Friday, October 9, 2009
Look Into My Eyes: The Power Of Hypnosis
From New Scientist:
I AM about to have my left leg paralysed, my arm taken over by an alien force and, quite possibly, be made blind. I confess I'm a bit nervous. But also, strangely, I hope it all works.
These insults to my body will not be inflicted with a scalpel, but instead induced using hypnosis. The effects, if they occur, will only be temporary, my hypnotist, David Oakley, reassures me.
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Nasa Team Scours Moon Crash Data
The "shepherding spacecraft" will analyse the impact debrisFrom The BBC:
Nasa scientists have been outlining their preliminary results after crashing two unmanned spacecraft into the Moon in a bid to detect water-ice.
A rocket stage slammed into the Moon's south pole at 1231 BST (0731 EDT).
Another craft followed just behind, looking for signs of water in debris kicked up by the first collision.
Instruments on the second spacecraft identified a flash from the initial impact as well as a crater, but the expected debris cloud was not evident.
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Nobel Prize: Ten Most Important Winners
Professor Marie Curie working in her laboratory at the University of Paris in 1925 Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES
From The Telegraph:
As the 2009 Nobel Prize winners are announced, we look at ten of the most influential laureates in the history of the awards.
1. Marie Curie
The leading light in a family that between them amassed a remarkable five Nobel Prizes in the fields of Chemistry and Physics. She became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in 1903 when she was recognised, along with her husband Pierre and Antoine Henri Becquerel, with the Physics award for their research into radiation.
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Is China Beating The U.S. In Clean Tech?
Credit: Technology Review From The Technology Review:
The president of NRDC points to a growing investment by China in energy technologies.
China could beat the United States in a race to deploy clean energy technology that can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, said Frances Beinecke, leader of a leading environmental group, speaking this week at MIT.
"I just got back from China, where there is tremendous investment in the clean tech sector," said Beinecke, the president of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). "They have a national renewable energy standard, a national efficiency standard, and China will build more of everything--more coal, more nuclear, more renewables--and they'll invest in more efficiency than any other single country in the world."
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Scaling New Heights: Piano Stairway Encourages Commuters To Ditch The Escalators
Music to your ears: The new stairway has proved a hit with commuters in StockholmFrom The Daily Mail:
Apart from the fighting fit, most of us struggle taking the stairs during the morning commute to work... especially if there is an escalator right next to them.
Now Volkswagen has come up with a nifty way of encouraging people to exercise more... by making climbing the stairs a note-worthy experience.
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Burning Buried Coal Has 'Potential'
Photo: In the future power stations could use gas extracted from seams of coals deep underground to generate electricity, say experts (Source: ABC)From ABC News (Australia):
Burning coal underground could be one of the next breakthroughs to increase the world's energy supply, say some experts.
They say the technology could provide access to additional coal reserves that are either too deep or remote to mine.
But the approach is so far untested on a commercial scale, making the initial expense a concern for governments and investors.
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Last Time Carbon Dioxide Levels Were This High: 15 Million Years Ago, Scientists Report
Photo: Aradhna Tripati. (Credit: Image courtesy of UCLA)From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Oct. 9, 2009) — You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.
"The last time carbon dioxide levels were apparently as high as they are today — and were sustained at those levels — global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher than they are today, the sea level was approximately 75 to 120 feet higher than today, there was no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic and very little ice on Antarctica and Greenland," said the paper's lead author, Aradhna Tripati, a UCLA assistant professor in the department of Earth and space sciences and the department of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.
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Real Tsunami May Have Inspired Legend of Atlantis
From Live Science:
The volcanic explosion that obliterated much of the island that might have inspired the legend of Atlantis apparently triggered a tsunami that traveled hundreds of miles to reach as far as present-day Israel, scientists now suggest.
The new findings about this past tsunami could shed light on the destructive potential of future disasters, researchers added.
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Has Science Found The Cause Of ME?
From The Independent:Breakthrough offers hope to millions of sufferers around the world.
Scientists say they have made a dramatic breakthrough in understanding the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome – a debilitating condition affecting 250,000 people in Britain which for decades has defied a rational medical explanation.
The researchers have discovered a strong link between chronic fatigue syndrome, which is sometimes known as ME or myalgic encephalomyelitis, and an obscure retrovirus related to a group of viruses found to infect mice.
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Canada Invests In Carbon Capture For Oil Sands
The Syncrude extraction facility in the northern Alberta oil sand fields is reflected in the pool of water being recycled for re-use in the extraction process in Fort McMurray, Canada in 2007. Canada will invest 865 million Canadian dollars (821 million US) to capture carbon emissions from its vast oil sands, reviled by environmentalists as hugely polluting, officials said Thursday.(AFP/File/David Boily)
From Yahoo News/AFP:
OTTAWA (AFP) – Canada will invest 865 million Canadian dollars (821 million US) to capture carbon emissions from its vast oil sands, reviled by environmentalists as hugely polluting, officials said Thursday.
"The most viable emission-reducing technology for fossil fuels is carbon capture and storage," said Canadian Energy Minister Lisa Raitt.
"The government of Canada is backing up our support for carbon capture and storage with substantial investments... (to) reduce greenhouse gas emissions while creating high-quality jobs for Canadians."
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NASA Craft Hits Moon South Pole Looking For Water
This artist's rendering released by NASA on Friday shows the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite as it crashes into the moon to test for the presence of water. NASA, via ReutersIn Test of Water on Moon, Craft Hits Bull’s-Eye -- New York Times
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — More than 230,000 miles from Earth, a NASA spacecraft hit a bull’s-eye on the Moon on Friday morning. Actually, two bull’s-eyes.
At 4:31 a.m. Pacific time (7:31 a.m. Eastern time), one piece of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite — LCROSS, for short — slammed into the bottom of a crater at 5,600 miles per hour, excavating about 350 metric tons of the moon and leaving behind a hole about 65 feet wide, 13 feet deep.
Trailing four minutes behind, instruments aboard the second piece analyzed the rising plume and sent its observations back to Earth before it also slammed into the same crater.
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More News On NASA
NASA makes as-yet unseen hit on moon with probes -- AP
NASA craft smacks the moon in quest for water -- L.A. Times
Searching for lunar water -- USA Today
NASA probes give moon a double smack -- AP
Nasa Moon bombing: analysis -- The Telegraph
South Pole Telescope Emerges From Dark Winter With Visions Of Unseen Galaxies
The South Pole Telescope with The Milky Way and Aurora Australis. (UPPA/Photoshot)From Times Online:
The South Pole Telescope emerges from a six-month winter of perpetual darkness having discovered clusters of previously unseen galaxies.
The pole has been called “the most benign environment on Earth” for astronomy because of its altitude — 2,800m above sea level — dryness of air and virtual absence of light pollution.
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Animals Survived Apocalypse By Burrowing
Ninety percent of all life was killed during the Permian mass extinction 250 million years ago. But the pig-sized animal Lystrosaurus curvatus and other species apparently survived by burrowing underground. Lunar and Planetary InstituteFrom Discovery:
When the going gets tough, putting your head in the sand isn't always a bad idea. According to a new study, that's exactly how a group of animals living 250 million years ago survived the worst mass extinction of all time.
In a series of new fossil discoveries in South Africa, researchers have uncovered a slew of petrified burrows, many of them a foot wide and a meter (3.3 feet) or more deep.
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The Legacy Of America’s Largest Forest Fire
The forest fire of 1910 ripped through the town of Wallace, Idaho leaving it in complete shambles. Library of CongressFrom The Smithsonian:
A 1910 wildfire that raged across three Western states helped advance the nation’s conservation efforts
Here now came the fire down from the Bitterroot Mountains and showered embers and forest shrapnel onto the town that was supposed to be protected by all those men with faraway accents and empty stomachs. For days, people had watched it from their gabled houses, from front porches and ash-covered streets, and there was some safety in the distance, some fascination even—See there, way up on the ridgeline, just candles flickering in the trees. But now it was on them, an element transformed from Out There to Here, and just as suddenly in their hair, on front lawns, snuffing out the life of a drunk on a hotel mattress, torching a veranda. The sky had been dark for some time on this Saturday in August of 1910, the town covered in a warm fog so opaque that the lights were turned on at three o’clock in the afternoon. People took stock of what to take, what to leave behind. A woman buried her sewing machine out back in a shallow grave. A pressman dug a hole for his trunk of family possessions, but before he could finish the fire caught him on the face, the arms, the neck.
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War Injury Leads To Advances At Home
British soldiers on patrol in Helmand province, Afghanistan.Photograph: John D McHugh/AFP/Getty images
From The L.A. Times:
The military takes the lead in brain trauma research, giving hope to wounded civilians of a 'silent epidemic.'
A world away from the roadside bombs and combat injuries of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are suffering the same type of brain injury seen in troops coming home from those war-torn countries. On American roads, at workplaces and on playing fields, more than 11 million have been hurt since the fighting overseas started.
Almost 1 in 5 of these civilians will struggle with lingering, often subtle symptoms -- headaches, dizziness, concentration difficulties and personality changes -- for a year, and often longer. As their memories falter, their work suffers and their relationships fray, many victims of brain trauma don't realize that their cognitive struggles are related to a blow to the head.
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My Comment: Explosions, bombings, the noise and concussion of war has consequences that we are only now starting to understand. This research is valuable .... and should be pushed further.
Fresh Impact Risks For Asteroid 'Poster Child'
Still heading our way (Image: Stocktrek Images/Getty)From New Scientist:
The chances of the asteroid Apophis hitting Earth in 2036 are lower than we thought. But those worried about deep impacts should add a new entry to their calendar: 2068.
When Apophis was first spotted in 2004, the 250-metre-wide rock was briefly estimated to have a 2.7 per cent chance of hitting Earth in 2029. Further observations quickly showed that it will miss Earth that year – but should it pass through a 600-metre-wide "keyhole" in space, it will return to hit Earth in 2036.
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Thursday, October 8, 2009
Brain-Computer Interface Allows Person-to-person Communication Through Power Of Thought
Dr. Chris James demonstrating brain to brain communication using BCI to transmit thoughts, translated as a series of binary digits, over the Internet to another person whose computer receives the digits. (Credit: University of Southampton)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Oct. 6, 2009) — New research from the University of Southampton has demonstrated that it is possible for communication from person to person through the power of thought -- with the help of electrodes, a computer and Internet connection.
Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) can be used for capturing brain signals and translating them into commands that allow humans to control (just by thinking) devices such as computers, robots, rehabilitation technology and virtual reality environments.
Read more ....
Proposal Would Turn San Francisco Bridge Into A City
The Bay Line, a proposal for modular housing and other structures bolted to the now-unused San Francisco Bay Bridge. Design by Ronald Rael and Virginia San FratelloFrom Live Science:
San Francisco's Bay Bridge is being redone; a large portion of the bridge will remain unused, but in good shape. What can city planners do with this unique, unused space?
Science fiction writer William Gibson thought about the Bay Bridge in his 1993 novel Virtual Light:
"[Chevette] looked up, just as she whipped between the first of the slabs, and the bridge seemed to look down at her, its eyes all torches and neon. She'd seen pictures of what it had looked like, before, when they drove cars back and forth on it all day, but she'd never quite believed them. The bridge was what it was, and somehow always had been. Refuge, weirdness, where she slept, home to many and all their dreams."
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In The Future, All Our Pop Idols Will Be Machines
Direction of NASA’s Future At An Impasse
From Wired Science:The committee charged with rethinking American human spaceflight is done thinking, but it’s still unclear what the future of NASA’s astronaut corps might be, and some nagging issues have yet to be resolved.
The U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee — known informally as the Augustine commission, after its head Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin — held its last teleconference today. The ball, or hot potato, will soon be in the Obama administration’s court when the group formally presents its alternatives to the Office for Science and Technology Policy.
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