Seven (More) Gadgets Killed by the Cellphone

Image from Wired News

From Wired:

Calling a cellphone a mere phone seems a little silly these days. The little pocket wonders now do so much they are really handheld computers. With extras. The process of mashing one or more gadgets together in the same box used to be called convergence, but that approach quietly died as the mobile phone ate up any and every rival device.

So successful has this been that whole product categories have had the life choked out of their twitching bodies by the phone. The following list is an obituary to five of them, plus a look at the cellphone's next victim.

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Update: Seven (More) Gadgets Killed by the Cellphone

New Evidence Surfaces Of David's Kingdom

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Khirbet Qeiyafa, Israel -- For 3,000 years, the 12-foot high walls of an ancient city have been clearly visible on a hill towering above the Valley of Elah where the Bible says David slew Goliath.

But no one has ever linked the ruins to the city mentioned in the First Book of Samuel's famous account of the legendary duel and the victory of the Israelites - until now. On Tuesday, Hebrew University archaeology Professor Yosef Garfinkel will present compelling evidence to scholars at Harvard University that he has found the 10th century biblical city of Sha'arayim, Hebrew for "Two Gates." Garfinkel, who made his startling discovery at the beginning of this month, will also discuss his findings at the American Schools of Oriental Research conference hosted by Boston University on Thursday.

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Scientists Find Facial Scars Increase Attractiveness

From E! Science News:

Men with facial scars are more attractive to women seeking short-term relationships, scientists at the University of Liverpool have found. It was previously assumed that in Western cultures scarring was an unattractive facial feature and in non-Western cultures they were perceived as a sign of maturity and strength. Scientists at Liverpool and Stirling University, however, have found that Western women find scarring on men attractive and may associate it with health and bravery.

Researchers investigated how scarring might impact on mate choice for men and women seeking both long-term and short-term relationships. They found that women preferred men with facial scars for short-term relationships and equally preferred scarred and un-scarred faces for long-term relationships. Men, however, regarded women with and without facial scars as equally attractive for both types of relationship.

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Prehistoric Family Values

Together in death. Genetic analysis suggests that a mother, a father, and their two boys were buried in the same grave. Credit: Photo courtesy of the National Academy of Sciences

From Science Magazine:

When Barack Obama moves into the White House in January, he'll bring his wife and children with him. The nuclear family is not only as American as apple pie but also the cultural norm in most societies across the world. New genetic and chemical analyses of 4600-year-old burials in Germany suggests that family togetherness has deep roots, going back at least as far the beginnings of agriculture in Europe.

Before humans settled down and began to farm, they lived as nomadic hunters and gatherers. Many anthropologists have assumed, based on observations of sometimes polygamous modern-day hunter-gatherers, that the basic social unit of early humans was the band or tribe rather than the family. Figuring out when the nuclear family became central to human social organization has been difficult. Archaeologists have dug up thousands of skeletons at early farming sites across the Near East and Europe, and many of them are buried together in ways that might suggest family ties.

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Future Of The U.S. Space Program In Obama's Hands

UP IN THE AIR? Ares rockets, components of the Constellation program, are shown in this artist's conception. Given budgetary and manpower constraints, the future of Constellation, currently scheduled to begin service in 2015, may depend on the future of the space shuttle, which could be retired in 2010. NASA/MSFC

From Scientific American:

A decision must be made by the next chief executive soon on the space shuttle's fate, for starters

As the moments tick away before tonight's scheduled launch of the space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station (ISS), another countdown is underway: Only a handful of launches remain before the shuttle program's scheduled retirement in 2010. When President-elect Barack Obama takes office two months from now, he and his aides will need to decide quickly whether or not to hold to that date, a determination that will have major implications for the future of U.S. space exploration.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress's investigative arm, has identified the shuttle's future as one of the most urgent issues facing the incoming Obama administration. "NASA has already begun the process of shutting down production and transitioning people, equipment and resources to new endeavors," GAO director of acquisition and sourcing management Cristina Chaplain says. She adds that the longer the decision is delayed, the more difficult it will be to keep operating the shuttle safely and cost-effectively. "Moreover, putting off a decision may hamper the transition itself and keep NASA from pursuing new space transportation development," Chaplain wrote in an e-mail.

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Cheating The Angels

Whiskey barrels in the Jack Daniels destillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee.
(Photo from Wikimedia)

From Popsci:

A new plan is raising eyebrows in the conservative whisky industry

At the New York WhiskyFest this week, nobody wanted to talk much about technological innovations in the industry. Most of the whisky professionals I asked assured me that there was no such thing as innovation at their tradition-steeped distillery -- they were doing everything the same way it had been done for generations, thank you very much. Some distillers seemed put out that their companies had recently embraced such cutting-edge twentieth-century technology as labelling barrels with bar codes. The marketing side of the business is innovating to beat the band -- look for a new Irish whiskey called Feckin and a new rye called (rī)1 coming soon to bars near you -- but the production side remains defiantly old-fangled.

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It's Unpacking Day For Astronauts At Space Station

The International Space Station's robot arm and an external antenna are seen in the foreground as the Space Shuttle Endeavour closes in on the orbital outpost for docking in this image from NASA TV November 16, 2008. (NASA TV/Reuters)

From International Herald Tribune:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida: Astronauts hitched a giant shipping crate full of home improvement "goodies" to the international space station on Monday, a critical step for boosting the population in orbit.

It was the first major job for the crews of the linked space station and space shuttle Endeavour, and highlighted their first full day together.

"We're here to work," the space station's skipper, Mike Fincke, called down. "This is the can-do crew."

More than 14,000 pounds (6,350 kilograms)of gear was stuffed into the 21-foot (6 1/2 meter) container that flew up on Endeavour and was hoisted onto the space station. It held an extra toilet, refrigerator and kitchenette, exercise machine and sleeping compartments, and a new recycling system for converting urine into drinking water.

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Gulf War Research Panel Finds 1 In 4 Veterans Suffers From Illness Caused By Toxic Exposure

From E! Science News:

At least one in four of the 697,000 U.S. veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from Gulf War illness, a condition caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides and a drug administered to protect troops against nerve gas, and no effective treatments have yet been found, a federal panel of scientific experts and veterans concludes in a landmark report released Monday. The Congressionally-mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses presented the report today to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake at VA headquarters in Washington.

Scientific staff support to the Committee is provided by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). The full report is posted at: http://sph.bu.edu/insider/racreport

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The Energy Debates: Wind Farms

Analysts estimate it would take at least 260,000 turbines, each 300 feet tall, to meet the United States' electricity needs. These turbines are in King City, Mo.
Credit: MU Cooperative Media Group, Steve Morse photo

From Live Science:

Editor's Note: "The Energy Debates" is a LiveScience series about the pros, cons, policy debates, myths and facts related to various alternative energy ideas. We invite you to join the debate by commenting directly on each article.

The Facts

Wind farms harness the wind's energy to generate electricity. Wind energy actually comes mainly from the sun. When solar energy heats up the atmosphere, hot air rises while cooler air swirls down to replace it. This movement results in wind.

Wind turbines possess massive rotors typically 160 to 300 feet (48 to 91 meters) in diameter. A wind turbine inland can generate 1.5 to 2.5 megawatts, while one located offshore amid mighty coastal winds could reach 5 megawatts, although constructing turbines in the water and keeping them up in the face of ocean waves and corrosive seawater presents challenges. Altogether, banks of turbines on a wind farm can produce anywhere from 100 to 800 megawatts.

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How Eating Red Meat Can Spur Cancer Progression: New Mechanism Identified

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 14, 2008) — Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, led by Ajit Varki, M.D., have shown a new mechanism for how human consumption of red meat and milk products could contribute to the increased risk of cancerous tumors.

Their findings, which suggest that inflammation resulting from a molecule introduced through consumption of these foods could promote tumor growth, are published online this week in advance of print publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Once Greeted Warmly, Google Wears Out Welcome

Google's Street View mapping service is available in France, Italy and Spain, but privacy laws threaten its expansion elsewhere in Europe. Image From International Herald Tribune

From International Herald Tribune:

BERLIN: When Google began hiring in Zurich for its new engineering center in 2004, local officials welcomed the U.S. company with open arms. Google's arrival is still bearing fruit for Zurich: 450 employees, about 300 of them engineers, work in Google's seven-story complex in a converted brewery on the outskirts of the placid mountain metropolis.

But almost five years into its expansion into Europe - where it has a headquarters in Dublin, large facilities in Zurich and London and smaller centers in Denmark, Russia and Poland, among other countries - Google is beginning to bump up against a web of privacy laws that threaten its growth and the positive image it has cultivated as a company dedicated to doing good - its unofficial motto.

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Dirty Brown Clouds Impact Glaciers, Agriculture And The Monsoon

Pollution in Bangkok. The cities of Bangkok, Beijing, Cairo, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata, Lagos, Mumbai, New Delhi, Seoul, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tehran were found to have very high soot levels. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 16, 2008) — Cities from Beijing to New Delhi are getting darker, glaciers in ranges like the Himalayas are melting faster and weather systems becoming more extreme, in part, due to the combined effects of man-made Atmospheric Brown Clouds (ABCs) and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

These are among the conclusions of scientists studying a more than three km-thick layer of soot and other manmade particles that stretches from the Arabian Peninsula to China and the western Pacific Ocean.

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The Movies -- The Best Fictional Doomsday Devices

The Death Star (Star Wars)

From Wired News:

America's love affair with the doomsday device is a turbulent one. First popularized in comic books and James Bond movies, then lampooned by Austin Powers, we love them because their ridiculousness makes us feel safe — like the exhilarating false danger of a roller coaster.

Now heightened audience cynicism has forced world-ending devices into the realm of camp, and except for a new breed of superhero movies, they've largely been replaced by natural disasters or apocalyptic sci-fi scenarios in Hollywood films.

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Variable Electric Generator Improves Wind Power Efficiency

(Photo form Talking Tourism)

From Future Pundit:

An interesting article in MIT's Technology Review reports on a generator for wind turbines that can harvest electric power over a wider range of wind speeds.

ExRo Technologies, a startup based in Vancouver, BC, has developed a new kind of generator that's well suited to harvesting energy from wind. It could lower the cost of wind turbines while increasing their power output by 50 percent.

The new generator runs efficiently over a wider range of conditions than conventional generators do. When the shaft running through an ordinary generator is turning at the optimal rate, more than 90 percent of its energy can be converted into electricity. But if it speeds up or slows down, the generator's efficiency drops dramatically.

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Young Innovators Learn To Pitch Big Ideas

Selling it: At the PopTech conference in Camden, Maine, Manoj Sinha discusses how discarded rice husks can be used to generate electricity. (Courtesy of Kris Krug/PopTech)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

‘Boot camp’ in Maine teaches them how to get their message across in five minutes.

You’ve got a world-changing idea. And a passion to make it happen.

That’s good. But you need a third element: The ability to “pitch” your idea to venture capitalists and others who can help turn your dream into reality.

Budding business tycoons or Hollywood script writers know the importance of marketing themselves and their projects. But those in the nonprofit world, whose goal is altruistic, may never have thought about how to put a dazzling sheen on their quick “elevator pitch.”

Learning what goes into a perfect pitch was just one of the practical skills taught to a group of up-and-coming “social innovators” last month at the 12th annual PopTech conference in Camden, Maine.

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The World Has Never Seen Such Freezing Heat

A sudden cold snap brought snow to London in October. Photo from The Telegraph

From the Telegraph:

A surreal scientific blunder last week raised a huge question mark about the temperature records that underpin the worldwide alarm over global warming. On Monday, Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

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Astronauts Inspect Spaceship For Any Damage

The U.S. space shuttle fleet, including the Endeavour, seen here as it approaches the international space station in 2001, is set to return to flight by the middle of 2005, more than two years after the Columbia tragedy. NASA file

From MSNBC:

At least two pieces of debris were spotted Friday night in launch photos

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Space shuttle Endeavour's astronauts unfurled a 100-foot, laser-tipped pole and surveyed their ship for any launch damage Saturday while drawing ever closer to their destination, the international space station.

At least two pieces of debris were spotted Friday night in launch photos, Mission Control reported, and engineers were poring over the images to determine whether anything hit Endeavour. Mission Control told the astronauts there were no obvious signs of damage.

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Marine Dead Zones Set To Expand Rapidly

Oxygen content of the world's oceans. Regions with low oxygen are shown in red. IFM-GEOMAR

From Nature:

Rising levels of carbon dioxide could increase the volume of oxygen-depleted 'dead zones' in tropical oceans by as much as 50% before the end of the century — with dire consequences for the health of ecosystems in some of the world's most productive fishing grounds.

At depths between several tens and hundreds of metres, large parts of the tropical oceans are poorly supplied with dissolved oxygen, and are therefore hostile to most marine life. Scientists suspect that these zones are sensitive to climate change, but previous studies have arrived at conflicting conclusions regarding exactly how and why a more CO2-rich world affects oceanic oxygen content.

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EBay Seller Gets Millionth Positive Feedback

Fox News:

NEW YORK — If you've ever sold something on eBay, you may have been pleased to receive positive feedback from the buyer. Multiply that by a million, and you can imagine how Jack Sheng feels.

Sheng, 33, owns Los Angeles-based Eforcity Corp., which has been selling electronics accessories on the online auction site since he started his business in 2000 with two childhood friends.

In the past two months, four separate eBay user IDs belonging to Sheng and his company each surpassed more than 1 million feedback points. No one else on eBay has come close.

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World's Fastest Scientific Supercomputer

From Knoxnews:

OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory had promised a breakthrough performance from its newly arrived Cray XT5 supercomputer, but Monday's announcement was still a stunner.

The "Jaguar" system is now the world's fastest computer for science research, capable of 1.64 petaflops - or 1.64 quadrillion mathematical calculations per second. A quadrillion is equivalent to 1,000 trillion.

"It's going to be really exciting times in terms of the kind of science that's being done," Thomas Zacharia, ORNL's computational science leader, said Monday.

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