Report: Facebook, Skype Planning Deep Integration

This screenshot uses real pictures with fake names and numbers to illustrate a Skype-Facebook integration.

From CNET:

You didn't think Facebook would integrate with Google Voice, did you?

Actually, according to sources close to the situation, Facebook and Skype are poised to announce a significant and wide-ranging partnership that will include integration of SMS, voice chat, and Facebook Connect.

The move by the pair--which have tested small contact importer integrations before--is a natural one for the social-networking giant, which is aiming to be the central communications and messaging platform for its users, across a range of media.

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Better Surgery With New Surgical Robot With Force Feedback

Surgical robot Sofie. (Credit: Bart van Overbeeke)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — Robotic surgery makes it possible to perform highly complicated and precise operations. Surgical robots have limitations, too. For one, the surgeon does not 'feel' the force of his incision or of his pull on the suture, and robots are also big and clumsy to use. Therefore TU/e researcher Linda van den Bedem developed a much more compact surgical robot, which uses 'force feedback' to allow the surgeon to feel what he or she is doing.

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Kelp Waits To Take Its Place In America's Stomachs

Alaria, a type of brown kelp, dries on a raft. The Maine company Ocean Approved will cut this seaweed up to sell for salads. Credit: Ocean Approved, LLC.

From Live Science:

The leaves resemble brown lasagna noodles when they wash ashore on coasts around the world. Like many other seaweeds, sugar kelp has all sorts of uses. The leaves of Saccharina latissima provide a sweetener, mannitol, as well as thickening and gelling agents that are added to food, textiles and cosmetics.

But some believe its most important potential is largely untapped: as an addition to the American diet.

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'The Flintstones' Rocks On At 50

The series chronicled popular culture and spotlighted icons of the day -- not of 10,000 B.C. but of the 1960s. Flickr

From Discovery News:

Fifty years ago, Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty debuted before American television audiences.

A half century ago, Fred and Wilma Flintstone and neighbors Barney and Betty Rubble put the mythical town of Bedrock on the map when "The Flintstones" cartoon aired on television for the first time.

The show, which parodied suburban life, was the longest running U.S. animated sitcom to be aired during peak viewing hours on television until another cartoon family, the Simpsons, claimed the record in 1997.

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Religion And Health: Is There A Link?

From ABC News:

Just Changing Churches May Be Harmful to Your Health, Study Claims.

Many scientific studies in recent years have sought to prove a link between religion and health, and they usually ended up contending that faith may be very good medicine. But new research attempts to look at the opposite side of that coin: What happens when a person loses faith, or even switches from one religious group to another?

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Decision Needed On European Space Truck Upgrade

ARV would have a conical re-entry capsule and a more capable service module

From The BBC:

European countries will soon be asked if they wish to press on with design work to upgrade the ATV space truck.

The robotic craft takes supplies to the International Space station (ISS), but could be enhanced to return cargo to Earth and even carry a human crew.

Further feasibility work will cost some 150m euros, and nations are likely to decide by the end of the year whether to continue or shelve the project.

Much may depend on how they view future plans for human space exploration.

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Glonass To Provide Global GPS Coverage This Year - Top Official

Russia's navigation system Glonass. © RIA Novosti. Maksim Bogodvid

From RIA Novosti:

Russia's top space official confirmed on Monday Russia's navigation system Glonass will cover 100% of the Earth's surface by the end of the year.

"This year, I think, we will provide 100% coverage of the globe with the Glonass navigation system," the head of the federal space agency Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov, said.

"We will have 24 [operational] satellites in orbit and 3-4 spacecraft in the required orbital reserve," he added.

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Ancient "Fossil" Virus Shows Infection To Be Millions Of Years Old

INFECTIOUS INSERTIONS: Today's songbirds are harboring traces of ancient viral strains in their genomes, giving researchers a new understanding of the disease's age and evolutionary history. Image: ISTOCKPHOTO/GLOBAL IP

From Scientific American:

Genetic traces of an ancient hepatitis B-like virus confounds common knowledge about viral evolution.

Viruses can be thought of as hyperspeed shape-shifters, organisms that can adapt quickly to overcome barriers to infection. But recent research has been finding ancient traces of many viruses in animal genomes, DNA insertions that have likely been there for much longer than the viruses were previously thought to have existed at all.

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Freshly Discovered Earth-Like Planet Orbiting Nearby Star Could Be The First Truly Habitable Exoplanet

Gliese 581 Digital Sky Survey/ESO

From Popular Science:

A couple of math geeks recently calculated that the discovery of the first “habitable” exoplanet would be announced in May of next year -- but a few stargazers from UC Santa Cruz and their colleagues simply couldn’t wait that long. In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal, the astronomers report the discovery of what may be the first truly habitable earth-like exoplanet orbiting the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581.

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The Difference Engine: Bigger Than Wi-Fi

From The Economist:

HAVE you ever wondered, if you are of an age with your correspondent, about those missing channels on old television sets? Apart from channel two, the rest of the original VHF channels on the dial were usually just the odd numbers from three to 13. That was because, in over-the-air VHF broadcasting, the channel between two analogue stations had to be left unused so that it would not interfere with adjacent ones. When UHF broadcasting came along, empty “guard bands” were added to each channel for the same reason. In some places, this so-called “white space” of unused frequencies separating working channels amounted to as much as 70% of the total bandwidth available for television broadcasting.

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The Carbon Age: Dark Element, Brighter Future

Image: A computer-rendered view inside a carbon nanotube. (Credit: ghutchis/Flickr)

From CNET:

Humankind has seen the Stone Age, the Golden Age, and the Iron Age. Some would argue the 20th century should be called the Silicon Age. Based on the events of its first 10 years, the 21st century may very well become known as the Carbon Age.

An important tension is unfolding between two types of carbon--atmospheric carbon in the form of carbon dioxide emissions, and elemental carbon as a building block for a new generation of devices designed to manage and abate those same pollutants.

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Mars Moon Phobos Likely Forged By Catastrophic Blast

From Space.com:

One of the two moons of Mars most likely formed from rubble catapulted into space after a comet or meteorite slammed into the Red Planet, a new study finds.

The moon, Phobos, looks a lot like an asteroid: It's lumpy, potato-shaped and very small. It has an average radius of just 11 kilometers (6.8 miles).

Scientists have long wondered about the origin of Phobos — is it merely a captured asteroid, the leftovers from Mars' formation or evidence of a cosmic Martian hit-and-run with another object?

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Sneaking Spies Into A Cell's Nucleus

Tuan Vo-Dinh, left, and Molly Gregas are researchers at Duke University. (Credit: Duke University Photography)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — Duke University bioengineers have not only figured out a way to sneak molecular spies through the walls of individual cells, they can now slip them into the command center -- or nucleus -- of those cells, where they can report back important information or drop off payloads.

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Mysterious, Rare Red Diamond On Display

The Kazanjian Red Diamond, one of only three red diamonds of more than five carats, is on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Credit: AMNH/D. Finnin.

From Live Science:

NEW YORK — Among colored diamonds, red is particularly rare, and mysterious, since no one knows for certain the origin of the color within the stone.

One of the three known red diamonds weighing more than 5 carats (1 gram), an emerald-cut stone about the size of a small fingertip rests against a gray background in an American Museum of Natural History display case. This stone, known as the Kazanjian Red Diamond, has a dark hue resembling that of a garnet or a ruby, and in its nearly century-long history, it has been mistaken for the latter.

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Quantum Leap Towards Computer Of The Future

An artist's impression of a phosphorus atom (a red sphere surrounded by a blue electron cloud) coupled to a silicon single-electron transistor (College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales: William Algar-Chuklin)

From ABC News (Australia):

An Australian-led team of scientists have taken a big step forward in the race to develop a quantum computer.

Quantum computing relies on harnessing the laws of quantum physics - laws that apply to particles smaller than an atom - to get a computer to carry out many calculations at the same time.

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Solar Or Wind Power? Why Not Both?

Solar wind doesn't act like wind on Earth, and the satellite wouldn't generate electricity like a windmill. iStockphoto

From Discovery News:

A massive satellite that harvests the power in solar wind could meet the energy needs of all humanity and then some.

Solar and wind power have long been two of the main contenders in the race to find the next big renewable energy resource. Rather than choosing between the two, scientists at Washington State University have instead combined them.

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Kindle For The Web

One-Fifth Of World's Plants At Risk Of Extinction

Photo: Plants such as artemisia sweet wormwood provide valuable drugs - in this case, for malaria

From The BBC:

One-fifth of the world's plants - the foundation of life on Earth - are at risk of extinction, a study concludes.

Researchers have sampled almost 4,000 species, and conclude that 22% should be classified as "threatened" - the same alarming rate as for mammals.

A further 33% of species were too poorly understood to be assessed.

The analysis comes from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the Natural History Museum and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

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The End of Time Is Nigh (In A Cosmic Sense, Anyhow)

The End of Time Ticking off the seconds until the end of time, some 3.7 billion years from now. Leo Reynolds via Flickr

From Popular Science:

The universe has only about 3.7 billion years in which to settle its affairs. At least, that’s the new assertion from a group of physicists who say that there is a 50 percent chance that time will end within that time frame. If the laws of physics as we understand them are in fact correct, then time must eventually end – and their math shows that both the sun and the Earth should still be around when that happens.

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Deceptive Robots Hint At Machine Self-Awareness

From New Scientist:

A robot that tricks its opponent in a game of hide and seek is a step towards machines that can intuit our thoughts, intentions and feelings

ROVIO the robotic car is creating a decoy. It trundles forward and knocks over a marker pen stood on its end. The pen is positioned along the path to a hiding place - but Rovio doesn't hide there. It sneaks away and conceals itself elsewhere.

When a second Rovio arrives, it sees the felled pen and assumes that its prey must have passed this way. It rolls onwards, but is soon disappointed.

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