Houseplants Make Air Healthier

Houseplants were placed into experimental chambers in a greenhouse equipped with a charcoal filtration air supply system to measure ozone depletion rates. Credit: Dennis Decoteau.

From Live Science:

Houseplants can neutralize harmful ozone, making indoor air cleaner, according to a new study.

Ozone, which is the main component of smog, forms when high-energy light, such as the ultraviolet light from the sun, breaks oxygen bonds, ultimately resulting in O3, three atoms of oxygen joining together. When formed higher up in the atmosphere, the ozone layer protects us from harmful UV rays. Ground-level ozone is not so pleasant.

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Ancient 'Smell Of Death' Revealed

Dying stinks, even for woodlice

From The BBC:

When animals die, their corpses exude a particular "stench of death" which repels their living relatives, scientists have discovered.

Corpses of animals as distantly related as insects and crustaceans all produce the same stench, caused by a blend of simple fatty acids.

The smell helps living animals avoid others that have succumbed to disease or places where predators lurk.

This 'death recognition system' likely evolved over 400 million years ago.

The discovery was made by a team of researchers based at McMaster University, near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and is published in the journal Evolutionary Biology.

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The Real Sea Monsters: On the Hunt for Rogue Waves

BIG, BAD WAVE: A monster rogue wave approaches a merchant ship in the Bay of Biscay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean bordered by the coasts of northwestern Spain and southwestern France. NOAA'S NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE COLLECTION

From Scientific American:

Scientists hope a better understanding of when, where and how mammoth oceanic waves form can someday help ships steer clear of danger.

A near-vertical wall of water in what had been an otherwise placid sea shocked all on board the ocean liner Teutonic—including the crew—on that Sunday in February, more than a century ago.

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Big Artistic Performance To Be Set In Space

From Space.com:

The first ever widely acknowledged artistic performance from space will be broadcast from the International Space Station on Oct. 9.

Orchestrated by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who is set to launch to the station as a space tourist Sept. 30, the event will feature artists performing from 14 cities around the world, as well as Laliberte broadcasting from space.

Laliberte described the event, called "Moving Stars and Earth for Water," as a "poetic social mission" to communicate the importance water has for the planet and its people.

Scientists have warned that water shortages rank with energy and food issues around the globe as top governmental issues now and in the future.

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A Skull That Rewrites The History Of Man

One of the skulls discovered in Georgia, which are believed to date back 1.8 million years

From The Independent:

It has long been agreed that Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution. Then these bones were found in Georgia...

The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been thrown into doubt by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that suggest a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man.

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Humans Aren’t Going to Mars — or Anywhere Else — Without More Money

From Wired Science:

American human space exploration is impossible with NASA’s current budget.

The committee tasked with examining NASA’s role in human space flight delivered that finding today while offering a mix of relatively exciting options if the agency can secure an extra $3 billion per year.

The report, posted to the Office of Science and Technology Policy website, does not chart any new territory, but it’s unusually clear about the scale and nature of NASA’s problems. The committee said what needed to be said in the interest of a reality-based space program.

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Quietest Room In The World Opens Its Doors

Dr David Carberry prepares an experiment in the new Bristol University building which is the 'quietest' in the world Photo: SWNS

From The Telegraph:

The world's 'quietest' room opened its doors for the study of nanotechnology in Bristol.

The ''ultra-low vibration suite'', which cost £11million, allows scientists to manipulate atoms and molecules without the interference of environmental vibrations interrupting their work.

There is virtually no air movement inside the cutting edge laboratory, which is anchored to the rock foundation in the basement of the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre in Bristol.

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Cargo Spaceship Meets The Catcher In The Sky

Artist's impression of HTV approaching ISS (Image:JAXA)

From The New Scientist:

If the first launch of Japan's new heavy-lifting rocket passes without incident this month, the residents of the International Space Station will soon be taking delivery of food, water, some spanking new laptops, a robot arm and a couple of Earth-observing experiments. Business as usual, you might think, except that the way this particular cargo gets to its destination is subtly different to its predecessors.

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"Quantum Quest" Brings Cassini to the Big Screen (Starring William Shatner as Every Star in the Universe)

From Popular Science:

Harry Kloor may be the world’s most well-rounded nerd. He is the only person to have earned doctorates in physics and chemistry simultaneously, and he has penned episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. And when NASA asked him for help in improving its image with young people, he drew on both of those experiences. The best way to get kids enthused about outer space, Kloor figured, was to hide their medicine in a bucket of popcorn. Next February, Quantum Quest, a star-studded CGI space adventure that pairs animated protons with real footage from NASA spacecraft, hits theaters. “Many of NASA’s scientists were inspired by Star Trek and Star Wars,” he says. “I want to inspire that kind of passion.” We caught up with Kloor to find out why kids will go nuts for quarks.

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That Late-Night Snack: Worse Than You Think

Eating at irregular times -- the equivalent of the middle of the night for humans, when the body wants to sleep -- influences weight gain, a new study has found. (Credit: iStockphoto/Curt Pickens)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2009) — Eat less, exercise more. Now there is new evidence to support adding another "must" to the weight-loss mantra: eat at the right time of day.

A Northwestern University study has found that eating at irregular times -- the equivalent of the middle of the night for humans, when the body wants to sleep -- influences weight gain. The regulation of energy by the body's circadian rhythms may play a significant role. The study is the first causal evidence linking meal timing and increased weight gain.

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Why 09/09/09 Is So Special

In some cultures, the number 9 is special and can carry good or bad omens. These characters from the movie "9," which opens on 09/09/09, flee for their lives from the Fabrication Machine. Credit: Focus Features

From Live Science:

Have special plans this 09/09/09?

Everyone from brides and grooms to movie studio execs are celebrating the upcoming calendrical anomaly in their own way.

In Florida, at least one county clerk's office is offering a one-day wedding special for $99.99. The rarity of this Sept. 9 hasn't been lost on the creators of the iPod, who have moved their traditional Tuesday release day to Wednesday to take advantage of the special date. Focus Features is releasing their new film "9," an animated tale about the apocalypse, on the 9th.

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Laser Cooling May Create "Exotic" States of Matter

An infrared picture shows the change in temperature for laser-cooled gas (blue) and a surrounding metal chamber (red and yellow). After a 30-second pulse from a special type of laser beam, the gas cooled by several degrees compared to its container. Picture courtesy Martin Weitz

From National Geographic:

Laser beams are best known as weapons in science fiction and as heating and cutting tools in science fact. But a new study has flip-flopped conventional physics to show lasers in a whole new light.

In a new technique, Martin Weitz and Ulrich Vogl of the University of Bonn in Germany used a laser to bring the temperature of dense rubidium gas far below the normal point at which the gas becomes a solid.

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Underwater Laser Pops In Navy Ops

From The BBC:

US military researchers are developing a method for communication that uses lasers to make sound underwater.

The approach focuses laser light to produce bubbles of steam that pop and create tiny, 220-decibel explosions.

Controlling the rate of these explosions could provide a means of communication or even acoustic imaging.

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My Comment: The geek in me loves reading reports like this one.

The House That Twitters

IBM head of invention Andy Stanford-Clark at his home on the Isle of Wight which he has turned into a hi-tech house using Twitter

From The Telegraph:

A Tudor cottage has been converted into one of the most hi-tech homes in the world after its owner connected it to the internet messaging service Twitter.

Now the house tells its owner when his dinner is ready, if someone is at the door or when a mouse has been caught in a trap.

Dr Andy Stanford-Clark has fitted the grade 1 listed cottage with hundreds of sensors, allowing everything from energy usage to the burglar alarm to be relayed by the blogging website.

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Ancient Skeletons Discovered In Georgia Threaten To Overturn The Theory Of Human Evolution

Astonishing discovery: Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia

From The Daily Mail:

For generations, scientists have believed Africa was the cradle of mankind.

Now an astonishing discovery suggests the human race may have spent a 'gap year' in Eurasia.

Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia which threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution.

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Clues To Blast-Related Brain Injury

Photo: Brain blast: Scientists found that people who suffered concussions as the result of a blast had a more diffuse pattern of brain injury (shown in red) than those whose concussions resulted from a blow to the head or an acceleration injury.
Credit: David Moore et al.

From Technology Review:

New research shows that explosions trigger unique damage to brain tissue.

The blasts caused by improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to inflict a fundamentally different type of brain damage than do more traditional sources of concussions, such as blunt trauma. The findings point toward new approaches to diagnosing and monitoring these injuries, which have been a huge concern to the military in recent years. The research also begins to resolve a controversy in brain-injury research--whether soldiers who are near an explosion but don't get hit in the head can still suffer a unique type of brain damage.

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My Comment: If this report is true, it means that thousands of Iraqi/Afghan veterans may have experienced brain trauma that were never diagnosed .... or .... for those who were diagnosed, it may mean years of treatment and care that was never contemplated just a few years back. This is a very sobering report, and will be followed up by this blog in the future.

The Complicated World of Ancient Humans

Paved entrance to the Tayinat Temple in Turkey, a hotbed of trade in the Iron Age.

From Discover Magazine:

Recent digs show long-distance trade and complex social structures were around for longer than archaeologists thought.

For civilizations in Europe and the Near East, the Bronze and Iron Ages—when metalworking was first developed—have been viewed as times when simple societies struggled through technological upheaval, famine, and sickness. But new findings are revealing surprising social and cultural complexity.

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Earth-Sized Planets Are Just Right For Life

Auroras, like this one seen from Alaska, may be a sign that a planet can support life (Image: Joshua Strang, United States Air Force / Wikimedia Commons)

From New Scientist:

THE discovery of extrasolar super-Earths - rocky planets about five to ten times the mass of Earth - has raised hopes that some may harbour life. Perhaps it's a vain hope though, since it now seems that Earth is just the right size to sustain life.

Life is comfortable on Earth in part because of its relatively stable climate and its magnetic field, which deflects cosmic radiation capable of damaging organic molecules as well as producing amazing auroras (see right).

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RoboBath: NASA Studies The Cleanest Robot in the World

Mars Mountaineer

+ Arctic Outdoor Lab: Scientists use Norway’s far northern Svalbard islands to test gear-sterilization techniques and space-bound rovers such as this prototype.

+ Social Climber: Cliffbot is part of a three-rover team. Two other robots are tethered to the machine to let it access terrain as steep as 85 degrees.

+ Bot Specs: The rover is the size of a toy wagon, weighs nearly 18 pounds and creeps at 6 inches a second on level ground.

From Popular Mechanics:

In the icy north, scientists learn to sanitize their tools before sending out rovers to search for life on other planets.

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Asus's New E-Reader Looks More Like a Real, Live Book

Asus Eee Reader

From Popular Science:

The company's forthcoming reader sports a dual-screen, two-page layout and (yes) color.

For a lot of people, e-book readers are a long game of "I'll buy it when..." For some, the rest of that sentence is "it has a color screen," and for others it's "it's cheaper." Asus's upcoming Eee Reader (due by the end of this year) delivers on both counts. Oh, and it will have two screens, too.

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