The Secrets Of Tutankhamun's Decaying Tomb

Scientists examining the flaking King Tut murals.

From The Independent:

Scientists mount inquiry into how millions of visitors to Egyptian boy king's chamber are destroying the wonder they came to see, reports Guy Adams.

Given the peace and quiet Tutankhamun enjoyed for three millennia, it has been a rough 87 years for him since he was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. He was immediately relieved of his treasures; his tomb became one of the world's best-known tourist attractions, and finally, in 2005, his mummified corpse was hoiked out of its final resting-place to be studied by scientists.

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First Look at Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo

Image: VSS Enterprise stowed under the dual-hulled Virgin Mother Ship (VMS) Eve at the unveiling of the first SpaceShipTwo in the Mojave Desert (Virgin Galactic)

From Discovery News:

After two years of construction, Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo has been shown to the public for the first time. The first of a planned fleet of six SpaceShipTwo's has been named Virgin Space Ship (VSS) Enterprise.

WATCH VIDEO: Kasey-Dee Gardner sits down with one of Virgin Galactic's maiden space travelers and finds out his three biggest fears about this sub-orbital spaceflight.

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MIT Plans To Rebuild Artificial Intelligence From The Ground Up

Artificial Intelligence: It's not what we think.

From Popular Science:

After 50 years and countless dead ends, incremental progress, and modest breakthroughs, artificial intelligence researchers are asking for a do-over. The $5 million Mind Machine Project (MMP), a patchwork team of two dozen academics, students and researchers, intends to go back to the discipline's beginnings, rebuilding the field from the ground up. With 20/20 hindsight, a few generations worth of experience, and better, faster technology, this time researchers in AI -- an ambiguous field to begin with -- plan to get things right.

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Optimism As Artificial Intelligence Pioneers Reunite

INTELLIGENCE John McCarthy, seated center, who ran the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, at a reunion last month with Bruce Buchanan to his left and Vic Scheinman on the right. Standing, from left, are Ralph Gorin, Whit Diffie, Dan Swinehart, Tony Hearn, Larry Tesler, Lynn Quam and Martin Frost. John Markoff

From The New York Times:

STANFORD, Calif. — The personal computer and the technologies that led to the Internet were largely invented in the 1960s and ’70s at three computer research laboratories next to the Stanford University campus.

One laboratory, Douglas Engelbart’s Augmentation Research Center, became known for the mouse; a second, Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center, developed the Alto, the first modern personal computer. But the third, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, or SAIL, run by the computer scientist John McCarthy, gained less recognition.

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Draft Text Divides Climate Summit

From BBC:

Documents leaked at the UN climate summit reveal divisions between industrialised and developing countries over the shape of a possible new deal.

Campaigners say a draft text proposed by the Danish host government would disadvantage poorer nations.

It also sees everything coming under a single new deal, whereas an alternative text from developing countries wants an extension to the Kyoto Protocol.

Other blocs are expected to release their own texts in the next few days.

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New Project In Scramble To Save Vanishing Internet Links

From Times Online:

The Internet Archive is fighting to preserve shortened web links created by free online services that may be running out of money.

What if, the next time you went on the internet, you clicked on a link and nothing happened?

What if billions of internet links all stopped working at once?

As 2010 approaches, this is exactly the problem that the internet is facing. So great is the concern that the Internet Archive in the United States has already begun what some people are calling one of the most important repair jobs in the web’s history.

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Undocumented Volcano Contributed to Extremely Cold Decade From 1810-1819

SDSU Professor Jihong Cole-Dai and his colleagues studied ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland and found evidence of a previously undocumented volcanic eruption exactly 200 years ago that contributed to the record cold decade of 1810-1819. (Credit: Image courtesy of South Dakota State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 7, 2009) — South Dakota State University researchers and their colleagues elsewhere in America and in France have found compelling evidence of a previously undocumented large volcanic eruption that occurred exactly 200 years ago, in 1809. The discovery helps explain the record cold decade from 1810-1819.

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Killer Petunias And Murderous Potatoes Revealed

Petunias have sticky hairs that trap insects. Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

Petunias and potatoes may actually be carnivorous plants, scientists now suggest.

Indeed, carnivorous behavior may be far more widespread in plants than commonly thought — if we take a closer look, botanists said.

At least six different kinds of killer plants have been recognized since the time of Darwin, such as Venus flytraps, which snares insects between its jaw-like leaves, and pitcher plants, which capture victims in slippery pits. These plants apparently target animals to supplement their growth in harsh, nutrient-poor habitats.

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"Very Likely" The Warmest Decade On Record

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From CBS:

At Copenhagen Climate Summit, U.N. Weather Agency also says 2009 Probably Warmest Year in Some Areas.

(CBS/AP) This decade has very likely been the warmest in the historical record, and 2009 will probably end up as one of the warmest years, the U.N. weather agency announced Tuesday at the second day of the 192-nation climate conference in Copenhagen.

In some areas - parts of Africa, central Asia - this will probably be the warmest year, but overall 2009 "is likely to be about the fifth-warmest year on record," said Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization.

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Google's Real-Time Search Ready To Challenge Bing

From PC World:

Google on Monday unveiled its real-time search capability, the latest salvo in its ongoing feature war with Bing. Microsoft's search engine already integrates real-time Twitter and Facebook results. Now, both search engines have released their initial real-time products, and there's a lot to like from the two major search brands. Let's take a look at how Bing's Twitter search matches up against Google's real-time search.

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Breakthrough Flu Drug Might Already Exist

Image: Structurally sound: The neuraminidase protein of the H1N1 virus is particularly adept at mutating to avoid attack. In this crystal structure, the mutations that allow it to resist Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs are visible as multicolored stick structures. Credit: Dani

From Technology Review:

Fragments of known drugs could lead to a more robust antiviral for H1N1 and other flu variants.

The flu virus is a wily target, constantly mutating to avoid attack from the immune system and from antiviral drugs like Tamiflu. But in research presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) in San Diego, scientists announced a new method for fighting pandemic influenzas such as H1N1 (swine) and H5N1 (avian).

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Dolphins, Sea Lions To Serve As Marine Guardians Of Naval Base

Photo: Marine Watchdogs: Dolphins and sea lions will soon be "sniffing" out suspicious swimmers near Puget Sound. ISTOCKPHOTO/EDIN

From Scientific American:

The newest batch of sentries at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor will be paid in fish.

The newest batch of sentries at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor will not have to wear uniforms. But they won't get to clock out for breaks -- and they will be paid in fish.

The base near Washington's Puget Sound is slated to receive up to 20 Navy-trained bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to patrol the shoreline around the submarine base as part of a bolstered security initiative started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

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3 Bets the DOE Is Placing On Science To Break The Climate Stalemate

From Wired Science:

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for energy put out its second call for new ideas, and this time, the agency has narrowed its focused to three research fields.

The new arm of the Department of Energy, which is dedicated to high-risk, high-reward innovations, is betting $100 million on batteries for cars, new materials for capturing carbon, and microorganisms that can convert sunlight and carbon dioxide directly into fuels.

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Volcanic Blast's Devastation Confirmed By Pollen

New pollen and soil evidence suggests the eruption of Toba in Indonesia 73,000 years ago was so severe, the global environment was thrown into chaos. iStockPhoto

From Discovery News:

A massive volcanic explosion in Indonesia rocked the planet 73,000 years ago, cooling temperatures and devastating populations of our ancestors.

It takes a heck of a disaster to wipe the trees off of India. But 73,000 years ago, the titanic eruption of Toba in Indonesia did exactly that, according to a new study, brushing the region clean almost overnight as it kicked the planet into a cold snap that would persist for almost 2,000 years.

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Google Chief: Only Miscreants Worry About Net Privacy

From Register:

'If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it'.

If you're concerned about Google retaining your personal data, then you must be doing something you shouldn't be doing. At least that's the word from Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place," Schmidt tells CNBC, sparking howls of incredulity from the likes of Gawker.

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Dueling E-Book Readers

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News:

Natali Del Conte Compares Five Top Offerings of This Holiday Season.

(CBS) One of this year's hot gift items is the e-book reader -- portable digital devices used to read books and magazines.

They started taking off in 2001, but were very basic. Today, they're sophisticated, interactive and can perform more functions than just holding text -- and they're experiencing explosive growth.

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Single-Atom Transistor Discovered

a) Colored scanning electron microscope image of the measured device. Aluminum top gate is used to induce a two-dimensional electron layer at the silicon-silicon oxide interface below the metallization. The barrier gate is partially below the top gate and depletes the electron layer in the vicinity of the phosphorus donors (the red spheres added to the original image). The barrier gate can also be used to control the conductivity of the device. All the barrier gates in the figure form their own individual transistors. (b) Measured differential conductance through the device at 4 Tesla magnetic field. The red and the yellow spheres illustrate the spin-down and -up states of a donor electron which induce the lines of high conductivity clearly visible in the figure. (Credit: American Chemical Society)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 7, 2009) — Researchers from Helsinki University of Technology (Finland), University of New South Wales (Australia), and University of Melbourne (Australia) have succeeded in building a working transistor, whose active region composes only of a single phosphorus atom in silicon.

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Scientists: Northern Forests Need Saving, Too

From Live Science:

When fire destroys forests, or when discarded wood products are burned at the dump, carbon dioxide (CO2) escapes into the air. Hence, in part, the uproar denouncing the slash-and-burn destruction of tropical jungles. But let’s not overlook another great woodland biome: the boreal forest.

That’s the plea voiced in a recent opinion paper by Corey J.A. Bradshaw of the University of Adelaide in Australia and two colleagues. They point out that far northern forests represent a third of all remaining woodlands and 30 percent of all terrestrially stored carbon on Earth. Those vast coniferous tracts covering much of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia are still relatively unscathed, but they face increasing threats.

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MIT Harnesses Online Crowds To Beat Darpa Balloon Challenge In Just 9 Hours

DARPA Network Challenge Winner MIT's team claimed victory just nine hours
after the first balloons went up DARPA

From Popular Science:

The Pentagon's DARPA agency wanted to know how to filter trustworthy information from social networks; MIT had the answer.

Groups of friends and strangers spent more than a month preparing for perhaps the greatest social networking competition in history. All wanted to be the first to find 10 red weather balloons scattered across the continental U.S. on December 5, and claim a $40,000 prize from the Pentagon's DARPA agency.

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My Comment: That was fast .... it also tells everyone that the power of social networks should not be ignored.

Personalised Vaccines Could Protect All Children

Time for your personalised shot (Image: Phanie Agency/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

CHILDREN whose genetic make-up means they may not be protected by the standard form of a vaccine could in future be given a personalised shot. This is the prospect raised by the discovery of gene variants that seem to predict whether an individual will produce enough antibodies in response to a vaccine to protect them against disease.

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