Kno Tablet Touted As Next-Gen Textbook

The Kno tablet computer. Kno

From Christian Science Monitor:

Kno, a start-up electronics firm based in Santa Clara, Calif., will soon introduce a single-screen tablet computer intended for use by students across the country. The Kno – yes, it's both the name of the device and its maker – is expected to ship with a 14.1-inch screen and video functionality. (For comparison, the iPad sports a 9.7-inch screen.) The tablet computer will be controlled via a touchscreen and a plastic stylus.

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12 Events That Will Change Everything, Made Interactive

From Scientific American:

In addition to reacting to news as it breaks, we work to anticipate what will happen. Here we contemplate 12 possibilities and rate their likelihood of happening by 2050

The best science transforms our conception of the universe and our place in it and helps us to understand and cope with changes beyond our control. Relativity, natural selection, germ theory, heliocentrism and other explanations of natural phenomena have remade our intellectual and cultural landscapes. The same holds true for inventions as diverse as the Internet, formal logic, agriculture and the wheel.

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My Comment: The web interactive page for each of the 12 events is here.

Darpa Is Looking At Young Minds For New Ideas

FIRST Robotics Competition Taking a cue from the FIRST Robotics Competition, DARPA is offering prize-based challenges to inspire high school students to design new robots. FIRST

Seeking New Defense Robots, Darpa Gives Fabrication Technology To High Schoolers -- Popular Science

Taking a page from advertising strategy, DARPA is hoping to get ‘em while they’re young. The military’s mad-science wing wants various organizations to put manufacturing equipment in 1,000 high schools around the world, part of a new program called “MENTOR” — Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach. The partnership will include new prize-based challenges to inspire a new generation of defense manufacturers.

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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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