By Tracking Water Molecules, Physicists Hope To Unlock Secrets Of Life

Supercool. As individual water molecules fluctuate, breaking and forming bonds with their nearest neighbors, the result is slightly imperfect tetrahedral structures that are constantly in flux. Research suggests that these fluctuations give rise to some of water's most unusual and life-sustaining features. (Credit: Image courtesy of Rockefeller University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 1, 2010) — The key to life as we know it is water, a tiny molecule with some highly unusual properties, such as the ability to retain large amounts of heat and to lose, instead of gain, density as it solidifies. It behaves so differently from other liquids, in fact, that by some measures it shouldn't even exist. Now scientists have made a batch of new discoveries about the ubiquitous liquid, suggesting that an individual water molecule's interactions with its neighbors could someday be manipulated to solve some of the world's thorniest problems -- from agriculture to cancer.

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How Bad Is Second-Hand Smoke?

From Live Science:

This Week’s Question: I live with my 40-year-old son and he smokes like the proverbial chimney around the house. I’m afraid of what it’s doing to his health. What can I do to get him to quit?

Tell him he may be killing you with his secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke—also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)—is made up of the “sidestream” smoke from the end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the “mainstream” smoke that is exhaled.

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Clean Tech: A New Way To Hasten Energy Solutions

Solar panels cover the rooftop of the STAPLES Center sports complex in Los Angeles.
David McNew / Getty Images

From Time Magazine:

If we're going to find a way to fix our long-term energy woes — whether it's through biofuels made from algae or through the rise of miniature nuclear-power plants, — the solution is likely to come from northern California. Yes, in Silicon Valley, the same entrepreneurs who brought us the Internet — and, O.K., Pets.com — are exploring new ways to make and use energy. And we'll need them, as much for our economy's well-being as for our planet's.

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British Library Launches UK Internet Archive

From Times Online:

The UK's national library has created a fascinating snapshot of the way Britons have been using the web since 2004.

So, the internet of today's not big enough for you?

Then have a look at the 6,000 or so vintage sites that have been newly collected by the British Library for the UK Web Archive, which launched today.

The Library, which collects every periodical and book published in English, decided to extend its reach to cover the internet in 2004, when it was clear that the web's evolution would inevitably mean that some sites would disappear.

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Giant Antarctic Iceberg Could Affect Global Ocean Circulation

Satellite image showing 97km (60 mile) long iceberg, right, about to crash into the Mertz glacier tongue, left, in the Australian Antarctic Territory. The collision created a new 78km-long iceberg. Photograph: AP

From The Guardian:

Ice broken off from Mertz glacier is size of Luxembourg and may decrease oxygen supply for marine life in the area.

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg that contains enough fresh water to supply a third of the world's population for a year has broken off in the Antarctic continent, with possible implications for global ocean circulation, scientists said today.

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Happiness Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be

From New Scientist:

The Founding Fathers liked happiness so much they considered pursuing it an inalienable right – but maybe that wasn't such a good idea. Happiness seems to make people more selfish, the latest in a series of revelations suggesting it changes how you think – and not in a good way.

Psychologist Joe Forgas at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who has led many of these studies, suggests that happiness's negative effects all stem from a cheery mood's tendency to lull you into feeling secure. This makes you look inwards and behave both more selfishly and more carelessly.

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Happily Married Men 'Much Less Likely To Suffer Stroke' Than Single Or Unhappily Married Friends

Scientists say an unhappy marriage or being left on the shelf was as big a risk to your chances of having a stroke as having diabetes Photo: ALAMY

From The Telegraph:

Happily married men are much less likely to suffer a stroke than their single or unhappily married friends, according to new research.

Single men and those in unsuccessful marriages were 64 per cent more likely to have a stroke than men in successful marriages.

Scientists say an unhappy marriage or being left on the shelf was as big a risk to your chances of having a stroke as having diabetes.

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Apple: Underage Workers May Have Built Your iPhone

From PC World:

That iPhone you adore may have been built by a child.

Nearly a dozen underage teens were working for Apple-contracted facilities in 2009, the company has revealed. The news was posted to Apple's Web site under a section labeled "Supplier Responsibility."

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Climate Group Plans Review

From The Wall Street Journal:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's announcement over the weekend that it will seek independent experts to investigate how factual errors were published in its latest report is a key aspect of the organization's effort to understand and divulge its institutional problems, officials there say.

The announcement by the United Nations-sponsored organization Saturday comes as it gears up to produce another big report on global warming.

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The Fiancee Formula: Academics Work Out The Best Time To Propose

From The Daily Mail:

Worried your boyfriend is never going to propose? Then buy him a calculator.

Mathematicians have come up with a 'fiancee formula' that allows men to work out the perfect time to pop the question.

All he needs is the age he would first consider marrying and his cut-off point - and the equation does the rest.

Maths professor Anthony Dooley said: 'Applying maths to matters of the heart is always dangerous. In life you are dealing with emotions and have to think much harder.

But if you want to work out the right moment to start getting serious, this gives you a mathematical framework.'

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Threat to Monkey Numbers from Forest Decline

An Udzungwa red colobus monkey. (Credit: Andrew Marshall / University of York)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 27, 2010) — Monkey populations in threatened forests are far more sensitive to damage to their habitat than previously thought, according to new research.

An analysis of monkeys living in Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountains suggests that the impact of external factors, such as human activity, on species numbers is felt in forests as large as 40 square kilometres.

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Chile Earthquake: Is Mother Nature Out of Control?

From Live Science:

Chile is on a hotspot of sorts for earthquake activity. And so the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the capital region overnight was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was it outside the realm of normal, scientists say, even though it comes on the heels of other major earthquakes.

One scientist, however, says that relative to a time period in the past, the Earth has been more active over the past 15 years or so.

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Why Tsunamis Were Smaller Than Expected

Debris in Pelluhue, Chile, after high waves hit. VICTOR RUIZ CABALLERO/REUTERS

From The Independent:

It is fortunate that one of the biggest earthquakes in recent history has generated only relatively small tsunamis that crossed the Pacific Ocean from Chile to Japan. This is almost certainly because the rupture that generated the earthquake occurred quite deep in the Earth's crust.

The size of a tsunami, which means "harbour wave" in Japanese, is directly related to the volume of water that is displaced during the movement of the seabed during an earthquake. The bigger the amount of water that is moved up or down, the bigger the tsunami that is likely to be created.

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Was Jimi Hendrix's Ambidexterity The Key To His Virtuosity?

Right (and left) hand man ... Jimi Hendrix. Photograph: Marc Sharratt/Rex Features

From The Guardian:

Guitar hero's 'mixed-handedness' was secret to his genius, argues American psychologist.

Was Jimi Hendrix's ambidexterity the secret to his talent? This is the question explored in a new paper by psychologist Stephen Christman (via TwentyFourBit), who argues that Hendrix's versatility informed not just his guitar-playing – but his lyrics too.

According to Christman, who is based at the University of Toledo, Hendrix was not strictly left-handed. Although he played his right-handed guitar upside down, and used his left hand to throw, comb his hair and hold cigarettes, Hendrix wrote, ate and held the telephone with his right hand. He was, Christman argues, "mixed-right-handed". And this "mixed"-ness, signaling better interaction between the left and right hemispheres of the guitarist's brain, suffused every part of his music.

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A Call For Tenders To Have A Medical Robot

Robots To Rescue Soldiers -- New Scientist

THE US military is asking inventors to come up with designs for a robot that can trundle onto a battlefield and rescue injured troops, with little or no help from outside.

Retrieving casualties while under fire is a major cause of combat losses, says a posting on the Pentagon's small business technology transfer website (bit.ly/aRXXQU). So the army wants a robot with strong, dexterous arms and grippers that can cope with "the large number of body positions and types of locations in which casualties can be found".

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Intelligent Men 'Less Likely To Cheat'

Revenge of the Nerds

From The Telegraph:

Intelligent men are less likely to cheat on their wives because of evolution, a new analysis of social trends indicates.

Researchers at a British university found that men with higher IQs place greater value on monogamy and sexual exclusivity than their less intelligent peers.

But the connection between conventional sexual morality and intelligence is not mirrored in women, it seems.

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EU Tells Google To Warn Cities Before Sending In Street View Cameras

From The Daily Mail:

Google has been told to warn people before it sends cameras out to take pictures for its controversial Street View maps.

The EU privacy regulators say refusal to give adequate notice could lead to legal action.

And the internet giant must shorten the time it keeps the original photographs from one year to six months.

The regulators also said it should avoid taking pictures ‘of a sensitive nature and those containing intimate details not normally observable by a passer-by’.

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Quantum Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Find an Equation for Materials Innovation

Professor Emily Carter and graduate student Chen Huang developed a new way of predicting important properties of substances. The advance could speed the development of new materials and technologies. (Credit: Frank Wojciechowski)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 26, 2010) — Princeton engineers have made a breakthrough in an 80-year-old quandary in quantum physics, paving the way for the development of new materials that could make electronic devices smaller and cars more energy efficient.

By reworking a theory first proposed by physicists in the 1920s, the researchers discovered a new way to predict important characteristics of a new material before it's been created. The new formula allows computers to model the properties of a material up to 100,000 times faster than previously possible and vastly expands the range of properties scientists can study.

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Human Teeth Reveal History of Catastrophes

From Live Science:

Teeth are a window into our past, storing a record of the environmental pollutants and radiation they've encountered. Now scientists are developing tools to use teeth enamel to test how much radiation a person has been exposed to in the case of a major emergency, like a dirty bomb explosion.

"Dental enamel is quite a remarkable material," said Barry Pass, a professor in the College of Dentistry at Howard University in Washington, D.C. "There's a world of information in the tooth."

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US Government Rescinds 'Leave Internet Alone' Policy

From The Register:

The US government’s policy of leaving the Internet alone is over, according to Obama’s top official at the Department of Commerce.

Instead, an “Internet Policy 3.0” approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, according to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance.

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