Sophisticated Hunters Not To Blame For Driving Mammoths To Extinction

Giant animals such as the woolly mammoth were already facing extinction by the time humans had developed more lethal weapons. Photograph: Corbis/Royal BC Museum, British Columbia

From The Guardian:

Woolly mammoths and other giant ice-age mammals faced extinction 2,000 years before deadly speartips were invented.

Woolly mammoths and other large, lumbering beasts faced extinction long before early humans perfected their skills as spearmakers, scientists say.

The prehistoric giants began their precipitous decline nearly 2,000 years before our ancestors turned stone fragments into sophisticated spearpoints at the end of the last ice age.

Read more ....

Blood And Guts: On The Brink Of A Revolution

Susie Colbert, 33, has a prominent 5in scar as the result of breaking her arm in two places while whitewater rafting in 2006. 'I've accommodated the scar into my self-image now, but other people are still taken aback by it,' she says. Jason Alden

From The Independent:

Scientists will soon be able to manufacture body tissue to order if clinical trials continue to yield promising results.

The future of British medical science looks bright, brilliant and very, very bold. Scientists have taken giant steps towards being able to manufacture new skin, blood and even new bones.

Read more ....

Atlantis Astronaut Becomes A Father

NASA said it is the second time a baby has been born to
a US astronaut during a space flight Photo: AP/NASA

From The Telegraph:

An astronaut on the space shuttle Atlantis has become a father while in orbit, when his wife back on Earth gave birth to their baby daughter, NASA announced.

Randy Bresnik who ventured out on his first spacewalk on Saturday, became a father for the second time when his wife, Rebbeca Burgin, gave birth.

"Abigail Mae Bresnik arrived at 12.04am Sunday, November 22," the US space agency said in a statement posted on its website, adding that mother and child are "doing well".

Read more ....

Google Chrome OS: Why Should People Switch?

Google Chrome OS isn't scheduled to arrive for another year, but Google has a lot to do before then to make the project attractive to the average user. (Google Chrome OS screenshot)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Google Chrome OS has buzz now, but a number of stars will have to align for many folks to migrate to it.

Will you be using Chrome OS a year from now?

At the Web-based operating system’s coming-out party at Google headquarters on Thursday, Google presented its vision of Chrome, and a huge amount of information on what the browser and operating system are based on, how they run, and the safeguards in place to ensure they run well. But missing in all of that, at least to this observer, was a clear exposition of how Google plans to get users onboard – in essence, the hook.

Read more ....

U.S. Exhausted Oil And Gas Supplies — Repeatedly -- A Commentary

From The Houston Chronicle:

What city contributed most to the making of the modern world? The Paris of the Enlightenment and then of Napoleon, pioneer of mass armies and nationalist statism? London, seat of parliamentary democracy and center of finance? Or perhaps Titusville, Pa.

Oil seeping from the ground there was collected for medicinal purposes — until Edwin Drake drilled and 150 years ago — Aug. 27, 1859 — found the basis of our world, 69 feet below the surface of Pennsylvania, which oil historian Daniel Yergin calls “the Saudi Arabia of 19th-century oil.”

For many years, most oil was used for lighting and lubrication, and the amounts extracted were modest. Then in 1901, a new well named for an East Texas hillock, Spindletop, began gushing more per day than all other U.S. wells combined.

Since then, America has exhausted its hydrocarbon supplies.

Repeatedly.

Read more ....

IBM's Blue Gene Supercomputer Models a Cat's Entire Brain

Simulating Cat Minds Can I haz brainz? IBM

From Popular Science:

Using 144 terabytes of RAM, scientists simulate a cat's cerebral cortex based on 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses.

Cats may retain an aura of mystery about their smug selves, but that could change with scientists using a supercomputer to simulate the the feline brain. That translates into 144 terabytes of working memory for the digital kitty mind.

Read more ....

Large Hadron Collider: Beams Are Back on at World's Most Powerful Particle Accelerator

Repairs being made in March 2009 to the damaged section of the LHC. (Credit: Courtesy of CERN)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 20, 2009) — Particle beams are once again zooming around the world's most powerful particle accelerator -- the Large Hadron Collider -- located at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland. On November 20 at 4:00 p.m. EST, a clockwise circulating beam was established in the LHC's 17-mile ring.

After more than one year of repairs, the LHC is now back on track to create high-energy particle collisions that may yield extraordinary insights into the nature of the physical universe.

Read more ....

Wiring the Wilderness

An HPWREN automated digital camera on Lyons Peak captured an image around 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 23, 2006, that shows the extent of the Horse Fire. The camera remotely collected many images that day, which the researchers were able to use to better understand the wildfire. Credit: HPWREN

From Live Science:

HPWREN (the High-Performance Wireless Research and Education Network) began in 2000 with the objective of connecting remote science sites to a high-speed network. Today, the wireless network covers nearly 20,000 square miles in San Diego, Riverside and Imperial counties in Southern California.

Hans-Werner Braun, a research scientist at the University of California, San Diego, Supercomputer Center, is principal investigator of the project along with Frank Vernon, a geophysicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Read more ....

Money Does Not Make You Happy 'But Therapy Does'

From The Telegraph:

Money does not make you happy but therapy does, academics have discovered.

A massive pay rise or even winning the National Lottery may not offer as much joy as talking about your problems, researchers have found.

They warn that often we overestimate how much money will increase our happiness.

Read more ....

How 16 Ships Create As Much Pollution As All The Cars In The World

Waiting game: Tankers moored off Devon waiting for oil prices to rise even further

From The Daily Mail:

Last week it was revealed that 54 oil tankers are anchored off the coast of Britain, refusing to unload their fuel until prices have risen.

But that is not the only scandal in the shipping world. Today award-winning science writer Fred Pearce – environmental consultant to New Scientist and author of Confessions Of An Eco Sinner – reveals that the super-ships that keep the West in everything from Christmas gifts to computers pump out killer chemicals linked to thousands of deaths because of the filthy fuel they use.

Read more ....

Acid Oceans Leave Fish At More Risk From Predators

From The BBC:

Ocean acidification could cause fish to become "fatally attracted" to their predators, according to scientists.

A team studying the effects of acidification - caused by dissolved CO2 - on ocean reefs found that it leaves fish unable to "smell danger".

Young clownfish that were reared in the acidified water became attracted to rather than repelled by the chemical signals released by predatory fish.

The findings were published in the journal Ecology Letters.

Read more ....

Life Expectancy And The Dangers Of Defying Death

The hands of a century old pensioner (101 years) in the day room of Manor croft care home in Fareham. The state pension is 100 years old this year. (Richard Pohle/The Times)

From Times Online:

Understanding and predicting longevity are vital if we are to manage the implications of greater life expectancy.

There’s been a lot of news recently about dying — or, more exactly, about surviving. According to figures for 2006-08 just published by the Office for National Statistics, life expectancy at birth in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, West London, has reached 84.3 years for males, 88.9 for females.

Read more ....

Bing: Google Gets Some Real Competition

From the Christian Science Monitor:

It’s hard to compete when your opponent’s name is so popular that it’s become a verb. Such is the plight of every search engine that dares to challenge Google.

Last year, four search engines made up more than 95 percent of all search traffic: Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask. Only Google increased its share of the pie that year, eating up 67 percent of all searches in January and 72 percent by 2009, according to the online traffic monitor Hitwise.

Read more ....

H1N1 Isn't The Only Worry: Syphilis Is Making A Comeback

From McClatchy:

RALEIGH, N.C. _ As health departments battle the H1N1 flu virus, North Carolina health workers worry that another epidemic may be brewing - one for a sexually transmitted disease that had almost disappeared from the state 10 years ago.

Cases of syphilis in the state have nearly doubled in the past year: 684 in the first nine months, compared to 359 cases for the same period a year earlier.

Read more ....

A Look At Global Warming Written In A Cooler And More Skeptical Time, Giving Us A Better Understanding Of Climate Science

Hackers targeted the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, pictured, and published sensitive emails on the internet. Photo from The Daily Mail.

From Fabius Maximus:

The hacked emails and papers from the UK’s Climate Research Unit reveal the underside of climate science (as the many bizarre conclusions do the same for the anti-AGW mob). Spinning data to conceal contrary evidence, avoiding freedom of information requests, purging the profession of skeptical voices. All familiar things to anyone familiar with the history of science. All evidence of the most important step needed, and that most strongly opposed by most climate scientists:

Raise the standards when applying science research to public policy questions. That means requiring full transparency of data and methods used in climate science research, and third party review of the data, analysis, and models.

Read more ....

The Dubai Airshow As Seen From Orbit

Dubai Airshow 2009 : Courtesy GeoEye (See it bigger!)

From Popular Science:

Our friend the GeoEye-1 satellite, which tirelessly photographs the world at half-meter resolution from its constant orbit, swung by the Dubai Airport the other day and took this snap of the Dubai Airshow, in progress this week. Thanks, GeoEye-1!

Read more ....

Were Rats Behind Easter Island Mystery?

Moai statues on Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, among the most remote spots on Earth.
By Jayne Clark, USA TODAY

From USA Today:

Easter Island's mystery — brooding statues atop a treeless Polynesian island — fascinates tourists and scholars alike.

And inspires debate.

"Who or what destroyed the ancient palm woodland on Rapa Nui (Easter Island)?" ask German ecologists Andreas Mieth and Hans-Rudolf Bork, in an upcoming paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science. "The circumstances, causes and triggers of these environmental changes are the subject of persistent scientific discussion."

Read more ....

Solar Winds Triggered By Magnetic Fields

XRT Full Sun (Synoptic). (Credit: Images courtesy of JAXA, NAOJ, PPARC and NASA.)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 22, 2009) — Solar wind generated by the sun is probably driven by a process involving powerful magnetic fields, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers based on the latest observations from the Hinode satellite.

Scientists have long speculated on the source of solar winds. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS), on board the Japanese-UK-US Hinode satellite, is now generating unprecedented observations enabling scientists to provide a new perspective on the 50-year old question of how solar wind is driven. The collaborative study, published in this month's issue of Astrophysical Journal, suggests that a process called slipping reconnection may drive these winds.

Read more ....

Sushi Often Not What You Think

Giant Atlantic bluefin tuna from Prince Edward Island, Canada. Credit: Jay R. Rooker

From Live Science:

That tuna in your sushi might be an endangered species, a new study finds.

Some genetic detective work by scientists has shown that bluefin tuna, an endangered fish, regularly gets put on the plates of sushi eaters in New York and Colorado.

"When you eat sushi, you can unknowingly get a critically endangered species on your plate," said Jacob Lowenstein, a graduate student affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Columbia University. "But with an increasingly popular technique, DNA barcoding, it is a simple process for researchers to see just what species are eaten at a sushi bar."

Read more ....

“Planestupid” Kills Polar Bears Via CGI To Make A Point

CSN Editor: For more info, read from Watts up With That?