China Seeks Calm Amid The Google Storm

From Times Online:

Google’s hopes of retaining a foothold in China remained intact yesterday after the Chinese Government played down its row with the company over censorship.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that Google’s closure of its search engine on mainland China should not damage wider Sino-US relations. Google’s other web services in China, such as Gmail, maps and a popular music search feature, remained unblocked.

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How The Tablet Will Change The World

The iPad is the first embodiment of an entirely new category, one that Apple CEO Steve Jobs hopes will write the obituary for the computing paradigm that Apple itself helped develop. Photo: Dan Winters; tablet: Stan Musilek

From Wired:

Everyone who jammed into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 27, 2010, knew what they were there for: Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ introduction of a thin, always-on tablet device that would let people browse the Web, read books, send email, watch movies, and play games. It was also no surprise that the 1.5-pound iPad resembled an iPhone, right down to the single black button nestled below the bright 10-inch screen. But about an hour into the presentation, Apple showed something unexpected — something that not many people even noticed.

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How Science Is Countering Biological And Chemical Threats

Bio-terror A versatile material that neutralizes a range of biological and chemical agents could save time and lives in the event of a terrorist attack or accident.

New Versatile Polymer Counters Both Chemical and Biological Threats -- Popular Science

Because terrorists rarely announce the technical details of their nefarious intentions beforehand, the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction is not only great, it's multifaceted. So a team from the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine has synthesized a polyurethane fiber mesh that is as variable as the terrorist threat. By mimicking biological tissues like the skin that respond to shifting environments, the a multifunctional polymer can decontaminate a range of both biological agents and chemical toxins.

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Loneliness Increases Your Blood Pressure

From The Telegraph:

Loneliness can increase blood pressure if you are over 50, according to a new university study.

Lack of connection with others not only makes us unhappy but it is also bad for the wellbeing of your body, research finds.

The psychologists found that there is a direct relation between loneliness and larger increases in blood pressure four years later—a link that is independent of age and other factors such as smoking and obesity.

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Arctic Winds And Not Global Warming 'Responsible For Much Of Record Loss Of Sea Ice'

Study: Strong winds and not global warming are to blame for much of the record-breaking loss of ice in the Arctic Ocean in recent years.

From The Daily Mail:

Strong winds and not global warming are to blame for much of the record-breaking loss of ice in the Arctic Ocean in recent years, new research reveals.

Ice blown out of the Arctic area by winds can explain the one-third drop of sea ice since 1979, scientists believe.

The study helps to explain the huge loss of ice in the region during the summers of 2007 and 2008, after which some commentators suggested the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free during the summertime within a decade.

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US Space Companies Present Soyuz-Busting Price Plans

From New Scientist:

Matching Russian rides to the International Space Station after the space shuttle retires will be difficult without "extraordinary" US government help, a senior NASA insider said on Thursday. But the private space firm SpaceX of Hawthorne, California, says it is ready to step into the breach by undercutting the current $50 million-per-astronaut round-trip ticket for travelling to the ISS aboard the Russian Soyuz craft.

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Do Animals Commit Suicide? A Scientific Debate

From Time Magazine:

Forty years ago, Richard O'Barry watched Kathy, a dolphin in the 1960s television show Flipper, kill herself. Or so he says. She looked him in the eye, sank to the bottom of a steel tank and stopped breathing. The moment transformed the dolphin trainer into an animal-rights activist for life, and his role in The Cove, the Oscar-winning documentary about the dolphin-meat business in a small town in Japan, has transformed him into a celebrity.

"The suicide was what turned me around," says O'Barry. "The [animal entertainment] industry doesn't want people to think dolphins are capable of suicide, but these are self-aware creatures with a brain larger than a human brain. If life becomes so unbearable, they just don't take the next breath. It's suicide."

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Large Hadron Collider To Start Hunt For 'God Particle'

Engineers have been installing a new protection system for the LHC's magnets

From The BBC:

The organisation that operates the Large Hadron Collider has set a date for the start of its science programme.

On Tuesday 30 March, engineers at Cern will make their first attempt to collide beams at an energy of 3.5 trillion electronvolts (TeV) per beam.

The LHC reached this beam energy last week, breaking its own particle beam energy record.

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Norton Ranks Riskiest Cities For Cybercrime

(Credit: Symantec)

From CNET News:

You may want to start keeping a closer eye on where you click if you live in Seattle.

Among 50 U.S. cities studied for their vulnerability to cybercrime, Seattle came out on top as the riskiest place, followed by Boston, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, according to the report "Norton's Top 10 Riskiest Online Cities," released Monday.

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How Dinosaurs Rose To Prominence

Central Atlantic Magmatic Province Massive lava flow (top brown layer) sits atop end-Triassic (white) and Triassic (red) layers at a site in Five Islands Provincial Park, Nova Scotia. (Credit: Jessica. H. Whiteside/Brown University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 23, 2010) — A shade more than 200 million years ago, the Earth looked far different than it does today. Most land on the planet was consolidated into one continent called Pangea. There was no Atlantic Ocean, and the rulers of the animal world were crurotarsans -- creatures closely related to modern crocodiles.

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Portion Sizes in 'Last Supper' Paintings Grew Over Time

From Live Science:

Nutrition experts have analyzed the food depicted in some of the best-known paintings of the biblical Last Supper and found that the portion and plate sizes depicted in them increased substantially from older paintings to those painted more recently.

The findings suggest the trend of bigger plates and portions that has been noticed recently and linked to obesity may have been in the works for much longer, the researchers suggest.

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Queen Chooses Which Sperm Die

Researchers retrieve sperm from the abdomen of an ant. Credit: Boris Baer/UWA

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: The queen of a social insect colony has one sexual encounter during her life, which involves many males, then controls which sperm will die off, researchers said.

A social insect queen only experiences a single day of sexual activity in her lifetime yet she must obtain all the sperm necessary to create an entire colony within that time frame. This means that social insect females store a large amount of sperm in their storage organ.

"A honeybee queen mates with many more males than she has to, thereby collecting much more sperm than she actually needs," said Boris Bear, from the University of Western Australia in Crawley.

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Swiss Team Breaks Record for Around-the-World Flight, Despite Encountering Volcanic Eruption

The Sabreliner 65 and Her Swiss Crew Emmanuel Joffet - Sipa Press

From Popular Science:

First time the record has been set with refueling stops.

Piloting a plane older than two of the three crew on board, a Swiss team shattered Steve Fossett's around-the-world flight record by almost ten hours over the weekend, the first time the record has been set in this weight class with refueling stops. But the pilots didn't just have to negotiate the usual headwinds and bad weather -- their flight was nearly derailed by a volcanic eruption in Iceland that forced them to make an extra refueling stop and add an unexpected 12th leg to their journey.

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In The Middle Of A Chain Reaction (Hot Video)

From The Daily Mail:

A domino-effect music video for a cult U.S. band has proved an internet sensation after attracting eight million online views and counting.

The ingenious four-minute promo, for Los Angeles-based OK Go's song This Too Shall Pass, is currently the hottest thing on the web.

It begins with band member Tom Nordwind - wearing a red paint-splattered jump suit - rolling a child's red lorry into a row of dominoes.

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SpaceShipTwo Makes First (Captive) Flight

From Autopia:

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo made its first captive carry flight early this morning at the Mojave Air and Space Port. SpaceShipTwo, which was christened the VSS Enterprise at its unveiling in December, is being carried by WhiteKnightTwo on its first test flight.

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The Future Of News

WNU Editor: Kristen Purcell explains how the Internet has changed how we get news. (From ABC News)

Who Writes Wikipedia Articles?

Image: Although "all-round" editors helped contribute to high-quality articles, the study's findings don't negate the importance of fact-checkers, copy editors and other contributors. Wikimedia Foundation

From Discovery News:

Wikipedians who can perform a range of roles -- rather than possess a single expertise -- are key to quality articles.

It takes a village of contributors -- adding paragraphs here, inserting references there -- to craft a quality Wikipedia article, according to a new study that identifies the types of contributors who initiate and dominate the process to separate the Wikipedia wheat from chaff.

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Ivory Bids Fall On Poaching Fears

From The BBC:

The UN's wildlife trade organisations have turned down Tanzania's and Zambia's requests to sell ivory amid concern about elephant poaching.

The countries asked the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting to permit one-off sales from government stockpiles.

The ivory trade was banned in 1989, but three sales have since been granted to nations showing effective conservation.

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Supermassive Black Holes: Hinting at the Nature of Dark Matter?

Artist's schematic impression of the distortion of spacetime by a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. The black hole will swallow dark matter at a rate which depends on its mass and on the amount of dark matter around it. (Credit: Felipe Esquivel Reed)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 22, 2010) — About 23 percent of the universe is made up of mysterious 'dark matter' -- invisible material only detected through its gravitational influence on its surroundings. Now two astronomers based at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) have found a hint of the way it behaves near black holes.

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Happiness Is ... Making More Money Than The Next Guy

From Live Science:

One key to happiness might be whether you make more than your peers, regardless of whether that income is six figures or just a mediocre take-home, a new study finds.

This concept of "doing better than the Joneses" is well established among children: A toy gets ditched as soon as a shinier toy in the hands of another child is spotted. But some researchers have often thought that when it comes to adults and money, things works differently, in that the more money one has, regardless of how it stacks up, the more resources can be acquired to generate happiness.

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Should I Be Worried About Electromagnetic Pulses Destroying My Electronics?

Sun Spots Solar storms, like this one captured by NASA’s STEREO satellite,
could knock out the power grid. NASA

From Popular Science:

It depends on the source of the pulse. Electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) large enough to cause you trouble come in two varieties: those produced by the sun, and those created by a nuclear bomb or another military-grade emitter device. With the sun-related variety, specifically coronal mass ejections (CMEs), your gear will probably be fine. But a really large CME could take down the power grid, says Bill Murtagh, the program coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Power lines transmit electricity as an alternating current, but a pulse from a CME can introduce a direct current into the system, says Luke van der Zal, a technical executive at the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute. This can cause transformers to overheat and work sluggishly, or fail altogether.

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Mars As You've Never Seen It Before

Colossal: This ice formation is a portion of the wall terraces of the Mojave Crater on Mars. It has barely suffered any erosion so offers scientists a tantalising glimpse of what a very large complex crater looks like

From The Daily Mail:

It looks like a filmmaker's apocalyptic vision of Earth following a devastating natural disaster.

But this colossal ice formation is actually a portion of the wall terraces of a huge crater on Mars.

Approximately 37 miles in diameter, a section of the Mojave Crater in the planet's Xanthe Terra region has been digitally mapped by Nasa scientists.

The result is this digital terrain model that was generated from a stereo pair of images and offers a synthesized, oblique view of a 2.5-mile portion of the crater's wall terraces.

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How A Volcanic Eruption Can Become A National Security Threat

Iceland Volcano Could Have World Consequences -- MSNBC

1783 eruption changed weather patterns, sent poisoned air to British Isles

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Blasts of lava and ash shot out of a volcano in southern Iceland on Monday and small tremors rocked the ground, a surge in activity that raised fears of a larger explosion at the nearby Katla volcano.

Scientists say history has proven that when the Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupts, Katla follows — the only question is how soon. And Katla, located under the massive Myrdalsjokull icecap, threatens disastrous flooding and explosive blasts when it blows.

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My Comment: It is an uncomfortable thought to realize that even with our huge military arsenals, sophisticated technology, and all the tools that a modern and sophisticated society can bring to any problem .... when it comes to mother nature and the power that it can unleash we are powerless to do anything.

As to the 1783 eruption, a long time ago I did a university paper on the impact that the American revolution had on Canada. What struck me from the literature and news reports that I was reading was the impact that the 1783 eruption had on everyday life. Spring only came to Montreal late May, and winter returned by October. Growing crops was difficult and sporadic, and sickness was prevalent throughout the cities. The American Revolution was a major event, but the aftereffects of the 1783 volcanic explosion were just as serious.

If a repeat of the 1783 eruption was to occur today .... with the population centers that we have today .... there is no question in my mind the impact would be catastrophic.

Google Moves Chinese Search To Hong Kong

From CNET News:

Google has made its decision on China: it's moving search to Hong Kong.

Google has shut down its Google.cn site and is redirecting users to Google.com.hk, where it will offer uncensored Chinese-language search services. The company will maintain a research and development organization in China as well as a sales office, it announced Monday.

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Monarch Butterflies Dwindle Due To Harsh Winter Weather

From ABC News:

Scientists Say to Plant Milkweed to Help Save the Butterflies.

Monarch butterflies normally find sanctuary in the mountains of Mexico, away from the cold winters of North America, but a harsh winter of torrential rain and mudslides has decimated the monarch butterfly population.

"We saw a number of things happen in Mexico this winter that shouldn't be happening but are probably due to climate change in some way," said Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.

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How Dinos Ruled The World

This Triassic exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science helps to illustrate the battle between crocodiles and dinosaurs. Larry O'Hanlon

From Discovery News:

A massive volcanic eruption 200 million years ago tipped the scales in the battle between dinosaurs and crocodiles for global dominance.

Some 200 million years ago, Earth was on the verge of either an age of dinosaurs or an age of crocodiles. It took the largest volcanic eruption in the solar system -- and the loss of half of Earth's plant life -- to tip the scales in the dinos' favor, say researchers.

The idea is not new, but connecting the eruption to a 200-million-year-old mass extinction event has not been easy. Now that link is confirmed in an exhaustive new study published in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Facebook Set to Challenge Google Ad Empire

From PC World:

Facebook recently surpassed Google as the top destination on the Web. Granted, the victory only represents one week, but with traffic on par with Google, and membership exceeding 400 million users, Facebook is primed to challenge the vast Google empire for online advertising dollars.

According to a blog post from Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise, "The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185 percent last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased 9 percent during the same time frame."

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The Bitter Battle Over Bluefin Tuna

Glossy and greedy: Bluefin tuna is one of the world's most highly prized foodstuffs.

From The BBC:

"Welcome to the strange world of globalisation."

That is Roberto Mielgo's response to the fact that it is commercially viable to catch and keep live tuna in off-shore pens - or ranches - in the Spanish Mediterranean and feed them vast amounts of expensive caught fish (around 10kg of feed fish serve to make the tuna put on 1kg of body weight).

And to cull them by hand using divers, ship them to shore, package them in a purpose-built factory and fly them whole - on the same day - to market on the other side of the world.

Roberto Mielgo calls himself an independent fisheries consultant.

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Carbon Dating Reveals Vintage Fraud In Wines

Atomic bombs changed carbon content in grapes.
Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

WASHINGTON: Up to 5% of fine wines are not from the year the label indicates, according to Australian researchers who have carbon dated some top dollar wines.

The team of researchers think "vintage fraud" is widespread, and have come up with a test that uses radioactive carbon isotopes left in the atmosphere by atomic bomb tests last century and a method used to date prehistoric objects to determine what year a wine comes from - its vintage.

The test works by comparing the amount of carbon-12 and carbon-14 in grapes.

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Bully Galaxy Rules The Neighborhood

This image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope highlights the large and bright elliptical galaxy called ESO 306-17 in the southern sky. In this image, it appears that ESO 306-17 is surrounded by other galaxies but the bright galaxies at bottom left are thought to be in the foreground, not at the same distance in the sky. In reality, ESO 306-17 lies fairly abandoned in an enormous sea of dark matter and hot gas. (Credit: NASA, ESA and Michael West (ESO))

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 21, 2010) — Located half a billion light-years from Earth, ESO 306-17, is a large, bright elliptical galaxy in the southern sky of a type known as a fossil group. Astronomers use this term to emphasize the isolated nature of these galaxies. However, are they like fossils -- the last remnants of a once active community -- or is it more sinister than that? Did ESO 306-17 gobble up its next-door neighbors?

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Men Take More Risks When Pretty Women Are Around

From Live Science:

Being around a pretty woman can make men take more risks, a new study finds.

Researchers looked at the risk-taking behaviors of 96 young adult men, with an average age of nearly 22, by asking them to do both easy and difficult tricks on skateboards.

First, the young men performed the tricks in front of another man, then in front of a young, attractive female. (The attractiveness of the woman was independently assessed by 20 male raters.)

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Who Wants To Live For Ever?

From The Independent:

By tweaking our DNA, we could soon survive for hundreds of years – if we want to. Steve Connor reports on a breakthrough that has the science world divided.

A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. It is the greatest extension of longevity yet achieved by researchers investigating the scientific nature of ageing.

If this work could ever be translated into humans, it would mean that we might one day see people living for 800 years. But is this ever going to be a realistic possibility?

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Apple Puts Out Call For iPad Apps - But Developers Can't Say A Word

Steve Jobs demonstrates the movie function of the new iPad with a scene from Pixar's Up at the launch of the tablet computer in San Francisco Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

From The Guardian:

It might be a while before Britain gets to see the iPad, but it's just weeks away from launch in the United States - and Apple is beginning to crank up the gears.

The latest move? The company is now accepting submissions for iPad applications to be released on April 3, the date when the gadget starts shipping. If developers submit their wares in the next week (the deadline is actually Saturday 27th of March), they'll get told whether they pass Apple's approval process - with an eye to being available through iTunes to iPad owners on day one.

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Genetically Modified Mosquitos Could Be Used To Spread Vaccine For Malaria

From The Telegraph:

A genetically engineered mosquito that vaccinates as it bites has been developed by scientists.

Experts believe "flying vaccinators" could eventually be a radical new way of tackling malaria.

The new approach targets the salivary gland of the Anopheles mosquito.

Scientists in Japan have engineered an insect producing a natural vaccine protein in its saliva which is injected into the bloodstream when it bites.

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McLaren Takes On Ferrari With 'Affordable' £150,000 Supercar Dubbed 'F1 Car For The Road'

The company plans to sell the 12C in 19 countries, with North America expected to account for around 30 to 40 per cent of the market.

From The Daily Mail:

A gull-winged 200mph supercar dubbed 'an F1 car for the road' was launched yesterday by UK racing specialists McLaren.

The cars will be made in a new £40million factory designed by Sir Norman Foster and will create 300 jobs.

The £150,000 McLaren MP4-12C is Britain's answer to Italy's legendary Ferrari and is the long-held dream of boss Ron Dennis to produce an 'affordable' supercar with the greenest credentials.

Read more ....

Spy In The Sky That Sees Round Corners

Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide (Image: Zap Art/Getty)

From New Scientist:

WHY jump in a cab to "follow that car" when an airborne drone could do the job for you? The US Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing a radar system which sees around corners and down into "urban canyons". DARPA hopes to be able to track vehicles across an entire city using just a few uncrewed aircraft.

Read more ....

My Comment: The technology and software behind such an enterprise .... if successful .... will certainly be impressive.

Drug Treatment Could Sharpen Adult Brains

Where's Pinky? NARF! Medical College of Georgia, via Physorg

From Popular Science:

Tests in mice show potential for reversing the slowdown in learning that comes with puberty.

Anyone who's tried to learn a second language knows that the earlier in life you start, the easier it is to learn. Now, a scientist at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center (SUNY) has not only discovered why learning becomes much harder after puberty, but also how to fix it. The SUNY team found that learning difficulty resulted from the proliferation of special chemical receptors during adolescence, and that the stress steroid THP could reverse the problem.

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Beijing Turned Orange As Sandstorm Sweeps In

A Chinese policeman stands guard near Tiananmen Square
in Beijing during the sandstorm. (AFP/Liu Jin)

From Times Online:

Tons of sand turned Beijing's sky orange as the strongest sandstorm this year hit northern China, a gritty reminder that the country's expanding deserts have led to a sharp increase in the storms.

The sky glowed yesterday and a thin dusting of sand covered Beijing, causing workers and tourists to cover their faces with masks in the vast Tiananmen Square. The city's weather bureau gave air quality a rare hazardous ranking.

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Biology May Not Be So Complex After All, Physicist Finds

Image: Effects of parameter variation on escape time distribution for the gKPR process. (A) Mean completion time versus ¸ and Æ for L=8. (B) Coefficient of variation CV2gKPR versus ¸ and Æ for L=8. (C,D) the same for L=16. (Credit: Image courtesy of Emory University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2010) — Centuries ago, scientists began reducing the physics of the universe into a few, key laws described by a handful of parameters. Such simple descriptions have remained elusive for complex biological systems -- until now.

Emory biophysicist Ilya Nemenman has identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics. The discovery may hold the potential to streamline the development of drugs and diagnostic tools, by simplifying the research models.

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Why Spring Starts Today

From Live Science:

Today is the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. It is no guarantee of spring-like weather, but officially the season's start comes around at the same time each year nonetheless.

Well, sort of.

The first day of spring arrives on varying dates (from March 19-21) in different years for two reasons: Our year is not exactly an even number of days; and Earth's slightly noncircular orbit, plus the gravitational tug of the other planets, constantly changes our planet's orientation to the sun from year to year.

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Cloaking Device In The Near Future?

The invisibility cloak is the first to work in three dimensions, but has some way to go before it can make the USS Enterprise vanish. Photograph: Ronald Grant

Cloaking Device Makes Objects Invisible – To Infrared Light Anyway -- The Guardian

For now the device only makes objects invisible to infrared light, but it paves the way for a cloaking material that could hide vehicles, high-security facilities or unsightly buildings.

Scientists are a step closer to creating a Star Trek-style cloaking device after demonstrating a material that makes objects beneath it appear to vanish.

The material was used to hide a bump on a surface by interfering with the way light bounced off it, making it seem as though neither the cloak nor the bump was there.

Read more ....

Large Hadron Collider Breaks Energy Record

From The Telegraph:

The Large Hadron Collider has broken its own record for high energy particle streams.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or Cern, said beams of protons circulated at 3.5 trillion electron volts in both directions around the 27-kilometre (17-mile) tunnel housing the LHC under the Swiss-French border at Geneva. That is three times more energy than it has ever achieved before.

Read more ....

Say Hello To The Astute, The Best Submarine In The World

Astute sits on the shiplift outside the Devonshire Dock Hall in Barrow-in-Furness, ready to be lowered into the dock. The three starboard torpedo tubes are visible on the front of the submarine

Defender Of The Realm: Britain's £1.2bn Submarine - And Typically, We Can't Afford It... -- The Daily Mail

This is the best submarine in the world. It is virtually undetectable, has reinvented the periscope and sonar, and doubles as a floating GCHQ. It also happens to be British. Its only weakness? At £1.2bn, we can't actually afford it

She could prowl the depths of the oceans without stopping for her entire 25-year lifespan, her sleek curves undetected. She generates her own oxygen and fresh water from the surrounding sea, never has to refuel and never needs to break the surface. Indeed, the only reasons for her to come up after 90 days on patrol are to restock with food and to help preserve the sanity of her crew.

Read more ....

My Comment: The Royal Navy ruled the oceans for a reason .... they developed and manufactured great ships and trained even better sailors. But in today's world money is more important than technology, well trained personnel, and having the best boat.

Will Reclusive Mathematician Accept $1 Million Prize?

Photo: Grigory Perelman.

From New Scientist:

A million-dollar prize for solving one of toughest problems in mathematics has been awarded to a Russian mathematician, but the real puzzle is whether he'll accept it.

The reclusive Grigoriy Perelman has been recognised for his proof of the Poincaré conjecture, one of seven Millennium prize problems selected by the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI) in 2000 as the most important unsolved problems in mathematics.

Read more ....

A Mariner's Tool Could Help Astronauts Navigate Alien Worlds

Heavenly Guidance Blanddesigns.com

From Popular Science:

Like GPS for marstronauts.

It will probably take another decade to perfect the sophisticated rocket and life-support technology needed to put a human on Mars. But once we’re there, NASA may use centuries-old technology to keep us from getting lost during a stroll.

Read more ....

Volcano Erupts Near Eyjafallajoekull Glacier In Iceland

From Times Online:

A volcano in the area of the Eyjafallajoekull glacier in southern Iceland erupted overnight for the first time in 189 years, forcing more than 500 people to evacuate their homes.

The eruption took place just before midnight by the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the fifth largest glacier in Iceland. The volcano, which is 1,666m high and has a crater 4km in diameter, is covered by a large ice cap.

Read more ....

U.S. Wind Power Growing Fast But Still Lags

From CNET:

Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the United States but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said.

"With the right policies in place, we can see explosive growth...It's a global footrace," said Jeff Anthony, business development director of the American Wind Energy Association.

Read more ....

Most Flawless Diamonds Ever Are Meant for Lasers, Not Rings

More Flawless Diamonds Diamonds are a laser's best friend ... at least diamonds better than this Wikimedia

From Popular Science:

Scientists need the diamonds to build the next generation of X-ray lasers .

Powerful X-ray lasers may allow scientists to image tiny drug molecules or even precisely target cancer cells, but the lasers require extremely high-quality mirrors to function well. Now researchers have created a nearly-flawless diamond that can do the job, according to Discovery News.

Read more ....

Soyuz Landing: An Undignified Way To Come Home

From ABC News:

Ooof. This is why NASA designed the space shuttle to land like a plane.

Two space station crew members, American commander Jeff Williams and Russian flight engineer Maxim Suraev, landed their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft in three feet of snow this morning on the steppes of Kazakhstan, finishing a five-and-a-half-month stay in orbit.

Read more ....

Dinosaurs Did Not Gradually Die Out

From Discovery News:

Non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, and now researchers have proven that this die-off didn't happen over a long period of time.

A detailed look at dinosaur bones, tracks and eggs located at 29 archaeological sites located in the Catalan Pyrenees reveals that there was a large diversity of dinosaur species living there just before the fatal K-T extinction event, which many scientists believe was caused by several large meteors hitting Earth.

Read more ....

Dogs Likely Originated In The Middle East, New Genetic Data Indicate

This evolutionary tree shows dog breeds and gray wolves. (Credit: UCLA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 18, 2010) — Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, not Asia or Europe, according to a new genetic analysis by an international team of scientists led by UCLA biologists.

The research appears March 17 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature.

Read more ....

The Chilean Temblor: An Earthquake’s Radiating Energy

From Live Science:

Researchers are utilizing new technologies to help predict the strength and impacts of natural disasters. The image above, courtesy of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), depicts the energy radiating from the recent Chilean earthquake as well as the amplitude of the quake's resulting tsunami.

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What's The Point Of Nuclear Weapons On Instant Alert?

Nuclear missiles "on alert" could too easily be launched by mistake

From New Scientist:

IN THE next few weeks, President Barack Obama will publish his delayed Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), setting out the role nuclear weapons play in US defence. This is Obama's opportunity to end one of the most dangerous legacies of the cold war: the nuclear missiles the US and Russia keep ready to fly in minutes. The signs are that he is unlikely to take it.

This leaves the questions why does the US keep its nuclear weapons "on alert", and are they really needed?

Read more ....

Report: Google To Leave China On April 10

From CNET:

Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company.

"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read more ....

Shortage of Rare Earth Minerals May Cripple U.S. High-Tech, Scientists Warn Congress

Rare Earths Rare earth elements form a crucial part of everyday high-tech products.

From Popular Science:

On the sunnier side, rare earths could power a future generation of clean tech.

All those hybrid and electric cars, wind turbines and similar clean tech innovations may count for nothing if the U.S. cannot secure a supply of rare earth minerals. Ditto for other advanced telecommunications or defense technologies, scientists told a U.S. House subcommittee.

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New Password-Stealing Virus Targets Facebook

From ABC News:

Virus Attempts to Steal Banking Passwords, Other Sensitive Information.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook's estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information.

The emails tell recipients that the passwords on their Facebook accounts have been reset, urging them to click on an attachment to obtain new login credentials, according to anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc.

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