The Chemistry of Life: Where Oil Comes From

The generally accepted theory for the origin of petroleum a geologic processing of the dead remains of ancient ocean life. Credit: DOE

From Live Science:

Editor's Note: This occasional series of articles looks at the vital things in our lives and the chemistry they are made of.

Oil, the lifeblood of U.S. transportation today, is thought to start with the remnants of tiny organisms that lived millions of years ago, but the exact chemical transformation is somewhat mysterious. New research is looking at the role played by microorganisms that live in the deep dark bowels of the Earth.

A minority of scientists say otherwise, but most geologists think that the petroleum we pump from the ground (and later refine into gasoline and other fuels) comes predominantly from the fossils of marine life, such as algae and plankton.

Read more ....

A Cyber Sensation: World's First Robotic Model To Star In Her Own Fashion Show

The 'cybernetic human' has been designed to look like an average Japanese woman and portrays anger (L) and surprise (R)

From Daily Mail:

Robots could soon be gracing the catwalk, thanks to a black-haired cybernetic beauty who is preparing to make her debut at a fashion show in Japan.

Fetchingly named HRP-4C, the humanoid has 30 motors in her body that allows her to walk and move her arms as well as eight motors on its face to create expressions like anger and surprise.

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Scientists Aim To Replicate The Sun

NASA's STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft observed this visually stunning prominence eruption on the Sun in the 304 angstrom wavelength of extreme UV light. Prominences are relatively cool clouds of gas suspended above the sun and controlled by magnetic forces.

From UPI:

LIVERMORE, Calif., March 15 (UPI) -- Scientists in California say they're trying to replicate the power of the sun by firing laser beams at a tiny pellet of hydrogen.

Physicists at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore say the nuclear fusion experiments may offer the world a clean source of energy
, The Times of London reported Sunday.

The hydrogen pellet will be hit with 192 laser beams capable of generating 500 trillion watts -- 1,000 times the power of the U.S. national grid, said the scientists.

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What Happens At The Moment Of Death?

Peering Down The Tunnel Beyond Death -- Globe And Mail

Hollywood favours, for simplicity's sake, the instant flat-line death; the hero gasps a brilliant line, his eyes dim and he's gone. But in real life, dying has more drama. The heart and lungs quit, the blood, carrying its life-giving oxygen, stops flowing and the brain, without its generator, chugs to a standstill. Abandoned in the dark, the cells take their last stand, firing off chemicals like distress flares. When no rescue comes, they begin to suffocate one by one. The cell membranes rupture, spilling out the insides. Or they implode.

Yet now and then there is Hollywood-style rescue: The heart is kick-started back to life, blood pumps, the brain sucks in oxygen in time to save itself. We've all heard the stories of people who return from the edge of death: bright tunnels, visions of dead relatives and, most logic-defying of all, floating above themselves watching the doctors trying to save them.

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Young Dinosaurs Roamed Together, Died Together

While approaching the edge of a lake in what is today the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, a herd of young Sinornithomimus dinosaurs suddenly finds itself hopelessly trapped in mud some 90 million years ago. (Credit: Art by Todd Marshall, courtesy of Project Exploration)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — A herd of young birdlike dinosaurs met their death on the muddy margins of a lake some 90 million years ago, according to a team of Chinese and American paleontologists that excavated the site in the Gobi Desert in western Inner Mongolia.

The Sudden sudden death of the herd in a mud trap provides a rare snapshot of social behavior. Composed entirely of juveniles of a single species of ornithomimid dinosaur (Sinornithomimus dongi), the herd suggests that immature individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding.

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Robot Madness: Preventing Insurrection of Machines

USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67) conducts a Phalanx live fire training exercise. The Phalanx is a fast-reaction, rapid-fire 20-millimeter gun system that automatically detects, tracks and engages threats such as anti-ship missiles and aircraft. Credit: U.S. Navy

From Live Science:

In Robot Madness, LiveScience examines humanoid robots and cybernetic enhancement of humans, as well as the exciting and sometimes frightening convergence of it all. Return for a new episode each Monday, Wednesday and Friday through April 6.

A robotic future holds the promise of providing tireless workers and companions for humans, but it can also evoke worries about an armed machine insurrection along the lines of the "Terminator" movies.

Experts consider that dark vision to be on the distant horizon, although they now point to other ethical issues that arise from the growing presence of battlefield bots and their potential to decide to attack autonomously, possibly as soon as in the next 20 years .

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People With Higher IQs Live Longer

From The Telegraph:

People with higher IQs are more likely to live into healthy old age, according to a study.

Unfortunately, those who do not perform so well in intelligence tests could suffer a higher risk of heart disease, fatal accidents and suicide.

The discovery was made after researchers looked into the medical records of one million Swedish army conscripts.

After taking into account whether they had grown up in a safer, more affluent environment, they established the connection between IQ and mortality.

One of the researchers, Dr David Batty, said the statistics showed "a strong link between cognitive ability and the risk of death."

He added: "People with higher IQ test scores tend to be less likely to smoke or drink alcohol heavily. They also eat better diets, and they are more physically active. So they have a range of better behaviours that may partly explain their lower mortality risk."

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Fossil Hunters Find Sea Monster ... And A Dinosaur The Size Of A Skinny Chicken

Artist's impression of a 45-tonne Pliosaur attacking a Plesiosaur.
Photograph: Atlantic Productions

From The Guardian:

The giant meat-eating reptile, known as a pliosaur, had a bite four times as powerful as T. rex. The second creature, on the other hand, may be the least scary dinosaur ever discovered.

The remains of a giant meat-eating sea monster that patrolled the oceans during the reign of the dinosaurs have been unearthed on an island in the remote Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

Norwegian fossil hunters recovered the rear half of the formidable reptile's skull in south-west Spitsbergen in what has been described as one of the most significant Jurassic discoveries ever made.

The predator has been identified as a new species of pliosaur, a group of extinct aquatic reptiles that had huge skulls, short necks and four flippers to power them through the water.

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Who Protects The Internet?

Webmaster: John Rennie and "the Beast" aboard the Wave Sentinel in
the port of Dorset, England Jonathan Worth

From Popsci.com:

Pull up the wrong undersea cable, and the Internet goes dark in Berlin or Dubai. See our animated infographics of how the web works!

For the past five years, John Rennie has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by U.K.-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie--a congenial, 6'4", 57-year-old Scotsman--patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables. The cables, thick as fire hoses and packed with fiber optics, run everywhere along the seafloor, ferrying phone and Web traffic from continent to continent at the speed of light.

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Quantum Physicist Wins $1.4M Templeton Prize For Writing on “Veiled Reality”

From Discover:

French physicist Bernard d’Espagnat has won the annual Templeton Prize with its purse of $1.4 million; the prize is often given to scientists who find common ground between religion and science. Professor d’Espagnat, 87, worked with great luminaries of quantum physics but went on to address the philosophical questions that the field poses [BBC News].

Physicists may be more open to seeing a higher power behind the great mysteries of the universe than scientists in other disciplines: Including Dr. d’Espagnat, five of the past 10 Templeton winners have been physicists or have had strong connections to the discipline [The Christian Science Monitor].

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Watery Asteroids May Explain Why Life Is 'Left-Handed'

Image: Amino acids, such as isovaline (illustrated), come in left- and right-handed forms, but almost every living organism on Earth uses left-handed forms. New research suggests that water on asteroids amplified a bias - possibly caused by polarised starlight - towards left-handed amino acids (Illustration: NASA/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith)

From New Scientist:

Soggy rocks hurtling through the solar system gave life on Earth an addiction to left-handed proteins, according to a new study. The research suggests that water on asteroids amplified left-handed amino acid molecules, making them dominate over their right-handed mirror images.

Curiously, almost every living organism on Earth uses left-handed amino acids instead of their right-handed counterparts. In the 1990s, scientists found that meteorites contain up to 15% more of the left version too. That suggests space rocks bombarding the early Earth biased its chemistry so that life used left-handed amino acids instead of right.

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Botnet Back-Up Gives Glimpse Into Hackers' World

Photo: Coromandel teen Owen Thor Walker last year admitted to running a botnet that controlled a million computers worldwide. Photo / Alan Gibson

From New Zealand Herald:

SAN FRANCISCO - Getting hacked is like having your computer turn traitor on you, spying on everything you do and shipping your secrets to identity thieves.

Victims don't see where their stolen data end up. But sometimes security researchers do, stumbling across stolen-data troves that offer a glimpse of what identity theft looks like from criminals' perspective.

Researchers from U.K.-based security firm Prevx found one such trove, a website used as a stash house for data from 160,000 infected computers before it was shut down this month.

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7 International Spacecraft that Could Replace NASA's Shuttle

A Chinese rocket carrying the Shenzhou-7 spaceship blasts off from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. (Photo by Xu Haihan/ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

NASA's Orion won't be ready until at least 2015, but the current space shuttle is due to retire next year. Meet the seven international spacecraft from the world's space fleet that could inherit the job of ferrying supplies into space.

The space shuttle is due for retirement in 2010, and NASA’s next spaceship, Orion, won’t be available until at least 2015. That will leave a five-year gap during which NASA astronauts and space-station cargo will be grounded unless they find other ways to get to orbit. In the past, NASA has cadged rides off its former arch-rival, the Russian Federal Space Agency, and its Soyuz (for astronauts) and Progress (for cargo) spacecraft. But relations between the U.S. and Russia are cooling, raising the very real prospect that Congress will forbid NASA to buy spaceflights from Russia. NASA has stepped up its support of two U.S. companies, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Orbital Sciences Corporation, that hope to have unmanned cargo spaceships ready for launch by 2010. (See details below.) Even if these companies succeed, NASA will still have to rely on Soyuz for manned flights. But maybe not for long. Here’s a roundup of seven rides to low Earth orbit besides the space shuttle and Soyuz that could be available for space-station flights.

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Gallery: The Top 10 Failed NASA Missions

9. Demonstration for Autonomous Rendezvous Technology (DART) Spacecraft : The Mission: Upset with the expense and risk of launching the shuttle every time a satellite needed maintenance, NASA created the DART to show that a robotic satellite could dock with other satellites. DART was supposed to autonomously navigate towards, and then rendezvous with, an existing communications satellite.

The Problem: And did it ever rendezvous! The computer controlling DART incorrectly estimated the distance between the two satellites, causing DART to bump right into the other satellite! DART then used up all of its fuel, eventually crashing into the ocean.
Courtesy of NASA

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Popsci.:

Like no other modern endeavor, the space program inspires all mankind by pushing the edge of the possible. At least, when it works it does. Often, the casual integration of satellite technology into nearly all modern electronics combines with imagery of brave astronauts going forth for all mankind to obscure the basic fact that sending something into space is damn hard, and often fails.

So, inspired by the recent loss of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite, Popsci.com is taking a look back at the Top 10 missions that didn’t slip the surly bonds of Earth, failed to trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, and most certainly did not touch the face of God.

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Trend: Daughters Follow Dads' Footsteps

From Live Science:

Women nowadays are three times more likely than those born a century ago to do what men have done for millennia — follow their father's footsteps into his line of work, a newly announced study finds.

One way or another, fathers and daughters have been paying more attention to each other, and daughters picked up job cues or assistance from dads, as more and more women entered the labor force, the research suggests.

Just under 6 percent of women born from 1909 to 1915 worked in their father's occupation, while around 20 percent of women born in the mid-1970s do so (they are in their early 30s now), the researchers found.

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Anger And Hostility Harmful To The Heart, Especially Among Men

New research shows that anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease. (Credit: iStockphoto/Vasko Miokovic)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2009) — Anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease, according to the first quantitative review and meta-analysis of related studies, which appears in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Management of anger and hostility may be an important adjuvant strategy in preventing CHD in the general public and treating CHD patients, according to authors.

Read more ....

Planets Like Earth Appear To Be Out There

Image from National Geographic

From Japan Times:

LONDON — The real wonder of our age is this. You can go on the Web, type in PlanetQuest New Worlds Atlas, or Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, or NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, and directly access the data on 340 new planets that have been discovered in the past five years.

That number is set to grow very fast now, for on March 6 The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) successfully launched the Kepler telescope, which will find many more planets including potentially Earth-like ones. It will stare unblinkingly at an area of space containing about 100,000 relatively near stars, watching for the tiny dimming of a star that happens when one of its planets passes between the star and us.

Read more ....

After 10 Years, Space Station Finally Nears Completion

The space shuttle Discovery sits on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Scott Audette/REUTERS)

From Christian Science Monitor:

The Space Shuttle Discovery will bring the last US-made piece to the space station when it launches Wednesday.

A decade ago, the United States docked its first module, Destiny, to an embryonic International Space Station. Tonight, the space shuttle Discovery is set to launch an American segment that could be called “Finally!”

The last major US-built component – a 15.5-ton truss bearing the station’s last set of solar panels – is nestled snuggly in Discovery’s cargo bay, awaiting the orbiter’s launch, now scheduled for Thursday night after Wednesday’s planned launch was scrubbed due to a hydrogen gas leak.

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Shuttle Discovery Lifts Off On Mission To ISS -- News Updates March 15, 2009

The US Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off. Photo AFP

From AFP:

CAPE CANAVERAL (AFP) — The shuttle Discovery has blasted off on a mission to outfit the International Space Station with a final pair of solar wings ahead of the arrival in a few weeks of an expanded space crew.

The spacecraft launched at 7:43 pm (2343 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Just over eight minutes later, the shuttle entered orbit.

The journey was expected to take two days to reach the ISS, where the seven-member crew was to deliver and install the fourth and final pair of solar wings on the orbiting ISS, in one of the last major tasks of the more than decade-long effort to construct the station.

Read more ....

More News On The Launch Of Discovery

Discovery blasts off into space -- BBC
Successful Launch Starts Shuttle Mission -- Aviation Week
Discovery heads to International Space Station -- Orlando Sentinel
STS-119 Launches into Space…Finally -- The Future Of Things
Discovery blasts off for mission to international space station -- CBC
Space shuttle Discovery reaches orbit successfully -- Scientific American
Space Shuttle Discovery successfully launches after a month of delays -- Wikinews
Backgrounder: Crew members of U.S. space shuttle Discovery's STS-119 mission -- China View

Low-Energy Light Bulbs Can Cause Rashes And Swelling To Sensitive Skin, Warn Experts

A break with tradition: Medical experts say people with light-sensitive skin disorders should be exempt from using low-energy light bulbs

From Daily Mail Online:

The phasing out of traditional light bulbs could cause misery for thousands who have light-sensitive skin disorders, medical experts warned yesterday.

Dr Robert Sarkany said some low-energy bulbs gave vulnerable people painful rashes and swelling.

He backed calls by patient groups for the Government to give medical exemptions for those at risk.

The warning comes as British shops start to clear their shelves of traditional bulbs, which are being replaced by more energy-efficient versions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Read more ....

'Supermodel' Satellite Set To Fly

In orbit, the same side of the GOCE satellite remains facing the Sun. The spacecraft is equipped with four body-mounted and two wing-mounted solar panels. Due to the configuration in orbit, the solar panels will experience extreme temperature variations so it has been necessary to use materials that will tolerate temperatures as high as 160ºC and as low as -170ºC. (Credit: ESA - AOES Medialab)

From The BBC:

Europe is set to launch one of its most challenging space missions to date.

The Goce satellite will map minute variations in the pull of gravity experienced across the planet.

Scientists will use its data to improve their understanding of how the oceans move, and to frame a universal system to measure height anywhere on Earth.

The super-sleek spacecraft will go into orbit on a modified intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia.

Lift-off for the Rockot vehicle is timed for 1421 GMT on Monday.

Most satellites launched into space are ugly boxes. The European Space Agency's (Esa) Goce satellite is very different.

Read more ....

Earth's Dimming Skies: Before And After

From Wired Science:

Earth's skies have dimmed since the mid-1970s, as airborne pollutants scatter the sun's rays and turn blue skies into a milky haze.

The effect was quantified in a study published on Thursday in Science, and widely covered by the press. But the study explained the effect with graphs, and stories only described a phenomena for which words aren't enough.

Enter Photoshop and the guidance of study co-author Kaicun Wang, a University of Maryland, College Park atmospheric scientist. The resulting visualization takes the worst dimming, experienced in southeast Asia, and applies it to a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Tiny Brain Region Key To Fear Of Rivals And Predators

A piece of the brain's hypothalamus (shown in middle of the above model) is key to animals' fear of territorial rivals and predators, according to a new study. Without it, animals lose all sense of caution. (Credit: iStockphoto/Karen Roach)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2009) — Mice lose their fear of territorial rivals when a tiny piece of their brain is neutralized, a new study reports.

The study adds to evidence that primal fear responses do not depend on the amygdala – long a favored region of fear researchers – but on an obscure corner of the primeval brain.

A group of neuroscientists led by Larry Swanson of the University of Southern California studied the brain activity of rats and mice exposed to cats, or to rival rodents defending their territory.

Both experiences activated neurons in the dorsal premammillary nucleus, part of an ancient brain region called the hypothalamus.

Read more ....

Metamaterial Revolution: The New Science of Making Anything Disappear

A metamaterial sends rays of light cascading around a ball, rendering it invisible,
in this schematic. David Schurg

From Discover:

Engineers are working with metamaterials to create super-microscopes, optical computers, and yes, invisibility cloaks

Xiang Zhang remembers the day he recognized that something extraordinary was happening around him. It was in 2000, at a workshop organized by DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) to explore a tantalizing idea: that radical new kinds of engineered materials might enable us to extend our control over matter in seemingly magical ways.

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Thrill Seekers Lack Brakes In The Brain

From ScienCentral:

New research gives a possible explanation for why some of us are thrill seekers and others like to play it safe. The study found that some of us can’t control the release of a certain brain chemical.

"Adrenaline Junkies" Actually Prefer Dopamine

Wouldn’t it be amazing if researchers could scan our brains and see whether we have thrill seeking personality traits? Vanderbilt University psychologist David Zald has come pretty close. He has conducted a study that links thrill seeking behavior with a difference in specific part of the dopamine system in the brain.

“Dopamine does a number of different things. Probably most importantly though it’s involved in motivation and reward,” explains Zald. “And it’s the critical chemical in terms of people really wanting to do things.”

Read more ....

Technique Disables Plutonium's Use in Bombs

Keeping Nuke Fuel Safe: Scientists report that adding the element Americium, a synthetic compound used in commercial smoke detectors and industrial gauges, to nuclear power plant fuel generates higher-than-normal concentrations of a particular type of plutonium, rendering it useless for armaments without additional processing. iStockPhoto

From Discover Magazine:

Israeli scientists have devised a technique to keep plutonium produced in nuclear power plants from being used in nuclear bombs.

Adding the element Americium, a synthetic compound used in commercial smoke detectors and industrial gauges, to nuclear power plant fuel generates higher-than-normal concentrations of a particular type of plutonium, rendering it useless for armaments without additional processing.

Read more ....

My Comment: One small step to insure such materials do not fall into the hands of those who may harbor ill will.

Global Hurricane Activity Has Decreased To The Lowest Level In 30 Years.

(Click the Above Image to Enlarge)
Figure: Global 24-month running sum time-series of
Accumulated Cyclone Energy updated through March 12, 2009.

From Watts Up With That?

Very important: global hurricane activity includes the 80-90 tropical cyclones that develop around the world during a given calendar year, including the 12-15 that occur in the North Atlantic (Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean included). The heightened activity in the North Atlantic since 1995 is included in the data used to create this figure.

As previously reported here and here at Climate Audit, and chronicled at my Florida State Global Hurricane Update page, both Northern Hemisphere and overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least. Since hurricane intensity and detection data is problematic as one goes back in time, when reporting and observing practices were different than today, it is possible that we underestimated global hurricane energy during the 1970s. See notes at bottom to avoid terminology discombobulation.

Read more ....

Why Is Obama Going Gray?

Barack Obama in January 2008, a few days after he became president. Credit: White House

From Live Science:

News reports today point out that President Obama is going a little gray at the temples. Is it the stress of the job, or is he due to go gray about now anyway?

We saw it happen to George Bush, and in dramatic fashion with Bill Clinton. Obama saw his own grayer self coming.

"Seniors, listen up. I'm getting gray hair myself," Obama said at a campaign stop in Indiana last spring, according to The Washington Post. "The gray is coming quick," he said a few months later. "By the time I'm sworn in, I will look the part."

Read more ....

Solar Panels In The Sahara 'Could Power The Whole Of Europe'

A solar power plant in the Mojave Desert. (Solar Systems/AP)

From Times Online:

All of Europe’s energy needs could be supplied by building an array of solar panels in the Sahara, the climate change conference has been told.

Technological advances combined with falling costs have made it realistic to consider North Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy. By harnessing the power of the Sun, possibly in tandem with wind farms along the North African coastline, Europe could easily meet its 2020 target of generating at least 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.

Read more ....

Old Age Begins At 27: Scientists Reveal New Research Into Ageing

Photo: Getting old already? 27-year-old singer Beyonce Knowles is already past her mental peak according to new research

From The Daily Mail:

Old age is often blamed for causing us to misplace car keys, forget a word or lose our train of thought.

But new research shows that many well-known effects of ageing may start decades before our twilight years.

According to scientists, our mental abilities begin to decline from the age of 27 after reaching a peak at 22.

The researchers studied 2,000 men and women aged 18 to 60 over seven years. The people involved – who were mostly in good health and well-educated – had to solve visual puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.

Similar tests are often used to diagnose mental disabilities and declines, including dementia.

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'Peking Man' Older Than Thought; Somehow Adapted To Cold

Darryl Granger, a Purdue professor of earth and atmospheric sciences, stands with the accelerator mass spectrometer used in a study that determined the age of "Peking Man" was around 200,000 years older than previously thought. Purdue is the only university in the nation with an accelerator mass spectrometer powerful enough to perform the type of testing used in this study. (Credit: Purdue News Service photo/Andrew Hancock)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2009) — A new dating method has found that "Peking Man" is around 200,000 years older than previously thought, suggesting he somehow adapted to the cold of a mild glacial period.

A dating method developed by a Purdue University researcher allowed a more accurate determination of the age of the Zhoukoudian, China, site of remains of Homo erectus, commonly known as "Peking Man." The site was found to be 680,000-780,000 years old. Earlier estimates put the age at 230,000-500,000 years old.

Read more ....

Brain Scans Can Read Memories

From Live Science:

Humans create memories of locations in physical or virtual space as they move around – and it all shows up on brain scans.

Researchers tracked brain activity related to "spatial memory" as volunteers moved about inside a virtual reality setup. Their new study challenges previous scientific thinking by showing that memories are recorded in regular patterns.

Read more ....

Physicists Get Closer To Finding The 'God Particle'

Photo: Emeritus professor at the University of Edinburgh, British Peter Higgs, seen here on April 7, 2008, smiles during a press conference in Geneva. Physicists have come closer to finding the elusive "God Particle," which they hope could one day explain why particles have mass, the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced Friday. (AFP/File/Fabrice Coffrini)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

CHICAGO (AFP) – Physicists have come closer to finding the elusive "God Particle," which they hope could one day explain why particles have mass, the US Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced Friday.

Researchers at the Fermilab have managed to shrink the territory where the elusive Higgs Boson particle is expected to be found -- a discovery placing the American research institute ahead of its European rival in the race to discover one of the biggest prizes in physics.

Physicists have long puzzled over how particles acquire mass.

Read more ....

Scientist: Warming Could Cut Population to 1 Billion

Photo: Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, spoke several times at the climate conference in Copenhagen. Lizette Kabré. Climate congress, Copenhagen 2009.

From Dot.com/New York Times:

[UPDATE, 1:45 p.m.: A roundup of economists' and scientists' views at the Copenhagen climate meeting and a reaction from Mike Hulme, a participating scientist.]

COPENHAGEN — A scientist known for his aggressive stance on climate policy made an apocalyptic prediction on Thursay.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said that if the buildup of greenhouse gases and its consequences pushed global temperatures 9 degrees Fahrenheit higher than today — well below the upper temperature range that scientists project could occur from global warming — Earth’s population would be devastated. [UPDATED, 6:10 p.m: The preceding line was adjusted to reflect that Dr. Schellnhuber was not describing a worst-case warming projection. h/t to Joe Romm.]
“In a very cynical way, it’s a triumph for science because at last we have stabilized something –- namely the estimates for the carrying capacity of the planet, namely below 1 billion people,” said Dr. Schellnhuber, who has advised German Chancellor Angela Merkel on climate policy and is a visiting professor at Oxford.

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Physicist Develops Battery Using New Source Of Energy

The top is a graphic representation of the overall device structure. The diameter is roughly that of a human hair. The bottom is a magnified image of the central part. The white spots are atoms and the white circles are the nano-magnets, the "working part" of the device. Credit: Pham Nam Hai

From Physorg.com:

Researchers at the University of Miami and at the Universities of Tokyo and Tohoku, Japan, have been able to prove the existence of a "spin battery," a battery that is "charged" by applying a large magnetic field to nano-magnets in a device called a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). The new technology is a step towards the creation of computer hard drives with no moving parts, which would be much faster, less expensive and use less energy than current ones. In the future, the new battery could be developed to power cars.

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of Nature and is available in an online advance publication of the journal.

The device created by University of Miami Physicist Stewart E. Barnes, of the College of Arts and Sciences and his collaborators can store energy in magnets rather than through chemical reactions. Like a winding up toy car, the spin battery is "wound up" by applying a large magnetic field --no chemistry involved. The device is potentially better than anything found so far, said Barnes.

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Want To Rewire Your Brain? Study Music

Studying music can change the way a brain is wired, new research finds.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)

From ABC News:

All Those Hours at the Piano Paid Off: A Musician's Brain Recognizes Sound That Carries Emotion.

All those hours practicing the piano pay off big time by biologically enhancing a person's ability to quickly recognize and mentally process sounds that carry emotion, according to a new study.

The study, from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., offers a new line of evidence that the brain we end up with is not necessarily the same brain we started out with.

"We are measuring what the nervous system has become, based on an individual's experience with sound," Nina Kraus, director of the university's groundbreaking Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, said in a telephone interview.

Read more ....

Happy 20th Birthday, World Wide Web

TIM BERNERS-LEE (2001)
© LE FEVRE COMMUNICATIONS

The Mind Behind The Web -- Scientific American

Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and continues to shape its frantic evolution. He's neither rich nor famous, which is fine by him.

It is a cool morning in April 1999, and 1,500 computer scientists, university faculty, and industry CEOs are streaming into a vast fieldhouse at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, outside Boston. They grab coffee and seat themselves for a keynote speech that will cap the 35th anniversary celebration of M.I.T.'s Laboratory for Computer Science, the fount of so many creations that have driven the computer revolution.

From a makeshift stage, lab director Michael Dertouzos calls out, "We've had a great party! Now the man you've been waiting for: Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web." The crowd hushes and arches forward, for they know the name but not the man. Out from the shadows strides a sprightly 43-year-old Briton, smiling beneath a short crop of blond hair.

Read more ....

More News On The Web's Birthday

Sir Tim Berners-Lee: The man who invented the world wide web -- The Telegraph
Facts about the Web's Creation -- Scientific American
Remembering the Day the World Wide Web Was Born -- Scientific American
Cern celebrates 20 years of the web -- ZDNet
World wide web turns 20 -- The Telegraph
Web is 20 today; anyone for cake? -- Computer World
20 years ago, the World Wide Web was born -- Mercury News
Web founder fears 'snooping' on the Internet -- AFP

Friday The 13th Strikes Again -- Two Months In A Row

Traditionally an omen of ill fortune, a black cat crosses a Palermo, Italy, street in an undated photo. Unlike its feline fellow resident of the bad luck hall of fame, Friday the 13th doesn't have nine lives—it can't even exist more than three times a year, thanks to the eccentricities of the calendar. Photograph by William Albert Allard/NGS

From The National Geographic:

You're not having a nightmare. It really is Friday the 13th again.

For the first time in 11 years, Friday the 13th is falling in two consecutive months. This double threat can only occur in certain non-leap years and only in a February-March combination. Look for it—or avoid it—again in 2015.

The double whammy isn't the only Friday the 13th claim to infamy for 2009, a particularly tough year for superstitious minds.

The ominous date falls on three Fridays this year: February 13; this Friday, March 13; and again on November 13.

But three Friday the 13ths is the yearly maximum, as long as societies continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582.

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Unlocking The Secrets And Powers Of The Brain

From Discover:

Last November, DISCOVER and the National Science Foundation launched a series of events to explore the biggest questions in science today.

In the first event, “Unlocking the Secrets and Powers of the Brain,” four leading psychologists and neuroscientists discussed the hottest issues in brain research, from predicting human behavior to manipulating memory to pinpointing consciousness. Hosted by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, the panel was moderated by the award-winning author (and DISCOVER blogger and columnist) Carl Zimmer.

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Brain Scans Can Read Memories

From Live Science:

Humans create memories of locations in physical or virtual space as they move around – and it all shows up on brain scans.

Researchers tracked brain activity related to "spatial memory" as volunteers moved about inside a virtual reality setup. Their new study challenges previous scientific thinking by showing that memories are recorded in regular patterns.

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International Space Station Evacuated for Debris: The Law of Space Collisions

The International Space Station (Photo by NASA/National Geographic/Getty Images)

From Popular mechanics:

This morning, the three astronaut residents of the International Space Station scurried for safety in a Soyuz module, preparing for a possible impact with a piece of space junk—the motor of a satellite-carrying rocket. If struck, the station could experience a drop in air pressure that could kill all inhabitants. The event raises a thorny legal question: who is responsible for damages caused by space junk? Glenn Reynolds, a contributing Editor to Popular Mechanics and professor of space law at the University of Tennessee, outlines the complexities of orbital tort.

This morning, the three astronaut residents of the International Space Station scurried for safety in a Soyuz module, preparing for a possible impact with a piece of space junk—a 1/3-in.-wide part of a motor of a satellite-carrying rocket. If struck, the station could experience a drop in air pressure that could kill all inhabitants. NASA usually moves the ISS out of the orbit of debris, but some junk with erratic orbits can defeat tracking and surprise mission control, as happened during this incident. The debris missed the ISS and the astronauts exited the Soyuz “life raft,” but the junk is believed to have come within the station’s safety zone of 2.8 miles. The event raises a thorny legal question: Who is responsible for damages caused by space junk?

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Artificial Photosynthesis: Turning Sunlight Into Liquid Fuels Moves A Step Closer

Under the fuel through artificial photosynthesis scenario, nanotubes embedded within a membrane would act like green leaves, using incident solar radiation (H³) to split water molecules (H2O), freeing up electrons and oxygen (O2) that then react with carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce a fuel, shown here as methanol (CH3OH). The result is a renewable green energy source that also helps scrub the atmosphere of excessive carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. (Credit: Illustration by Flavio Robles, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 12, 2009) — For millions of years, green plants have employed photosynthesis to capture energy from sunlight and convert it into electrochemical energy. A goal of scientists has been to develop an artificial version of photosynthesis that can be used to produce liquid fuels from carbon dioxide and water.

Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have now taken a critical step towards this goal with the discovery that nano-sized crystals of cobalt oxide can effectively carry out the critical photosynthetic reaction of splitting water molecules.

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Humans Respond to Scent of Fear

From Live Science:

Moviegoers might want to scoff a bit less when characters talk about the scent of fear. Women exposed to fear chemicals in male sweat tended to see ambiguous faces as being more fearful, according to a new study.

Such research shows for the first time how even the smell of fear can affect how people interpret what they see right in front of them. That fits with previous studies showing that visual and facial cues can affect human emotion and interpretation – but mainly when the situation seems uncertain.

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Artificial Life 'Could Be Created Within Five Years'

Prof David Dreamer believes building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task but is confident it could happen in five to 10 years Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Artificial life could be created "within five years", researchers from the USA have claimed.

Laboratories across the world are closing in on a "second genesis" - an achievement that would be one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time.

Prof David Deamer, from California University, said although building a new lifeform from scratch is a daunting task he is confident it can happen in five to 10 years.

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Solar Cycle 24 Has Ended According To NASA

Watts Up With That?:

Solar Cycle 24 has ended according to NASA. Yes you read that right. Somebody at NASA can’t even figure out which solar cycle they are talking about. Or, as commenters to the thread have pointed out, perhaps they see that cycle 24 has been skipped. We’ll be watching this one to see the outcome. - Anthony

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Apple Launches 'World's Smallest' MP3 Player... Which Can Even Talk To You

A new feature on the iPod shuffle announces songs to its user. It will carry up to 1,000 tunes

From The Daily Mail:

If you like your gadgets mini then you're sure to love the new iPod Shuffle,
launched by Apple today.

The 4GB shuffle is touted as the world's smallest music player and measures 1,8"x0.3", about the same size as an AA battery.

Users can control their songs and playlists from an earphone cord using a new VoiceOver feature, which announces the songs to users in 14 different languages.

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Our Noble Attempts To 'Feed The World' Are Simply Not Working

Food aid fills stomachs but does not provide an enduring solution to hunger and poverty. Photograph: AFP/Getty

From The Guardian:

There are 109 million more hungry people in poor countries now than there were just five years ago. But the answer is not more food aid, writes Pedro A. Sanchez

In recent decades, it seemed the struggle against world hunger was finally meeting with some success. But the number of undernourished people is growing again. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the number of hungry people in poor countries has increased by 109 million to 963 million since 2004. Unicef estimates that each day 300 million children go to bed hungry.

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Lithium Batteries Charge Ahead

Photo: Coated electrodes allow lithium-ion cells to charge up in seconds. Getty

From Nature News:

Two researchers have developed battery cells that can charge up in less time than it takes to read the first two sentences of this article. The work could eventually produce ultra-fast power packs for everything from laptop computers to electric vehicles.

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have found a way to get a common lithium compound to release and take up lithium ions in a matter of seconds. The compound, which is already used in the electrodes of some commercial lithium-ion batteries, might lead to laptop batteries capable of charging themselves in about a minute. The work appears in Nature1 this week.

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Intelligence Mapped In The Brain

From Live Science:

A new map of the brain shows that most key aspects of intelligence are handled in specific spots, while processing speed is distributed throughout the noggin.

Researchers used brain scans to map the mental regions involved in the cognitive work done while taking IQ tests, which remain the most widely-used intelligence tests in the world.

The scans helped examine each of four cognitive indexes of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in 241 neurological patients who had suffered from strokes, tumor, resection and trauma. The study found some overlap in brain regions that might suggest future revisions for the IQ test, and suggested that brain scans could even help predict IQ scores.

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Dead Gene Comes Back To Life In Humans

FISH analysis of IRGM. The figure shows examples of FISH experiments on Hs (Homo sapiens), Rh (Macaca mulatta), Cja (Callithrix jacchus) and Lca (Lemur catta), with the use of human fosmid clone WIBR2-3607H18 (A, B, C) and lemur species-specific BAC clone LB2-77B23 (D). (Credit: Bekpen et al. Death and Resurrection of the Human IRGM Gene. PLoS Genet, 5(3): e1000403 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000403)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 11, 2009) — Researchers have discovered that a long-defunct gene was resurrected during the course of human evolution. This is believed to be the first evidence of a doomed gene – infection-fighting human IRGM – making a comeback in the human/great ape lineage. The study, led by Evan Eichler's genome science laboratory at the University of Washington and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is published March 6 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

The truncated IRGM gene is one of only two genes of its type remaining in humans. The genes are Immune-Related GTPases, a kind of gene that helps mammals resist germs like tuberculosis and salmonella that try to invade cells. Unlike humans, most other mammals have several genes of this type. Mice, for example, have 21 Immune-Related GTPases. Medical interest in this gene ignited recently, when scientists associated specific IRGM mutations with the risk of Crohn's disease, an inflammatory digestive disorder.

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Scientists Harness Anti-Matter, Ordinary Matter's 'Evil Twin'

Antimatter worker Jeff Larson checks out a huge magnetic ring at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory/MCT

From McClatchy:

WASHINGTON — Tom Hanks' new movie, ``Angels and Demons,'' tells of a secret plot to blow up the Vatican and everyone inside it by using ``the most terrible weapon ever made'': anti-matter.

As "Star Trek" fans know, anti-matter is the mirror image of ordinary matter, identical except that its electrical charge is reversed, like the opposite ends of a battery.

Discovered in 1932, anti-matter is sometimes called the ``evil twin'' of the familiar matter that makes up rocks, chairs, earth, air, water and living bodies.

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