Once In A Blue Moon ... Stargazers Savour Spectacular Lunar Eclips On New Year's Eve

I see a blue moon rising. The moon above the University of Kansas, in the U.S.

From The Daily Mail:

Stargazers seeing out 2009 were treated to a spectacular 'blue moon' last night.

Blue moons occur about once every two and a half years, which is the origin of the saying 'once in a blue moon'. Furthermore a blue moon falling precisely on December 31st is extremely unusual.

The last time it happened was in 1990, and the next time won't be until 2028.

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DNA Analysed From Early European

Photo: The ancient skeleton was unearthed in 1954 at Kostenki in Russia (Courtesy of Vladimir Gorodnyanskiy)

From the BBC:

Scientists have analysed DNA extracted from the remains of a 30,000-year-old European hunter-gatherer.

Studying the DNA of long-dead humans can open up a window into the evolution of our species (Homo sapiens).

But previous studies of this kind have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish between the ancient human DNA and modern contamination.

In Current Biology journal, a German-Russian team details how it was possible to overcome this hurdle.

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No Rise of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fraction In Past 160 Years, New Research Finds

New research finds that the airborne fraction of carbon dioxide has not increased either during the past 150 years or during the most recent five decades, contrary to some recent studies. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere.

However, some studies have suggested that the ability of oceans and plants to absorb carbon dioxide recently may have begun to decline and that the airborne fraction of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions is therefore beginning to increase.

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The Volcano Tourists: Mayon Threatens To Erupt... But Officials Stunned As Snap-Happy Visitors Defy Ban To See The Eruption

Lethal: Lava cascades down the Mount Mayon volcano in 2006

From The Daily Mail:

When a volcano erupts most people take to the hills and get as far away as possible.

But officials in the Philippines have expressed their amazement at the stupidity of tourists who are flocking in their thousands to fields around a dangerous volcano so they can photograph its spectacular lava flows.

Scientists say that Mount Mayon volcano is on the brink of erupting and anyone within a five-mile radius would probably be killed by lava raining down on them if it did.

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High-Tech Tipples: The Future Of Cocktails

Mixing up a scientific taste sensation (Image: Staff Hood Gamma)

From New Scientist:

IT WOULD be lovely to have access to chromatography," Spike Marchant tells me wistfully. As a science journalist, it's the kind of remark I expect to hear from the people I interview. But Marchant isn't a scientist, he's a bartender.

A very special breed of bartender, mind you. What Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adrià and others have done for food, Marchant and his colleagues are aiming to do for booze. "We're not scientists but we use the ideas of scientists," says Tony Conigliaro, the creative force behind 69 Colebrook Row, a cosy cocktail bar in north London where I have come to learn about, and taste, the future of cocktails.

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Are New TSA In-Flight Restrictions Pointless?

Spaceport security was tight in the sci-fi movie Total Recall. Unfortunately, modern-day airport security doesn't have this level of scanning technology (yet) (Columbia Pictures).

From Discovery News:

On Christmas Day, Nigerian wannabe terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab set fire to his pants on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it was on its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

The fire was sparked when Abdulmutallab failed to detonate a homemade mix of explosives that were carried on board the aircraft concealed in the crotch of his underwear.

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Blue Moon To Occur New Year's Eve

From Space.com:

New Year's Eve brings us the second of two full moons for North Americans this month. Some almanacs and calendars assert that when two full moons occur within a calendar month, that the second full moon is called the "blue moon."

The term has a very interesting history, riddled with misconceptions and errors. More on that lower down. First, what will (and won't) happen:

The full moon that night will likely look no different than any other full moon (other than the fact that a partial eclipse will occur across most of Europe, Africa, and Asia).

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2010 Gears Up For Explosion Of 3D

Will everyone be wandering around in 3D specs?

From BBC:

If 2009 was dominated by touch technology then 2010 looks set to be the year of 3D.

3D has been one of the biggest hits of the cinemas this year and it is likely to continue its stride into other mediums during 2010, experts agree.

TV manufacturer LG wants to sell nearly half a million 3D-ready TV sets next year as the World Cup kicks off in the format.

Meanwhile laptops and games consoles are also getting a 3D makeover.

Acer has already released what it is claiming is the world's first 3D-capable laptop, and most agree it will be the first of many.

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The World In 2020: A Glimpse Into The Future

'People were more connected than ever, accessing video, music, mail (the 'e' soon became redundant), the web, books, news (with no distinction between papers, websites or television) and magazines whenever they liked, wherever they liked'

From The Independent:

Ten years ago we thought wireless was another word for radio, Peter Mandelson's career was over – and only birds tweeted. So what will life be like a decade from now?

Society: The quiet life is just an illusion, by Julian Baggini

Britain will be a strangely optimistic place at the start of the third decade of the millennium. Strange, because the 2010s had become known as the Decade of Austerity, with its apt acronym, DOA.

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The Decade We Learned The Language Of Life

From The Guardian:

How the mapping of the 3bn letters of the human genome sparked a new age of biology that is only just beginning.

It was the decade that launched a new age of science, and it came as no surprise. Researchers had foreseen the rise of biology in the 1990s and expected nothing less than a transformation of modern medicine and giant leaps in our knowledge of life on Earth.

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Billions Face Identity Fraud Threat After Hackers Crack Secret Mobile Phone codes Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1239298/E

Danger: There are fears half the world’s population could be left
vulnerable to crime including identity fraud

From The Daily Mail:

Billions could have their mobile phone calls intercepted and recorded after computer hackers cracked the secret code used to protect 80 per cent of the world’s users.

The code was posted on the internet by German scientist Karsten Nohl, who said he organised the breach to demonstrate the weakness of mobiles’ security measures.

He claims an eavesdropper could be listening to calls within 15 minutes with just a laptop and two network cards.

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2009 Review: Top Videos Of The Year

From New Scientist:

The best of New Scientist's video coverage, including a tiny hovering robot, bionic penguins, software that can make home movies look professional, plasma ejections from the sun.

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'Goldilocks' Zone Bigger Than Once Thought

Some scientists think we don't have to look past our own solar system to find
a world that could support life. NASA/JPL-Caltech

From Discovery News:

To find worlds within the "Goldilocks" zone, where conditions to support life are just right, look no further than our own solar system.

The holy grail for finding worlds beyond Earth that are hospitable to life has been planets just the right distance from their mother stars where liquid water can exist on the surface -- the so-called "Goldilocks" zone.

But scientists now say this elusive zone where conditions are not too hot and not too cold for life to exist is far bigger than originally thought.

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NASA Narrows Robotic Missions To 3 Contenders

From Wired Science:

NASA on Tuesday selected three finalists to be the agency’s next cheap, robotic exploration mission. Depending on which wins, a probe will head for Venus, the moon, or a near-Earth object no later than 2018.

The latter two missions would include the return of samples, while the Venusian lander would test the planet’s composition much like the Phoenix Lander did on Mars. The NASA anointing means that the teams proposing the excursions will have some money to make more detailed plans.

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Where Did San Francisco's Sea Lions Go?

Russia Plans to Save Earth From Rogue Asteroid; ‘No Nuclear Explosions,’ Space Chief Promises (Updated)

From The Danger Room:

Vlad Putin, we’re sorry we ever made fun of you. In an interview today with Voice of Russia radio, Russia’s space agency chief said discussions would begin soon over a plan to save the world from a collision with a massive asteroid.

It’s not clear how, exactly, the Russians plan to deflect Apophis, a chunk of rock the size of two and a half soccer fields that was first discovered by astronomers in 2004. Anatoly Perminov, the space agency head, promised that there would be “no nuclear explosions” and that everything would be done “on the basis of the laws of physics.”

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The US Virtual Economy Is Set To Make Billions

Photo: Ten of the top 15 apps on Facebook are social games.

From BBC:

Virtual goods such as weapons or digital bottles of champagne traded in the US could be worth up to $5bn in the next five years, experts predict.

In Asia, sales are already around the $5bn mark and rapidly growing.

For many, virtual goods are one of the hottest trends in technology and are fuelling huge growth in the social gaming sector.

"This is just an exploding part of the gaming business right now, said venture capitalist Jeremy Liew.

"It is the most exciting area in gaming," he said.

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Convert An Address To Latitude And Longitude

From Wired/How To Wiki:

You can pinpoint any place on Earth using a single set of coordinates: latitude and longitude.

These coordinates, often called a lat-long or latlon, look like a string of numbers. At first glance, it's confounding that anyone would take a human-readable address and turn it into a bunch of numbers that are nonsensical to most people outside the field of cartography. But once you have those numbers, you'll be able to plug them into a web map, GPS or other mapping device and find what you're looking for in an instant -- no matter where on the planet it is.

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What Happened To The Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us?

A sketched reconstruction if the Boskop skull done in 1918. Shaded areas depict recovered bone. Courtesy the American Museum of Natural History

From Discover Magazine:

The Boskops had big eyes, child-like faces, and an average intelligence of around 150, making them geniuses among Homo sapiens.

In the autumn of 1913, two farmers were arguing about hominid skull fragments they had uncovered while digging a drainage ditch. The location was Boskop, a small town about 200 miles inland from the east coast of South Africa.

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Eight Spin-Offs From Space

Credit: NASA

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: Sending people and high-tech robots into space is not cheap and NASA gets through vast sums of money. This financial year alone the U.S. space agency requested more than A$20 billion in funding. How do they justify the expense? One way is to highlight the many technologies developed for the space program, but which now benefit society.

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