Astronomers Watch Most Massive Star Ever Go Supernova

Supernova Go Boom Yep, it's bigger than this explosion
(artist's illustration of SN 2006gy) NASA/CXC/M Weiss

From Popular Science:

Rare behemoth star produces antimatter and collapses in a runaway nuclear reaction that leaves nothing behind.

Stars don't tend to go quietly, and the most massive of them all create a supernova explosion 50 to 100 times brighter than normal. Now astronomers have confirmed the existence of rare but huge stars that contain 200 times the mass of our sun, after spotting one unusually bright cosmic explosion in 2007.

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Too Much Physical Activity May Lead to Arthritis, Study Suggests

Runners. MRI analysis by two musculoskeletal radiologists indicated a relationship between physical activity levels of middle aged people and subsequent frequency and severity of knee damage. (Credit: iStockphoto/Nick Free)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 1, 2009) — Middle-aged men and women who engage in high levels of physical activity may be unknowingly causing damage to their knees and increasing their risk for osteoarthritis, according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

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How Serious Is Angina?

From Live Science:

Angina pectoris--or simply angina--is the medical term for chest pain or discomfort usually caused by coronary artery disease. Angina is a sign that someone is at increased risk of heart attack, cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. If you get angina, you should get medical attention immediately.

Angina (pronounced “an-JI-nuh” or “AN-juh-nuh”) hits when the heart doesn't get enough blood. This usually happens when there is a narrowing or blockage in one or more of the vessels that supply blood to the heart.

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CERN Cuts Power To Part Of The LHC, Says The Setback Is Minor

Image © CERN

From Scientific American:

Just two days after the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) reached a major milestone by producing 1.18 TeV (more than one trillion electron volts) of energy, the particle physics lab CERN had to cut power to one of the accelerator's sites following a problem with a power supplier. The outage did not affect the cryogenics required for operation, and a CERN spokeswoman in Geneva, Switzerland, was optimistic that the power would be back up by 6:30 p.m. local time.

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Man Controls Robotic Hand With Thoughts

From U.S. News And World Report/AP:

ROME—An Italian who lost his left forearm in a car crash was successfully linked to a robotic hand, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts, scientists said Wednesday.

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Placating Publishers By Limiting Links: A Google 5-Click FAQ

From Epicenter/Wired:

Google’s been taking it on the chin from traditional publishers (i.e., News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch) a lot lately. So it should come as no surprise that the search giant has come up with a new way for media sites to throw up a digital checkpoint where money or credentials can be demanded from readers who got there in a Google search.

It’s probably also no accident that the latest initiative came less than 24 hours after Murdoch railed yet again against Google and its ilk. That rant continues no matter how many times Google tells content owners how to keep their content out of Google searches.

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U.S. Allows New Stem Cell Lines for Research

President Barack Obama looks through a microscope at brain cells with Dr Marston Linehan as he tours the National Institutes of Health (NIH) before making a major announcement regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, September 30, 2009. The Obama administration on December 2, 2009 approved the first human embryonic stem cells for experiments by federally funded scientists. The new policy aims at expanding government support of the controversial biomedical research. Jim Watson / AFP / Getty

From Time Magazine:

Nobody likes a busy signal. And for U.S. stem cell researchers, none has been more frustrating than the one on the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry home page. That's where the government agency lists all of the embryonic stem cell lines that scientists are allowed to study using taxpayer dollars. For months, the page has been depressingly static. "None are available at this time," it read. "Please check back later."

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Extreme Oil: Scraping The Bottom Of Earth's Barrel

The bitumen in tar sands gives the earth a thick, mushy feel. This non-conventional oil is difficult and expensive to extract (Image: Lara Solt/Dallas Morning News/Corbis)

From New Scientist:

EIGHTY-FIVE million barrels. That's how much oil we consume every day. It's a staggering amount - enough to fill over 5400 Olympic swimming pools - and demand is expected to keep on rising, despite the impending supply crunch.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that by 2030 it will rise to about 105 million barrels per day with a commensurate increase in production (see graph), although whistle-blowers recently told The Guardian newspaper in London that insiders at the IEA believe the agency vastly over-estimates our chances of plugging that gap. The agency officially denies this.

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One In Five New Brides Puts On A Stone And A Half In Weight After Just A Year Of Marriage

Photo: Comfort zone: One in five new brides admits to over-eating after the wedding

From The Daily Mail:

Every bride wants to look their best on the big day - but it seems after saying 'I do' many women lost the motivation to stay slim.

Results of a survey published today reveal marriage is no good for the wasitline, with one in five piling on one-and-a-half stone in the first year.

A further 22 per cent of married women questioned said they no longer felt the need to impress their loved ones.

And it seems the weight gain puts added strain on the relationship as well - with 21 per cent of couples rowing over the extra pounds.

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Robotic Exoskeletons: Suited For Superhuman Power

Photo: Software engineer Rex Jameson demonstrates the XOS suit designed to give Army soldiers a significant boost in strength and endurance. Raytheon Co.

From Christian Science Monitor:

Exoskeletons – or wearable robots – strengthen soldiers and mobilize the disabled.

The high-tech suits of “Iron Man” and “RoboCop” don’t seem so far off to Yoshiyuki Sankai. Since the third grade, this Japanese professor and inventor has been enchanted by Isaac Asimov’s story “I, Robot” and the idea that robots – or, in Mr. Sankai’s case, robotic suits – could help humans with everyday life.

In 2005, he unveiled several working prototypes of a mechanical, mind-controlled “exoskeleton” that could allow the disabled to walk. The suit – recently refined and now available for rent in Japan – resembles white soccer shinguards attached to each segment of the arms and legs and a fanny pack-like battery hooked around the waist.

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New Way of Detecting Exomoons Broadens Search For Extraterrestrial Life

The Forest Moon Of Endor via The Force.net

From Popular Science:

So far, the search for extraterrestrial life beyond our solar system has focused on finding Earth-like planets. And sure, planets are great, since we know at least one of them harbors life. But David Kipping of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics thinks that search might be a tad too narrow. In a new paper, Kipping described how current technology can be re-tasked to search for another life-bearing body: moons.

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Google Allows Publishers To Limit Free Content

From The Globe And Mail:

Google Inc. is allowing publishers of paid content to limit the number of free news articles accessed by people using its Internet search engine, a concession to an increasingly disgruntled media industry.

There has been mounting criticism of Google's practices from media publishers – most notably News Corp. chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch – that argue the company is profiting from online news pages.

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How Did Flowering Plants Evolve To Dominate Earth?

Colorful tulips and other spring flowers in the Keukenhof Gardens, the Netherlands. How did flowering plants come to dominate plant life on earth? (Credit: iStockphoto/Monika Lewandowska)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 1, 2009) — To Charles Darwin it was an 'abominable mystery' and it is a question which has continued to vex evolutionists to this day: when did flowering plants evolve and how did they come to dominate plant life on earth? A new study in Ecology Letters reveals the evolutionary trigger which led to early flowering plants gaining a major competitive advantage over rival species, leading to their subsequent boom and abundance.

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Big Freeze: Earth Could Plunge Into Sudden Ice Age

Topographic map of the Nordic Seas and Subpolar Basins, with schematic circulation of surface currents (solid curves) and deep currents (dashed curves) that form a portion of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC). The color of the curves depicts their approximate temperatures. Map inset shows the boundaries of the Nordic Seas and Subpolar Basins used in the analysis of water volume. Credit: Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

From Live Science:

In the film, "The Day After Tomorrow," the world gets gripped in ice within the span of just a few weeks. Now research now suggests an eerily similar event might indeed have occurred in the past.

Looking ahead to the future, there is no reason why such a freeze shouldn't happen again — and in ironic fashion it could be precipitated if ongoing changes in climate force the Greenland ice sheet to suddenly melt, scientists say.

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Do Black Holes Build Their Own Galaxies?

From RedOrbit:

Which comes first, the supermassive black holes that frantically devour matter or the enormous galaxies where they reside? A brand new scenario has emerged from a recent set of outstanding observations of a black hole without a home: black holes may be “building” their own host galaxy. This could be the long-sought missing link to understanding why the masses of black holes are larger in galaxies that contain more stars.

The ‘chicken and egg’ question of whether a galaxy or its black hole comes first is one of the most debated subjects in astrophysics today,” says lead author David Elbaz. “Our study suggests that supermassive black holes can trigger the formation of stars, thus ‘building’ their own host galaxies. This link could also explain why galaxies hosting larger black holes have more stars.”

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The Claim: Exercise More During the Day, and You Will Sleep Better at Night

From The New York Times:

THE FACTS It has long been said that regular physical activity and better sleep go hand in hand. Burn more energy during the day, the thinking goes, and you will be more tired at night.

But only recently have scientists sought to find out precisely to what extent. One extensive study published this year looked for answers by having healthy children wear actigraphs — devices that measure movement — and then seeing whether more movement and activity during the day meant improved sleep at night. The results should be particularly enlightening to parents.

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What East Anglia's E-mails Really Tell Us About Climate Change

From Popular Mechanics:

PM guest analyst Peter Kelemen, a professor of geochemistry at Columbia University's Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, explains what stolen e-mails from climate scientists corresponding with East Anglia University tell us about global warming—and what they don't.

In the past two weeks, scientists like myself have been gripped by news of the theft and online release of more than a decade of e-mails from one of the world's leading centers for climate-change research, the Hadley Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at Britain's University of East Anglia. During these same weeks, world political leaders have been preparing for a climate summit in Copenhagen and a new study has indicated that a major ice sheet in eastern Antarctica, previously thought to be stable, is in fact losing mass. But those developments have been overshadowed by the stolen e-mails and what they may imply about how research into human-induced global warming is carried out.

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Seas Could Rise 1.4m, Warns Antarctic Climate Review

From New Scientist:

A review of climate change in Antarctica forecasts that by 2100 the world's seas will have risen to levels previously considered too extreme to be realistic.

The review, Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment (PDF), was compiled by 100 scientists associated with the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research. Using 20 of the most up-to-date models that take into account the complex behaviour of the ozone hole over Antarctica, as well as the most recent observations of ice loss, the review predicts that the area of sea ice around Antarctica could shrink by 33 per cent – 2.6 million square kilometres – by 2100, leading to a sea-level rise of 1.4 metres.

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Skunk (Marijuana) Linked To Huge Increase In Risk Of Psychotic Disease

Skunk worse than ordinary hash Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph:

People who smoke the highly potent form of cannabis known as skunk are almost seven times more likely to develop a psychotic illness than those who use the traditional strength drug, a new study shows for the first time.

The results are considered particularly worrying as skunk now accounts for around 80 per cent of the street market in cannabis in the United Kingdom.

Scientists at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London made the discovery after studying admissions to hospital for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, paranoia and serious depression.

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Tweet Victory For Twitter... The Most Used English Word

Twitter, which has celebrity fans such as Stephen Fry, has become
the most used word in the English-speaking world

From The Daily Mail:

It has become many celebrities' favourite way to share their thoughts, however mundane, with the world.

But now internet phenomenon Twitter has become the most popular word in the English language, according to researchers.

The microblogging website - which allows its 20million users including Stephen Fry and Demi Moore to transmit 140 character messages across the globe instantly - beat Barack Obama into second place in a survey of the most-used phrases this year.

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