, but by 2008, everyone gathered in that room—from corporate vice presidents to think tank bosses to academics—had made use of the collaborative online encyclopedia.

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The Secret of Successful Kissing

Droolly Smooches! : RebeccaJBuckley (CC Licensed)

From PopSci:

It's in the drool, fool.

Can drooling make you a better kisser? Scientific evidence suggests that wet, sloppy smooches pack a bigger biochemical punch than dry kisses and thus may be more likely to lead to sex and reproduction, says Rutgers University researcher Helen Fischer, who spoke today at the AAAS conference in Chicago.

Men are particularly prone to sloppy kissing, she notes, possibly because males tend to have a poor sense of smell and taste and aggressive face sucking may be an unconscious effort to gauge a partner's estrogen levels and fertility cycle. It may also be an unwitting effort to transmit testosterone, which can be found in saliva and can increase sexual attraction. Alternatively, it may also be just plain gross. (That would be my unscientific conclusion.)

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Galaxy Has 'Billions Of Earths'

From The BBC:

There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.

Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

He was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.

So far, telescopes have been able to detect just over 300 planets outside our Solar System.

Very few of these would be capable of supporting life, however. Most are gas giants like our Jupiter; and many orbit so close to their parent stars that any microbes would have to survive roasting temperatures.

But, based on the limited numbers of planets found so far, Dr Boss has estimated that each Sun-like star has on average one "Earth-like" planet.

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Scientists Map the 10 Billion Neurons of Human Cerebral Cortex & Find A Central Switchboard

Image from The Daily Galaxy

From The Daily Galaxy:

The study of the human brain is one of the most fascinating, and incredibly meta, subjects in existence. The almost Escherian experiments of one brain studying another brain (which is thinking about being studied by the first) have up to now been held back by one thing: the brain's owner is kind of using it so you can't poke too hard. Now a new scanning technique has allowed scientists to probe deeper than ever into the secrets of the mind.

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Study Takes Step Toward Erasing Bad Memories

Image from The Daily Galaxy:

From Zimbio:

LONDON, Feb 15 (Reuters) - A widely available blood pressure pill could one day help people erase bad memories, perhaps treating some anxiety disorders and phobias, according to a Dutch study published on Sunday.

The generic beta-blocker propranolol significantly weakened people's fearful memories of spiders among a group of healthy volunteers who took it, said Merel Kindt, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, who led the study.

"We could show that the fear response went away, which suggests the memory was weakened," Kindt said in a telephone interview.

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Tailplane Icing (Video)

NASA figured it all out 11 years ago. The link is HERE.

Do We Need A New Internet?

Image by Guy Hoffman

From The New York Times:

Two decades ago a 23-year-old Cornell University graduate student brought the Internet to its knees with a simple software program that skipped from computer to computer at blinding speed, thoroughly clogging the then-tiny network in the space of a few hours.

The program was intended to be a digital “Kilroy Was Here.” Just a bit of cybernetic fungus that would unobtrusively wander the net. However, a programming error turned it into a harbinger heralding the arrival of a darker cyberspace, more of a mirror for all of the chaos and conflict of the physical world than a utopian refuge from it.

Since then things have gotten much, much worse.

Bad enough that there is a growing belief among engineers and security experts that Internet security and privacy have become so maddeningly elusive that the only way to fix the problem is to start over.

What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a “gated community” where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety. Today that is already the case for many corporate and government Internet users. As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there.

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Mini Nuclear Plants In Alaska

The Toshiba 4S (Super-Safe, Small and Simple) nuclear power plant is designed to be delivered, installed, and carried away 30 years later. It may meet the needs of remote sites around the world. Adapted by Morgan Ryan and Stephanie Freese from image provided by Toshiba Corporation.

A Nuke on the Yukon?

Mini-nukes arrive at the regulatory gate. Will they get through?

Morgan Ryan

Galena, Alaska, could be the type specimen for remoteness. A tiny town of about 700 on a bend of the Yukon River, it has no roads in and depends on the river for food, fuel and supplies. The river is frozen eight to nine months of the year. Galena residents pay three times the national average per kilowatt hour for diesel-generated electricity. Alternative energy would have special appeal for Galena, but with an evening that stretches 20 hours in the winter, solar is out. With the help of Toshiba and its American holding, Westinghouse, Galena is thinking nuclear.

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Camouflaging Of Viral DNA Could Be Crucial Step In Progression Of Cancers

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 14, 2009) — An estimated 15% of cancer cases can be linked to a viral infection, however the biological changes that cause some asymptomatic carriers of a virus to develop full-blown tumors are not well understood. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have mapped a chemical modification of DNA in three oncogenic viruses (Epstein-Barr, human papilloma virus, and hepatitis B virus) and found that the viral genome undergoes critical changes during the progression of disease, with implications for the development of new methods of prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Worldwide, most people are already infected with the Epstein-Barr virus, and millions are infected with the human papilloma virus and the hepatitis B virus. Many of these individuals will develop disease, and some will eventually develop a viral-related cancer such as lymphoma, liver cancer, or cervical cancer. Understanding how infections of viruses such as these can progress to cancer in some individuals is essential to the development of new methods to attack the virus and prevent malignancies.

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Scientists Warn Of First Ever Case Of Human Mad Cow Disease From Blood Plasma

From The Telegraph:

The first case of a person being infected with the human form of mad cow disease after receiving contaminated blood plasma has been identified by scientists.

The man was one of thousands of haemophiliacs who received blood plasma transfusions in the years before strict controls were brought in to eliminate the spread of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).

Until now, scientists had maintained that the 4,000 people who may have received plasma from infected donors were at very low risk of developing the fatal brain disease. Warnings were issued to them as a "highly precautionary measure".

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New Artificial DNA Points to Alien Life

From Live Science:

CHICAGO — A strange, new genetic code a lot like that found in all terrestrial life is sitting in a beaker full of oily water in a laboratory in Florida, a scientist said today, calling it the first example of an artificial chemical system that is capable of Darwinian evolution.

The system is made of the four molecules that are the basic building blocks of our DNA along with eight synthetic modifications of them, said biochemist Steven A. Benner of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville.

The main difference between the synthetic molecules and those that make up conventional DNA is that Benner's molecules cannot make copies of themselves, although that is just "a couple of years" away, he said.

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Wildlife Salute Valentines Day Of Their Own

Grizzly family. (Credit: Image courtesy of National Wildlife Federation)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 14, 2009) — While they might not be giving roses and writing love poems, wildlife have some pretty fascinating – and sometimes downright bizarre – courtship and mating rituals of their own. You won’t find singles bars or online dating sites for grizzly bears but our furry and feathered friends have some pretty interesting habits.

Here are some intriguing examples provided by the National Wildlife Federation:

* Female moths release a chemical called a pheromone into the air that male moths find irresistible. The males detect the females’ intoxicating perfume with their fuzzy, sensitive antennae. A single female moth can lure dozens of males. The bolas spider has figured out a way to mimic the pheromones of certain moths, thus luring unsuspecting male moths to an untimely death in her clutches. Talk about deadly perfume!

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Obama's BlackBerry Brings Personal Safety Risks

President Obama and his BlackBerry at the White House in late January.
(Credit: UPI Photo/Ron Sachs/Pool)

From CNET News:

When the mainstream media first announced Barack Obama's "victory" in keeping his BlackBerry, the focus was on the security of the device, and keeping the U.S. president's e-mail communications private from spies and hackers.

The news coverage and analysis by armchair security experts thus far has failed to focus on the real threat: attacks against President Obama's location privacy, and the potential physical security risks that come with someone knowing the president's real-time physical location.

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The Sweet Truth: Chocolate Can Be Healthy

From Live Science:

A bar of chocolate for your Valentine isn’t just a sweet treat, it can also be a boon to the body.

The ways in which the compounds in chocolate interact with our bodies' systems, from the stomach to the heart, have been an active area of research in recent years. Several studies have found that in small amounts, dark chocolate in particular can help prevent the blood from clumping up, keep the heart healthy and even provide some anti-cancer benefits.

Scientists caution that chocolate is far from being a cure-all, of course. But what could be better than knowing such an indulgence might be good for you?

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Scientists Discover Material Harder Than Diamond

Photo: A diamond ring. Scientists have calculated that wurtzite boron nitride and lonsdaleite (hexagonal diamond) both have greater indentation strengths than diamond. Source: English Wikipedia.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Currently, diamond is regarded to be the hardest known material in the world. But by considering large compressive pressures under indenters, scientists have calculated that a material called wurtzite boron nitride (w-BN) has a greater indentation strength than diamond. The scientists also calculated that another material, lonsdaleite (also called hexagonal diamond, since it’s made of carbon and is similar to diamond), is even stronger than w-BN and 58 percent stronger than diamond, setting a new record.

This analysis marks the first case where a material exceeds diamond in strength under the same loading conditions, explain the study’s authors, who are from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The study is published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

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Astronomers Unveiling Life's Cosmic Origins

The Cosmic Chemistry Cycle. (Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 13, 2009) — Processes that laid the foundation for life on Earth -- star and planet formation and the production of complex organic molecules in interstellar space -- are yielding their secrets to astronomers armed with powerful new research tools, and even better tools soon will be available.

Astronomers described three important developments at a symposium on the "Cosmic Cradle of Life" at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, IL.

In one development, a team of astrochemists released a major new resource for seeking complex interstellar molecules that are the precursors to life. The chemical data released by Anthony Remijan of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and his university colleagues is part of the Prebiotic Interstellar Molecule Survey, or PRIMOS, a project studying a star-forming region near the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

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The Romantic Evolution of True Love

From Live Science:

True love is all about finding that one certain someone, and anthropologists have led us to believe that the quest for the perfect mate is evolutionarily based. Humans are, the researchers contend, a naturally pair-boded species.

The standard scenario goes like this: Human babies are born about three months too soon because upright walking changed the female pelvis and babies have to get out before their heads grow too big. As a result, human babies are born neurologically unfinished; they can’t sit up or grasp or do much of anything. By necessity, adult humans are designed to respond to the cries and babbles of infants; we rush to feed them and pick them up. The burden of this kind of child care is so intense, they say, that it takes two parents to bring up even one baby.

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Valentine’s Gifts For Your Science Geek

From Smithsonian Magazine:

Valentine’s Day quickly approaches, and you may be wondering what to buy for your own geeky Valentine (or what to request for yourself). You can start off by sending a Scientist Valentine. Darwin might be the best choice, since his 200th birthday is only two days before V-Day.

Let’s move on to the classic gifts of chocolate and candy. There’s a chocolate-colored tee with the molecule theobromine, the chemical that makes chocolate so fun. The molecule can also be found in the form of earrings or a necklace.

You can show your love with a gummy heart, an anatomical one, that is. But consider carefully—the cannibalism aspect might scare someone off.

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Goodbye Mr Nice Guy

From Scienceagogo:

Just in time for Valentine's Day, researchers have turned up some new answers to the age-old question of what we want in our partners. It turns out that "chastity" is unimportant and men are more interested in an educated woman who is a good financial prospect; and women are more interested in a man who wants a family and less picky about whether he's a "nice guy."

Sociologists Christine Whelan and Christie Boxer, from the University of Iowa (UI), arrived at their findings by analyzing a 2008 survey of more than 1,100 undergraduates from four different universities and comparing the results to past mate-preference research.

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The Most Tragic Love Stories in History

A painting of Antony and Cleopatra by Lawrence Alma-Tadema in 1885

From Live Science:

Nothing celebrates Valentine's Day quite like a good love story. And by good, we mean tragic, of course.

Though Shakespeare's plays are littered with doomed lovers — unrequited passion and death makes for good reading, apparently — couples equally as star-crossed can be found in the world's history books.

These five tragic historical tales from the ancient to more recent past are as sad as anything that has ever been conjured up in fiction:

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Cooking Helped Humans Evolve ... With Side Effects

From Wired Science:

CHICAGO — Raw-food devotees take note: Your diet is not in any way natural. Humans are as adapted to cooking our food as cows are to eating grass, or ticks are to sucking blood.

"Cooking is a human universal," said Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting here Friday. While cooking kills parasites and other pathogens, Wrangham believes this health benefit is not its primary contribution.

"The fundamental importance of cooking is that it provides increased sources of energy," he said.

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New Refrigeration System Based On Magnetics More Economical And Quieter Than Current Technology

A magnetocaloric material heats up when magnetized (b); if cooled and then demagnetized (c), its temperature drops dramatically (d). NIST scientists may have found a way to use magnetocalorics in your fridge. (Credit: Talbott, NIST)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2009) — Your refrigerator’s humming, electricity-guzzling cooling system could soon be a lot smaller, quieter and more economical thanks to an exotic metal alloy discovered by an international collaboration working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Center for Neutron Research (NCNR).

The alloy may prove to be a long-sought material that will permit magnetic cooling instead of the gas-compression systems used for home refrigeration and air conditioning. The magnetic cooling technique, though used for decades in science and industry, has yet to find application in the home because of technical and environmental hurdles—but the NIST collaboration may have overcome them.

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Saliva: Secret Ingredient In The Best Kisses

From Live Science:

CHICAGO — Go ahead. Kiss the girl. And you might make it a wet one, because scientists who are starting to understand the biochemistry of kisses say that saliva increases sex drive.

Those in the kissing-science field of philematology are finding links between kissing and the hormones that affect coupling, researchers said here today at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). And these hormones are one of the keys to our reproductive success, so there's a link to evolution and passing on our genes to the next generation.

"There is evidence that saliva has testosterone in it," said Rutgers University anthropologist Helen Fisher, and testosterone increases sex drive. "And there is evidence that men like sloppier kisses with more open mouth. That suggests they are unconsciously trying to transfer testosterone to stimulate sex drive in women."

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Scanner Reveals Details Of Egyptian Mummy Inside Casket

Scan shows coffin and details of Meresamun's skeleton,
including her eye sockets, jaw and shoulders

From The Independent:

Stunning images from within the unopened casket of a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy have been revealed using a hi-tech hospital scanner.

The elaborately decorated coffin contains the wrapped remains of Meresamun, a woman believed to have been a singer-priestess at a temple in Thebes in 800 BC.

Experts do not want to disturb the casket, which has remained sealed since Meresamun was laid to rest almost 1,000 years before the birth of Christ.

But now cutting edge X-ray technology has allowed scientists to peer through the coffin and obtain astonishing 3D images of the mummy, still wrapped in her linen bandages.

A state-of-the-art computed tomography CT scanner was used to peel away the layers and reveal Meresamun's skeleton.

The mummy's remaining internal organs can be seen, as well as what appear to be stones placed in her eye sockets.

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How Broken Arm Led Scientists To Genome Of Neanderthals

From McClatchy Newspapers:

WASHINGTON — It was an unfortunate accident, but a lucky break for modern science.

About 38,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man living in what's now Croatia broke his left arm, forcing him to use his other arm for most tasks. That increased the mass and density of the bone in the upper right arm, and preserved his DNA for researchers — using a dentist's drill — to recover many millennia later.

With that bit of material, along with scraps of DNA collected from half a dozen other Neanderthal fossils, scientists have now completed a rough partial draft of the genome of humans' prehistoric cousins.

The Neanderthals lived for hundreds of thousands of years in Europe and western Asia, but went extinct about 30,000 years ago. They were replaced by Cro-Magnons, the ancestors of modern humans.

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Lifeline for Renewable Power

Photo: Green lines: Tapping energy from remote wind and solar farms will require more high-voltage transmission lines like these, near Yermo, CA, which link southern Nevada with Los Angeles. Credit: Ewan Burns

Technology Review:

Without a radically expanded and smarter electrical grid, wind and solar will remain niche power sources.

Push through a bulletproof revolving door in a nondescript building in a dreary patch of the former East Berlin and you enter the control center for Vattenfall Europe Transmission, the company that controls northeastern Germany's electrical grid. A monitor displaying a diagram of that grid takes up most of one wall. A series of smaller screens show the real-time output of regional wind turbines and the output that had been predicted the previous day. Germany is the world's largest user of wind energy, with enough turbines to produce 22,250 megawatts of electricity. That's roughly the equivalent of the output from 22 coal plants--enough to meet about 6 percent of Germany's needs. And because Vattenfall's service area produces 41 percent of German wind energy, the control room is a critical proving ground for the grid's ability to handle renewable power.

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13 Facts About Friday The 13th

From Live Science:

If you fear Friday the 13th, then batten down the hatches. This week's unlucky day is the first of three this year.

The next Friday the 13th comes in March, followed by Nov. 13. Such a triple whammy comes around only every 11 years, said Thomas Fernsler, a math specialist at the University of Delaware who has studied the number 13 for more than 20 years.

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Wireless Electricity Is Here (Seriously)

Ryan Tseng holds his wirelessly lit lightbulb 3 inches above its power source.
Photograph by Phillip Toledano

From Fast Company:

I'm standing next to a Croatian-born American genius in a half-empty office in Watertown, Massachusetts, and I'm about to be fried to a crisp. Or I'm about to witness the greatest advance in electrical science in a hundred years. Maybe both.

Either way, all I can think of is my electrician, Billy Sullivan. Sullivan has 11 tattoos and a voice marinated in Jack Daniels. During my recent home renovation, he roared at me when I got too close to his open electrical panel: "I'm the Juice Man!" he shouted. "Stay the hell away from my juice!"

He was right. Only gods mess with electrons. Only a fool would shoot them into the air. And yet, I'm in a conference room with a scientist who is going to let 120 volts fly out of the wall, on purpose.

"Don't worry," says the MIT assistant professor and a 2008 MacArthur genius-grant winner, Marin Soljacic (pronounced SOLE-ya-cheech), who designed the box he's about to turn on. "You will be okay."

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Crash Of US, Russian Satellites A Threat In Space

NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office has counted about 17,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters, and it estimates that there are more than 200,000 particles between one and 10 centimeters. The debris objects shown here are an artist's impression based on actual density data. The objects are shown at an exaggerated size to make them visible at the scale shown. (European Space Agency)

From Yahoo News/AP:

MOSCOW – U.S. and Russian officials traded shots Thursday over who was to blame for a huge satellite collision this week that spewed speeding clouds of debris into space, threatening other unmanned spacecraft in nearby orbits.

The smashup 500 miles (800 kilometers) over Siberia on Tuesday involved a derelict Russian spacecraft designed for military communications and a working satellite owned by U.S.-based Iridium, which served commercial customers as well as the U.S. Department of Defense.

A prominent Russian space expert suggested NASA fell down on the job by not warning of the collision. But U.S. space experts said the Russian has the wrong agency.

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More News On The U.S./Russian Satellite Collision

Satellite collision highlights space-junk threat -- Christian Science Monitor
PHOTOS: Satellite Collision Creates Dangerous Debris -- National Geographic
Pentagon fails to anticipate satellite collision -- AFP
Space-collision debris poses risk to satellites, experts say -- CBC
U.S. warns of space "dodgeball" after satellite crash -- Reuters
U.S. to release update regarding satellite debris in 72 hours: spokeswoman -- China View

Common Cold DNA Deciphered, Congestion Continues

Structure of the human rhinovirus capsid. Credit: of J.-Y. Sgro, UW-Madison

From Live Science:

Snifflers of the world rejoice: Scientists are one step closer to finding effective treatments for the common cold now that researchers have deciphered the genetic code of the ubiquitous virus.

While a full-blown cure for the common cold is not expected anytime soon, the mapping of the human rhinovirus's genetic blueprint will help scientists better understand and combat this highly contagious pathogen. In the meantime, there are always ways to help keep yourself from succumbing to the coughs and congestion.

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“We’ve Lost Two People In My Family Because You Dickheads Won’t Cut Trees Down…”

After suffering court action that cost the family $100,000, Liam Sheahan believes clearing trees saved his home and his family. Photo: Paul Rovere

From Watts Up With That?:

I’m no stranger to wildland fires. Longtime readers may recall that my own home had the threat of wildfires here in Chico, California this past summer, as did many Butte County residents who not only were threatened, but lost homes.

The recent fires in Australia and the loss of life and property were apparently compounded by a draconian policy that prevented people who lived in the fire threat zones from cutting trees and brush near their properties. We witnessed something equally tragic in Lake Tahoe fire in 2007, owing to similar eco driven government stupidity forcing heavy handed policies there. Residents couldn’t get permits to cut down brush and trees, the result was a firestorm of catastrophic proportions.

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Unseen Dark Comets 'Could Pose Deadly Threat To Earth'

'Dark' comets happen when the water on their surface has evaporated,
causing them to reflect less light Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Unseen "dark" comets could pose a deadly threat to earth, astronomers have warned.

The comets, of which there could be thousands, are not currently monitored by observatories and space agencies.

Most comets and asteroids are monitored in case they start to travel towards earth.

But Bill Napier, from Cardiff University, said that many could be going by unnoticed.

"There is a case to be made that dark, dormant comets are a significant but largely unseen hazard," he said

Scientists estimate that there should be around 3,000 comets in the solar system, but only 25 have so far been identified.

"Dark" comets happen when the water on their surface has evaporated, causing them to reflect less light.

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Why Sleep Is Needed To Form Memories

The world as the brain sees it. Optical 'polar' maps of the visual cortex are generated by measuring micro-changes in blood oxygenation as the left eye (left panel) or right eye is stimulated by bars of light of different orientations (0-180 degrees). The cortical response to each stimulus is pseudo-colored to represent the orientation that best activates visual cortical neurons. If vision is blocked in an eye (the right eye in this example) during a critical period of development, neurons no longer respond to input from the deprived eye pathway (indicated by a loss of color in the right panel) and begin to respond preferentially to the non-deprived eye pathway. These changes are accompanied by alterations in synaptic connections in single neurons. This process, known as ocular dominance plasticity, is enhanced by sleep via activation of NMDA receptors and intracellular kinase activity. Through these mechanisms, sleep strengthens synaptic connections in the non-deprived eye pathway. (Credit: Marcos Frank, PhD University of Pennsylvania)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2009) — If you ever argued with your mother when she told you to get some sleep after studying for an exam instead of pulling an all-nighter, you owe her an apology, because it turns out she's right. And now, scientists are beginning to understand why.

In research published recently in Neuron, Marcos Frank, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, PhD, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular changes in the sleeping brain promote the formation of memories.

"This is the first real direct insight into how the brain, on a cellular level, changes the strength of its connections during sleep," Frank says.

The findings, says Frank, reveal that the brain during sleep is fundamentally different from the brain during wakefulness.

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Could Someone Really Teleport Out of Jail?: Fringe Fact vs. Fiction

From Popular Mechanics:

David Robert Jones is back causing mayhem. In last night's episode of Fringe, "Ability," the villainous mystery man tries to kill with an affliction that causes hyperactive scar tissue, which closes all the victim's orifices, so they can't breathe. But to execute his murderous plan, he needs to first spring himself from a German prison using a fantastically sci-fi weapon (a stolen design from our mad scientist, Walter Bishop): a disintegration-reintegration ray. This scenario may be equal to the standard of truth-stretching that we know and love in Fringe—neither Mr. Jones nor any other person will be teleported from place to place anytime soon. But there is a bizarre real-life analogue for this Star Trek tech. Just as when bank robbers walked through walls in "Safe," four episodes ago, Fringe borrows from weird phenomena that actually happen at the quantum level. Then, it was quantum tunneling, but this week it's something just as odd: quantum teleportation.

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Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We're Talking Gigawatts

The new solar thermal power plant in Spain stands at 40 storeys high and looks as if it was being hosed with giant sprays of water from afar. Upon closer inspection, one realizes that this tower is reflected by a field of 600 gigantic mirrors, generating up to 11 Megawatts of electricity without emitting a single bit of greenhouse gas. That's enough juice to power up to 6,000 homes as the focused rays turn water into steam that subsequently generate power by turning the turbines. When the sun goes down, enough heat has already been stored in the form of steam to continue power generation for approximately an additional hour, although future advances hope to increase that time. (Image from Ubergizmo)

From Wired:

The largest series of solar installations in history, more than 1,300 megawatts, is planned for the desert outside Los Angeles, according to a new deal between the utility Southern California Edison and solar power plant maker, BrightSource.

The momentous deal will deliver more electricity than even the largest nuclear plant, spread out among seven facilities, the first of which will start up in 2013. When fully operational, the companies say the facility will provide enough electricity to power 845,000 homes — more than exist in San Francisco — though estimates like that are notoriously squirrely.

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Could ‘Liquid Wood’ Replace Plastic?

Image from The Christian Science Monitor (Scott Wallace/Staff)

From Christian Science Monitor:

Germans engineer an organic alternative from a paper waste product.

Almost 40 years ago, American scientists took their first steps in a quest to break the world’s dependence on plastics.

But in those four decades, plastic products have become so cheap and durable that not even the forces of nature seem able to stop them. A soupy expanse of plastic waste – too tough for bacteria to break down – now covers an estimated 1 million square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

Sensing a hazard, researchers started hunting for a substitute for plastic’s main ingredient, petroleum. They wanted something renewable, biodegradable, and abundant enough to be inexpensive.

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