13 More Things That Don't Make Sense

From New Scientist:

Strive as we might to make sense of the world, there are mysteries that still confound us.

Here are thirteen of the most perplexing. Cracking any one of them could yield profound truths.

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How Science Can Create Millions of New Jobs

From Business Week:

Reigniting basic research can repair the broken U.S. business model and put Americans back to work .

Name an industry that can produce 1 million new, high-paying jobs over the next three years. You can't, because there isn't one. And that's the problem.

America needs good jobs, soon. We need 6.7 million just to replace losses from the current recession, then an additional 10 million to keep up with population growth and to spark demand over the next decade. In the 1990s the U.S. economy created a net 22 million jobs, or 2.2 million a year. But from 2000 to the end of 2007, the rate plunged to 900,000 a year. The pipeline is dry because the U.S. business model is broken. Our growth engine has run out of a key fuel—basic research.

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The First "Clown" Going To Space

Guy Laliberte poses for a picture as he attends a training session in a space capsule at the Star City space centre outside Moscow July 9, 2009. The Canadian billionaire owner of Cirque du Soleil is on the countdown to become the world's seventh, and Canada's first, space tourist, slated to travel on a Russian Rocket

Laliberté Set To Be Inspired -- The Montreal Gazette

Space tourist launches to ISS on Sept. 30

Canada's first space tourist will blast off into space as part of a three-man supply crew on Sept. 30.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté, NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Suraev are scheduled to launch on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

"I think this is a great, great opportunity of inspiration and I intend to inspire myself as much as possible," said Laliberté, speaking from the Johnson Space Centre in Houston.

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Guy Laliberté, in a lighter moment, clowns around during training for launch to the International Space Station. (Credit: Space Adventures Ltd.)

More News On Canada's First Space Tourist

'First clown in space' has serious mission goals -- AP
The future first clown in space to advocate for water -- AFP
Circus billionaire plans show from space -- Reuters
Space clown plans global show -- MSNBC
Cirque boss's space trip to have serious message - aside from the clown nose -- Canadian Press
Cirque du Soleil show in space -- BBC
Cirque du Soleil chief outlines 'poetic' space mission -- CNET
Big Artistic Performance to Be Set in Space -- Space.com
Laliberté flying without a nyet -- Montreal Gazette
U2 to participate in “Moving Stars and Earth for Water” event -- U2Log

Giant Galaxy Hosts Most Distant Supermassive Black Hole

False-color image of the QSO (CFHQSJ2329-0301), the most distant black hole currently known. In addition to the bright central black hole (white), the image shows the surrounding host galaxy (red). The white bar indicates an angle on the sky of 4 arcseconds or 1/900th of a degree. (Credit: Tomotsugu GOTO, University of Hawaii)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2009) — University of Hawaii (UH) astronomer Dr. Tomotsugu Goto and colleagues have discovered a giant galaxy surrounding the most distant supermassive black hole ever found. The galaxy, so distant that it is seen as it was 12.8 billion years ago, is as large as the Milky Way galaxy and harbours a supermassive black hole that contains at least a billion times as much matter as our Sun.

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FAQ: The Science And History Of Wildfires

From Live Science:

The Station Fire, the largest of eight wildfires roaring through parts of California, began on Aug. 26 and has since burned more than 140,000 acres of land within the Angeles National Forest and near the surrounding foothill communities of La Canada-Flintridge, La Crescenta, Acton, Soledad Canyon, Pasadena and Glendale.

Here's what's behind this fire and others, and how this fire season stacks up to history:

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Future Robot Soldiers?

The Exoskeleton: Extreme Technological Innovation -- Raytheon

Raytheon Company’s research facility in Salt Lake City, Utah, is developing a robotic suit for the soldier of tomorrow. The exoskeleton is essentially a wearable robot that amplifies its wearer’s strength, endurance and agility. Reminiscent of super heroes depicted in comic books and Hollywood movies, the bleeding edge technology effectively blurs the lines between science fiction and reality. So much so, that Popular Science magazine recently likened Raytheon’s exoskeleton to the “Iron Man”® depicted in the blockbuster movie of the same name.

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My Comment: Watch the YouTube video .... I am impressed.

Studying Ancient Man To Learn To Prevent Disease

iStockphoto

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Health care as we know it didn't exist 3,000 years ago. But along the Georgia coast, the Pacific Northwest, and coastal Brazil, people grew tall and strong and lived relatively free of disease. They ate game, fish, shellfish, and wild plants.

But as corn farming spread through various regions of the Americas, people got shorter. Many became prone to anemia and began dying of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

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As Wildfire Threatens L.A., Satellites And Supertankers Hover

Smoke Monster: Smokey won't like this. NASA

From Popular Science:

Los Angelenos have recently watched billowing clouds from a nearby wildfire hover overhead, in scenes reminiscent of "Volcano." NASA's Terra satellite took the opportunity to snap a photo of the smoke monster on the night of August 30. Red outlines in the photo indicate wildfire hotspots.

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Milk Drinking Started Around 7,500 Years Ago In Central Europe

Map showing origin of milk drinking in Europe.
(Credit: Image courtesy of University College London)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 1, 2009) — The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose first evolved in dairy farming communities in central Europe, not in more northern groups as was previously thought, finds a new study led by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology.

The genetic change that enabled early Europeans to drink milk without getting sick has been mapped to dairying farmers who lived around 7,500 years ago in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe.

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Dogs Descended From Wolf Pack On Yangtze River

From The Telegraph:

Today's dogs are all descended from a pack of wolves tamed 16,000 years ago on the shores of the Yangtze river, according to new research.

It was previously known that the birthplace of the dog was eastern Asia but historians were not able to be more precise than that.

However, now researchers have made a number of new discoveries about the history of man's best friend - including that the dog appeared about 16,000 years ago south of the Yangtze river in China.

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We Are All Mutants Say Scientists

From The BBC:

Each of us has at least 100 new mutations in our DNA, according to research published in the journal Current Biology.

Scientists have been trying to get an accurate estimate of the mutation rate for over 70 years.

However, only now has it been possible to get a reliable estimate, thanks to "next generation" technology for genetic sequencing.

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Discovery Of Novel Genes Could Unlock Mystery Of What Makes Us Uniquely Human

A baby chimp (Pan troglodytes) and his handler looking at each other.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Warwick Lister-Kaye)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2009) — Humans and chimpanzees are genetically very similar, yet it is not difficult to identify the many ways in which we are clearly distinct from chimps. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have made a crucial discovery of genes that have evolved in humans after branching off from other primates, opening new possibilities for understanding what makes us uniquely human.

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What Happens When an Astronaut Sneezes?

No kidding! This CDC photograph captured a sneeze in progress, revealing the plume of salivary droplets as they are expelled in a large cone-shaped array from this man's open mouth. The flu virus can spread in this manner and survive long enough on a doorknob or countertop to infect another person. It dramatically illustrating the reason you should cover your mouth when sneezing or coughing to protect others from germ exposure, health officials say. It’s also why you need to wash your hands a lot, on the assumptions others don’t always cover their sneezes. Credit: CDC/James Gathany .

From Live Science:

Best to do the sneezing inside a shuttle or the space station, not on a spacewalk, when it can get real messy, with goo sprayed all over the inside of the helmet's "windshield."

Lately astronauts have been complaining about stuffy heads up there on the International Space Station. NASA doesn't think they have colds, though. Rather, the effects have more to do with pockets of carbon dioxide generated when they gather in groups, space station flight controller Heather Rarick said.

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Space Mission To Mercury: How An Ion Engine Works

Photo courtesy NASA
This image of a xenon ion engine, photographed through a port of the vacuum chamber where it was being tested at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shows the faint blue glow of charged atoms being emitted from the engine. The ion propulsion engine is the first non-chemical propulsion to be used as the primary means of propelling a spacecraft.

From The Telegraph:

The solar electric propulsion systems – or ion engines - which will power the next generation of spacecraft to Mercury and beyond are ten times more efficient than conventional rocket engines.

In an ion engine the gas xenon is pumped through a chamber where xenon atoms are stripped of an electron, becoming electrically charged ions, and drift towards two grids a millimetre apart.

The grids are fed with two thousand volts – in space this power will come from paper-thin solar panels spanning 26m. As the ions pass through the electrified grids they accelerate to up to 50km a second and shoot from the rear in a parallel beam.

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First Baby Born From New Egg-Screening Technique

From Breitbart/AFP:

Meet Oliver, the first baby in the world born using a new egg-screening technique that could double the odds of an implanted embryo taking hold in the womb, unveiled by British experts on Wednesday.

Baby Oliver was born in Britain to a 41-year-old woman after 13 failed attempts at in vitro fertilisation (IVF).

The new technique, called array comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH), makes it possible to ensure eggs have a normal number of chromosomes, boosting the likelihood of a successful pregnancy.

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Great Ball Of Fire? No, Just A 'Sun Dog' Scampering Across The Sky

Blazing light: The flash was photographed by Matthew Pinless
near his home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

From The Daily Mail:

Matthew Pinless was sure that the streak of light he spotted in the sky while walking was more likely to be a meteor than a UFO.

In fact it was neither. The blazing ball hanging above a residential street in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, is thought to be a ‘sun dog’.

The phenomenon occurs when sunlight is refracted by hexagonal-shaped ice crystals in high and cirrus clouds - and is quite common, experts say.

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First Spacewalk Complete

Credit NASA

From Red Orbit:

The first spacewalk of the STS-128 mission came off without a hitch on Tuesday, as spacewalkers Danny Olivas and Nicole Stott completed all the tasks on their to-do list.

Olivas and Stott left the International Space Station at 4:49 p.m. Tuesday, and spent the next 6 hours and 35 minutes outside, working to get cargo that space shuttle Discovery will bring home ready for its return. They started with a depleted ammonia tank assembly on the P1, or port 1, segment of the station’s truss, getting it out of the way in preparation for the installation of a new tank to be installed on Thursday, during the mission’s second spacewalk. The ammonia in the tanks is used to cool the station and expel the heat generated by its residents and systems.

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Maintenance Error Causes Two-Hour Gmail Outage

From ZDNet:

Google's nearly two-hour Gmail outage yesterday was the result of a miscalculation regarding the capacity of its system, the company said late on Tuesday.

Gmail (Google Mail) was down from about 12:30pm PDT (8:30pm BST) Tuesday to about 2:30pm PDT (10:30pm BST), affecting millions of Gmail customers who depend on the service for everything from fantasy football roster updates to business-critical information. The problem was caused by a classic cascade in which servers became overwhelmed with traffic in rapid succession.

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Finding Smells That Repel

Michael C. Witte

From The Wall Street Journal:

If you're one of those people whom mosquitoes tend to favor, maybe it's because you aren't sufficiently stressed-out.

Insects have very keen powers of smell that direct them to their targets. But for researchers trying to figure out what attracts or repels the pests, sorting through the 300 to 400 distinct chemical odors that the human body produces has proved daunting.

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Keeping Genes Out Of Terrorists' Hands

Photo: Low standards could mean that hazardous genes get through screening more easily. W. Philpott/Reuters

From Nature:

Gene-synthesis industry at odds over how to screen DNA orders.

A standards war is brewing in the gene-synthesis industry. At stake is the way that the industry screens orders for hazardous toxins and genes, such as pieces of deadly viruses and bacteria. Two competing groups of companies are now proposing different sets of screening standards, and the results could be crucial for global biosecurity.

"If you have a company that persists with a lower standard, you can drag the industry down to a lower level," says lawyer Stephen Maurer of the University of California, Berkeley, who is studying how the industry is developing responsible practices. "Now we have a standards war that is a race to the bottom."

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My Comment: This is a topic that I am ignorant of. But my brother .... who has a Doctorate in Chemistry and who has worked in the pharmaceutical industry exploring these topics for he past 20 years tells me to be afraid .... be very afraid.

Hmmmm .... OK .... I am afraid.