New Type of Genetic Variation Could Strengthen Natural Selection

Scanning electrograph image of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (Credit: Image courtesy of NASA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection -- the force that drives evolution -- is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought.

"We have discovered that natural selection can act not only on whole organisms and individual genes, but also on gene networks," says Antonis Rokas, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the paper reporting the discovery that was published in the February 18 issue of the journal Nature.

Read more ....

Tiger Woods And Sex Addiction: Real Disease Or Easy Excuse?

From Live Science:

Tiger Woods is scheduled to break his months-long silence about the sex scandal that has plagued the world's most famous athlete. It's not clear how he will explain himself, though according to some reports Woods has been attending a private rehabilitation clinic in Mississippi that treats addictions — including sex addiction.

Infidelity is not uncommon among men (and women) all over the world. Plenty of people cheat on their spouses: according to one survey, 25 percent of men and 17 percent of women have been unfaithful. That, of course, doesn't make them sex addicts.

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Origin Of Cosmic Explosions Discovered

This is from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and shows evidence from Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Magellan telescopes suggesting a star has been torn apart by an intermediate mass black hole in a globular cluster. Photo: AFP/Getty

From The Telegraph:

Astronomers who have long used supernovas as cosmic markers to help measure the expansion of the universe now have an answer to the nagging question of what causes the massive stellar explosions.

"These are such critical objects in understanding the universe," said Marat Gilfanov of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, describing his team's study.

"It was a major embarrassment that we did not know how they worked. Now we are beginning to understand what lights the fuse of these explosions."

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The Secret Of A Film's Success Is All Down To Mathematics, Claim Scientists

Formulaic: A scene from Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith, which fits the mathematical formula perfectly

From The Daily Mail:

Ever left the cinema feeling the film you have just seen is more than a little formulaic? You could be right.

Research shows that many modern blockbusters follow a mathematical formula that ensures they grab our attention.

It seems that they key to their success is not a stunning lead actor or a tear-jerking strip, but ensuring that camera shots of a certain length regularly recur.

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Extreme Breath-Holding: How It's Possible

Photo: Peter Colat, a Swiss freediver, held his breath underwater for 19 minutes and 21 seconds, breaking the world record in breath-holding. AP

From Discovery News:

The new record in breath-holding recently went to a Swiss man who didn't breathe for nearly 20 minutes. Scientists explain how he did it.

THE GIST:

* The new record for breath-holding is 19 minutes and 21 seconds.
* There are tricks to holding your breath for long periods of time, but the practice can be dangerous.
* There may be long-lasting health consequences to extreme breath-holding.

Read more ....

Yahoo, Microsoft Make Search Pact Official (FAQ)

Yahoo is ready to turn over the indexing and ranking of search results (on the left) to Microsoft, emphasizing its work on presenting those results (on the right). (Credit: Yahoo)

From CNET:

It took eight months, but the search strategy that Microsoft and Yahoo settled on after years of flirting is about to get started.

The U.S. Department of Justice and European Union gave their blessing to the deal early on Thursday, paving the way for Microsoft to take over the business of providing search results to Yahoo while Yahoo will get to sell search ads on both Yahoo and Bing. Yahoo is busy reminding anyone who will listen that it will still control the way search results are presented on its pages, while Microsoft thinks it can improve its search algorithms with access to Yahoo's massive audience.

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New Role For Robot Warriors

Airmen roll out a Predator unmanned aircraft in Indian Springs, Nev. Such aircraft are tightly controlled by remote human operators. Some artificial-intelligence proponents believe next-generation robots could function more autonomously. Tony Avelar/The Christian Science Monitor/File

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Drones are just part of a bid to automate combat. Can virtual ethics make machines decisionmakers?

Science fiction sometimes depicts robot soldiers as killing machines without conscience or remorse. But at least one robotics expert today says that someday machines may make the best and most humane decisions on the battlefield.

Guided by virtual emotions, robots could not only make better decisions about their own actions but also act as ethical advisers to human soldiers or even as observers who report back on the battlefield conduct of humans and whether they followed international law.

Read more ....

The Writing On The Cave Wall

Time to look around the paintings (Image: Dozier Marc/Photolibrary)

From New Scientist:

THE first intrepid explorers to brave the 7-metre crawl through a perilously narrow tunnel leading to the Chauvet caves in southern France were rewarded with magnificent artwork to rival any modern composition. Stretching a full 3 metres in height, the paintings depict a troupe of majestic horses in deep colours, above a pair of boisterous rhinos in the midst of a fight. To the left, they found the beautiful rendering of a herd of prehistoric cows. "The horse heads just seem to leap out of the wall towards you," says Jean Clottes, former director of scientific research at the caves and one of the few people to see the paintings with his own eyes.

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The World's 18 Strangest Airports

(Photograph by Tdk)

From Popular Mechanics:

Engineers tasked with building an airport are faced with countless challenges: The ideal location needs ample space, endless flat ground, favorable winds and great visibility. But spots in the real world are rarely ideal, and engineers are forced to work with what they have, making sure that the end product is the safest possible structure for pilots. A survey of airports around the world turns up a mixed bag, ranging from dangerous and rugged landing strips to mega-size facilities that operate like small cities. Here, PM explores the world's most remarkable airports and why they stand out.

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Robots To Clear Baltic Seabed Of WWII Mines

Retro Sea Mine via Bactec

From Popular Science:

In a dangerous legacy of the world's deadliest conflict, 150,000 World War Two-era sea mines litter the Baltic Sea. The danger these bombs pose to a proposed gas pipeline has prompted Russia to hire the British firm Bactec International to clear the sea of unexploded ordnance. And for Bactec, that means it's time to bring out the robots.

Read more ....

Google Digital Library Faces Outcry At NYC Hearing

From My Way News:

NEW YORK (AP) - Google's effort to create the world's largest library by scanning millions of books for use on the Internet faces a courtroom fight as authors, foreign governments, corporate rivals and even the U.S. Department of Justice line up to challenge it.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin already has read more than 500 submissions about a $125 million settlement aimed at ending a pair of 2005 lawsuits brought by authors and publishers and clearing legal obstacles to a gigantic online home for digital books.

Read more ....

Upside-Down Answer For Deep Mystery: What Caused Earth To Hold Its Last Breath?

Volcano eruption (Reunion island, Indian Ocean).
(Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — When Earth was young, it exhaled the atmosphere. During a period of intense volcanic activity, lava carried light elements from the planet's molten interior and released them into the sky. However, some light elements got trapped inside the planet. In the journal Nature, a Rice University-based team of scientists is offering a new answer to a longstanding mystery: What caused Earth to hold its last breath?

Read more ....

New Transistors Mimic Human Brain's Synapses

From Live Science:

A new transistor designed to mimic structures in the human brain could pave the way for increasingly efficient computer systems that "think" like humans, scientists say.

The transistor is the first to mimic a crucial process used by brain cells, or neurons, when the cells signal one another.

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Scientists Shed Light On Supernova Origins

Type Ia supernovae are thought to result when a white dwarf star in a binary system accumulates enough matter from its larger companion. When the white dwarf reaches the critical Chandrasekhar mass, about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun, high internal density and temperature ignite a thermonuclear explosion. Because the masses of Type Ia supernovae are similar, their brightnesses are similar. Berkeley Lab

From The L.A. Times:

The so-called Type 1a supernovae are key to measuring celestial distances. Astronomers find evidence that they're formed by the collision of two white dwarfs.

German astronomers using a U.S. telescope have provided scientists with at least a partial answer to a vexing question: What is the origin of the so-called Type 1a supernovae, which are widely used as celestial mileage markers?

Type 1a supernovae are of special significance to astronomers because all are believed to have essentially the same intrinsic brightness, and because they can be observed from great distances. Thus, by comparing the brightness of any one of them to what it is expected to be, researchers can estimate its distance from Earth and thereby judge the distance of objects near it.

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Two Languages In Womb Makes Bilingual Babies

Being bilingual starts in the womb. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos/AFP:

WASHINGTON: Babies who hear two languages regularly when they are in their mother's womb are more open to being bilingual, a study published this week in Psychological Science shows.

Psychological scientists from the University of British Columbia and a researcher from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in France tested two groups of newborns, one of which only heard English in the womb and the others who heard English and Tagalog, which is spoken in the Philippines.

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Fertilizer Overuse Destroying Chinese Soil

From Fabius Maximus:

As usual with cutting edge research, the timing and significance of this is impossible for a layman to accurately access. But this could be bad for China. Yields have already dropped 30-50% in some places.

1. A summary of the research by Reuters
2. More detailed summaries, in ScienceNow and Nature
3. The research, in Science
4. For more information from the FM site, and an Afterword

Read more .....

DARPA Wants To Build The Ultimate Language Traslator

Darpa Looks to Build Real-Life C3P0 -- The Danger Room

Right now, troops trying to listen in on enemy chatter rely on a convoluted process. They tune into insurgency radio frequencies, then hand the radio over to local interpreters, who translate the dialogues. It’s a sloppy process, prone to garbled words and missed phrases.

What troops really need is a machine that can pick out voices from the noise, understand and translate all kinds of different languages, and then identify the voice from a hit list of “wanted speakers.” In other words, a real-life version of Star Wars protocol droid C3PO, fluent “in over 6 million forms of communication.”

Read more ....

Northern Hemisphere Snow Extent Second Highest On Record

Source : Rutgers University Global Snow Lab

From Watts Up With That?:

According to Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, last week’s Northern Hemisphere winter snow extent was the second highest on record, at 52,166,840 km2. This was only topped by the second week in February, 1978 at 53,647,305 km2. Rutgers has kept records continuously for the last 2,227 weeks, so being #2 is quite an accomplishment.

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United States' Drought Has 'Extraordinary' Reversal

From USA Today:

What a difference a rain makes. The nationwide drought that had farmers, communities and entire states fighting to conserve water has reversed in the most dramatic turnaround since federal scientists began keeping records.

More than 92% of the country is drought-free — the nation's best showing since 1999.

"The lack of drought is extraordinary," said Douglas Le Comte, a meteorologist with the federal Climate Prediction Center.

Read more ....

Wind Turbines Make Their Own Clouds (Another Reason You Might Not Want One On Your Doorstep)

The wind farm at Scroby Sands off East Anglia is shrouded in sea fog caused by its spinning blades

From The Daily Mail:

An offshore wind farm has been creating its own 'micro-climate' by stirring up air to create low-level clouds around its giant, spinning blades.

These stunning pictures show the mist caused by the spinning 40 metre blades of the turbines whipping up moisture from the surface of the sea at Scroby Sands near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk.

Holidaymakers often walk around in bright sunshine on the beach while watching the mist envelop the £75m wind farm less than two miles offshore.

Read more ....

U.S. Wargamers Wrap Up Massive Cyberattack Drill: "We Are Not Prepared"

West Wing Situation Room Planning for a hopefully better tomorrow Christopher Morris/White House Museum

From Popular Science:

Washington insiders recently sweated out a real-time war game where a cyberattack crippled cell phone service, Internet and even electrical grids across the U.S. The unscripted, dynamic simulation allowed former White House officials and the Bipartisan Policy Center to study the problems that might arise during a real cyberattack emergency, according to Aviation Week's Ares Defense Blog.

Read more ....

The Rhythm of Our Star

An image taken at dusk with TON (Taiwan oscillations of networks). The profile of the house is real. (Credit: Image courtesy of Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 17, 2010) — When we look at the Sun we cannot penetrate beyond its outer surface, the photosphere, which emits the photons that make up the radiation we can see. So how can we find out what is inside it?

Read more ....

The Physics Of Figure Skating

Pairs skaters at the Italian overall 2009 Figure Skating Championships. Credit: Dreamstime

From Live Science:

To see physics in action in everyday life, look no further than figure skating.

And as the men hit the ice to show off their spins and combinations Tuesday in the Winter Olympics, here's a perfect chance to watch examples of basic scientific concepts, such as friction, momentum, and the law of equal and opposite reactions.

Read more ....

Medical Potential Of IPS Stem Cells Exaggerated Says World Authority

IPS cells were named the breakthrough of 2008

From Times Online:

The medical potential of reprogrammed stem cells that do not require the destruction of embryos has been exaggerated, according to the head of one of the world’s leading regenerative medicine companies.

Thomas Okarma, the chief executive of Geron Corporation, told The Times that while so-called induced pluripotent stem (IPS) cells will be extremely useful in research, they are unlikely to be suitable for transplanting to patients to treat disease.

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Tutankhamun: Now We Know Who The Mummy's Mummy Was

The Viscera Coffin of Tutankhamun, one of four made for the Egyptian king. Getty images

From The Independent:

Secrets of Egyptian boy king's lineage and cause of death unearthed.

His autopsy took some time to complete – more than 3,000 years, in fact – but scientists now believe they know why the Egyptian boy king Tutankhamun died, as well as who his parents and grandmother were.

After conducting an extensive analysis of the ancient pharaoh's DNA, which they gathered from his mummified remains, the researchers concluded that a combination of malaria and bone abnormalities contributed to his premature death at the age of 19 in 1324 BC.

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British Scientists Discover 'Secret To Ageing' Bringing New Hope To Old-Age Sufferers

Scientists said the discovery would unlikely provide an elixir of eternal life in the near future.

From The Telegraph:

The secret to ageing appears to have been solved by British scientists, bringing new hope to sufferers of old age-related illnesses such as heart disease.

The international team of researchers based Newcastle University have reportedly unlocked the secret as to how and why living cells grow old by discovering the biochemical pathway involved in ageing.

The study, together with German experts from the University of Ulm, could lead to a “much better chance of making a successful attack on age-related diseases”.

Read more ....

Only In Vegas: The Magic Carpets Designed To Keep You Awake And Gambling

The outrageous carpets do nothing to distract gamblers at Las Vegas's most popular casinos

From The Daily Mail:

Las Vegas is well-known for being the city that never sleeps as gamblers are encouraged to spend their money around the clock.

Now a new set of photographs has revealed that even the garish carpets that line the hotels and casinos have an important part to play.

Read more ....

Google Buzz 'Breaks Privacy Laws' Says Watchdog

From The BBC:

A leading privacy group has urged US regulators to investigate Google's new social networking service Buzz, one week after its launch.

The Electronic Privacy Information Centre (Epic) has made its complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

It says that Buzz - which is part of Google's Gmail service - is "deceptive" and breaks consumer protection law.

Read more ....

Verizon Users To Get Skype In Late March

From PC World:

Verizon Wireless has joined forces with Skype, and its subscribers will be able to start making calls using Skype on nine selected smartphones in late March, the operator said on Tuesday.

The two companies have built a new always-on application called Skype Mobile. The client will be available to owners of the following RIM (Research in Motion) phones: BlackBerry Storm, Storm 2, Curve 8330, Curve 8530, 8830 World Edition and the Tour 9630. It will also be available on the Motorola Droid, the HTC Droid Eris and the Motorola Devour.

Read more ....

"Cyber ShockWave": The U.S. Fails In Cyberwar Game

West Wing Situation Room Planning for a hopefully better tomorrow Christopher Morris/White House Museum

U.S. Wargamers Wrap Up Massive Cyberattack Drill: "We Are Not Prepared" -- Popular Science

Washington insiders recently sweated out a real-time war game where a cyberattack crippled cell phone service, Internet and even electrical grids across the U.S. The unscripted, dynamic simulation allowed former White House officials and the Bipartisan Policy Center to study the problems that might arise during a real cyberattack emergency, according to Aviation Week's Ares Defense Blog.

Read more ....

More News On The Recent Cyberattack Drill

War game reveals U.S. lacks cyber-crisis skills -- Washington Post
Cyberattack Drill Shows U.S. Unprepared -- Information Week
U.S. Government Defends Against Simulated Cyberattack on U.S. Targets -- Daily Tech
Washington Group Tests Security in ‘Cyber ShockWave’ -- Wall Street Journal
War game simulates cyberattack -- Politico
Cyber ShockWave cripples computers nationwide (sorta) -- Christian Science Monitor
Security Experts Wrestle With Cyberattack Scenario -- PC World
U.S. Isn’t Prepared for Massive Cyber Attack, Ex-Officials Say -- Business Week
US Cybersecurity Hypothetically Pathetic -- Tech News World
Simulated Cyberwar Hits DC -- Ares/Aviation Week
Unconstrained Cyberspace Domain -- Defense Tech
3 Ways Cyber Warriors Could Cripple the U.S. -- Atlantic Wire
Is The U.S. Ready For A Cyberwar? -- NPR
In a doomsday cyber attack scenario, answers are unsettling -- L.A. Times

A Ping-Pong-Playing Terminator

Match Point: Kim Kyung-Hoon / Reuters

From Popular Science:

Meet TOPIO 3.0, the ping-pong-playing robot. Made by Vietnam’s first-ever robotics firm, TOSY, the bipedal humanoid uses two 200-fps cameras to detect the ball as it leaves the opponent’s paddle.

TOPIO’s brain—processors and an artificial neural network—analyzes the ball’s path to choose the best return. Last fall, TOPIO 3.0 debuted at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo.

Read more ....

Concrete Phase Of Runway Begins At Spaceport America

From Space Daily:

The first batch of concrete was poured Thursday, February 11, marking the start of the final concrete finish phase of the runway construction at Spaceport America, the world's first purposebuilt commercial spaceport. The runway project, which began in August 2009, is expected to be completed this summer, according to the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA).

Read more ....

Particle May Be Leading Candidate For Mysterious Dark Matter

Closeup of a CDMS detector, made of crystal germanium.
(Credit: DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 16, 2010) — Physicists may have glimpsed a particle that is a leading candidate for mysterious dark matter but say conclusive evidence remains elusive.

A 9-year search from a unique observatory in an old iron mine 2,000 feet underground has yielded two possible detections of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. But physicists, who include two University of Florida researchers, say there is about a one in four chance that the detections were merely background noise -- meaning that a worldwide hunt involving at least two dozen different observatories and hundreds of scientists will continue.

Read more ....

Why People Fake Illness

From Live Science:

In 2008, a Baltimore woman named Dina Leone shared shocking news with her friends and family: she had been diagnosed with stomach cancer. She wrote blogs and Facebook notes, updating everyone on her treatment and progress. The 37-year-old mother of two received more than an outpouring of support and get-well cards; she also got money to help pay for her treatments and fulfill her dying wishes.

It was all very tragic – and it was also a hoax. Police investigated her claims and soon her story unraveled when the hospitals she claimed to have visited had no record of her. Leone eventually admitted that she had pretended to be sick for over three years. She was recently indicted on charges of theft and conspiracy.

But why would someone lie about having cancer?

Read more ....

Digital Handcuffs For Apple Ebooks?

From L.A. Times:

Apple's old digital rights management software (DRM), FairPlay, is slated to make a comeback with the e-books it will be selling on its iBook Store. While music users have been free of these "digital handcuffs" for the last year, Alex Pham reports that readers will not be.

When Apple launches its iBook store to sell titles for its new iPad device in March, many of its titles are expected to come with a set of handsome digital locks designed to deter piracy....

Next month, Apple will be dusting off those digital cuffs for books, according to sources in the publishing industry.

Read more ....

Adam Aims To Take Bite Out Of Apple In iPad War

From Times Online:

It has already brought the world a £1,400 car, now India is set to release an “iPad for the masses” — a new tablet computer that technology experts say could mount a challenge to Apple’s latest gadget.

The new device, called the Adam, has been designed by Notion Ink, a start-up based in the technology hub of Hyderabad. The company was founded by three 24-year-old graduates from India’s elite technical universities who have relied on family and friends for seed funding.

Read more ....

How The MP3 Became A Combat Weapon

From The Guardian:

Aditya Chakrabortty on the platoons' playlists on the Iraq frontline.

CJ Grisham and his friends used to love Eminem – especially his song, Go To Sleep. "We'd blare that and we'd all scream the lyrics." An all-American ritual – except that Grisham was a ­sergeant in the US offensive on ­Fallujah, and Eminem was his anthem for ­facing the Iraqis. As he puts it: "I'm going to have to shoot at someone today, so might as well get pumped up for it." And so his platoon would shriek along: "Go to sleep, bitch/Die, motherfucker, die/Time's up, bitch, close your eyes."

Read more ....

Parents To Blame For Women 'Unlucky In Love', Claim Scientists

The study could explain why some women such as Jennifer Aniston,
remain unlucky in love. Photo: Reuters

From The Telegraph:

The reason why some women remain without a long-term boyfriend appears to have been solved by Australian scientists.

Researchers from the University of Western Australia reportedly claim some of the secrets of attraction appear to be hidden in certain immune system genes inherited from our parents.

They found that a woman's appearance or sweat contains clues to the genetic make-up of her immune system.

Read more ....

Mystery Of The Giant Honeycomb Built In A Wood By Thousands Of Bees In Freezing February

Sweet success: The incredible honeycomb built by bees despite the
freezing weather at Holly Hill, Fareham, Hampshire

From The Daily Mail:

If you go down to these woods today you are sure of a sweet surprise - bees swarming in sub-zero temperatures around a giant honeycomb.

Even Sir David Attenborough would be stumped by the discovery as thousands of bees have constructed the comb in an oak tree at Holly Hill Country Park, Fareham, Hants.

The hardy workers have created the giant two-foot long structure and have been spotted by walkers and winter wildlife spotters more used to seeing deer and badgers at this time of year.

Read more ....

Nasa Rides 'Bucking Bronco' To Mars

From The BBC:

It weighs almost a tonne, has cost more than $2bn and, in 2013, it will be lowered on to the surface of Mars with a landing system that has never been tried before.

The Mars Science Laboratory will "revolutionise investigations in science on other planets", says Doug McCuistion, director of Nasa's Mars exploration programme.

It will, he says, lay the foundations for future missions that will eventually bring pieces of the Red Planet back home to Earth.

Read more ....

US Networks And Power Grid Under (Mock) Cyber-Attack

Under attack (Image: James Schnepf / Getty)

From New Scientist:

Unknown hackers have taken out US cellphone networks in an ongoing cyber-attack that will soon knock out parts of the nation's electricity grid – say the officials who helped plan today's mock assault on the nation's defences.

The 3-hour event began at 10 am EST (3 pm GMT) and will quickly escalate from cellphone networks to attack the US power supply by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in smart grid technologies, says Matthew Stern, head of cyber accounts for defence contractor General Dynamics.

Read more ....

Are Criminals Born Bad?

From Times Online:

The field of neurocriminology is reviving some controversial ideas. Can criminal urges really be blamed on the brain?

We are used to hearing talk of “the criminal mind”. In future we can expect to hear more about “the criminal brain”. Recent scientific research suggests that criminality may be a trait tha t some people are born with or acquire very early in life. It’s an unsettling thought: examine the prefrontal cortex in the brain of a gurgling infant and you may see the signs of a potential future murderer.

Read more ....

New Supercomputer Uses Water-Cooled Technology To Save Energy

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 16, 2010) — Nanyang Technological University (NTU) February 11 opens its much-anticipated High Performance Computing (HPC) Centre to support the university's growing international research profile and capacity, especially in the area of sustainability.

Read more ....

Happiest States: Hawaii Moves Into First Place

From Live Science:

If you needed an extra twist of the arm to set off on a Hawaii vacation, here it is: The big-wave state was the happiest place to live in 2009, according to a newly released national survey.

Topping the well-being list among all 50 states, Hawaii pulled ahead of the 2008 leader Utah. But Utah and its neighbors still have plenty to smile about. Nine of the top 10 well-being states reside in the Midwest and the West. The south didn't fare so well, taking seven of the 11 lowest well-being spots on the list.

Read more ....

Super Velcro

Image: Reusable superglue: An atomic force microscope image shows the surface of a shape memory polymer that has been treated to make a strong reusable adhesive. Two pieces of the polymer stick together when heated, stay stuck when cooled down, and come apart when heated again. Credit: Tao Xie, GM Research and Development Center

From Technology Review:

A novel adhesive is extremely strong, and its stickiness is reversible.

General Motors researchers have made an extremely strong adhesive that comes apart when heated. The adhesive is 10 times stickier than Velcro and the reusable gecko-inspired glues that many research groups have been trying to perfect.

Read more ....

Life From A Test Tube? The Real Promise Of Synthetic Biology

Image: Matt Collins

From Scientific American:

Scientists are closing in on the ability to make life from scratch, with potential consequences both good and bad.

I have seen the future, and it is now.

Those words came to mind again as I recently listened to Craig Venter, one of those leading the new areas of synthetic genomics and synthetic biology. Every time I hear a talk on this subject, it seems a new threshold in the artificial manipulation and, ultimately, creation of life has been passed.

Read more ....

Scientists Get Closer To Understanding Why We Age

Biologists have observed that people's cells often age at different rates.
Image Source / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Time waits for no man, the old truism goes, but in recent years scientists have shown that it does seem to move more slowly for some. Molecular biologists have observed that people's cells often age at different rates, leading them to make a distinction between "chronological" and "biological age."

But the reason for the difference remains only vaguely understood. Environmental factors such as smoking, stress and regular exercise all seem to influence the rate at which our cells age. Now, for the first time, researchers have found a genetic link to cellular aging — a finding that suggests new treatments for a variety of age-related diseases and cancers.

Read more ....

In Brookhaven Collider, Scientists Briefly Break A Law Of Nature

HOT A computer rendition of 4-trillion-degree Celsius quark-gluon plasma created in a demonstration of what scientists suspect shaped cosmic history. Brookhaven National Laboratory

From The New York Times:

Physicists said Monday that they had whacked a tiny region of space with enough energy to briefly distort the laws of physics, providing the first laboratory demonstration of the kind of process that scientists suspect has shaped cosmic history.

The blow was delivered in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, where, since 2000, physicists have been accelerating gold nuclei around a 2.4-mile underground ring to 99.995 percent of the speed of light and then colliding them in an effort to melt protons and neutrons and free their constituents — quarks and gluons. The goal has been a state of matter called a quark-gluon plasma, which theorists believe existed when the universe was only a microsecond old.

Read more ....

'Star Wars' Is A Mere Phantom Menace To Missiles

From New Scientist:

The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has finally shot down a moving missile with an airborne laser – but military experts say the system is not good enough for combat.

A liquid-fuelled rocket – thought to be a Scud-B, similar to those being developed by Iran and North Korea – was fired from a ship off the coast California on 11 February.

Within the next 20 seconds, the "airborne laser testbed" onboard a modified Boeing 747 locked-on to it with two low-powered tracking lasers, then a laser beam of several megawatts, to heat-damage the missile's skin. If such damage is done while booster rockets are still firing, the stresses caused by the acceleration can destroy the missile, as this clip of the test shows.

Read more ....

Special Ops Gunships To Get Pain-Inducing Weapons

1. An electron gun fires a particle beam through a vacuum tube wrapped with strong magnets.
2. As the beam meets the magnetic field, the electrons bunch up and gyrate, producing high-power microwaves at set frequencies.
3. Mirrors steer the microwaves through a window made of diamond. The gem is used for its resistance to heat and for its clarity.
4. The electron beam’s excess energy is deposited in the coils of a collector.

From Popular Mechanics:

Nonlethal energy-beam blasters that cause pain without killing their targets could finally find a home—inside special operations gunships. Here's how they work.

The Pentagon has been researching nonlethal pain rays since the mid-’90s, but finding a vehicle to carry them has proven to be a challenge. Researchers have mounted these microwave weapons—which repel people by heating water molecules just under the skin, reportedly without damaging tissue—on trucks, guard towers and Humvees, but the U.S. military has never deployed them for real-world use. (Using such weapons on civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan is not seen as a good way to win hearts and minds.)

Read more ....

My Comment: Ouch.