What Went Wrong On The Costa Concordia

What Went Wrong On The Costa Concordia -- Popular Mechanics

The sight of behemoth pleasure vessel Costa Concordia sideways in the sea became an indelible image around the world. Here's the full story of how this entirely avoidable vacation-turned-nightmare unfolded.

Antonello Tievoli, headwaiter on the Costa Concordia, stepped onto the bridge of the cruise ship at 9:15 pm on Friday, Jan. 13, of this year. From the wide windows, Tievoli could see the glittering lights of his home, Giglio Island, drawing closer.

Capt. Francesco Schettino knew that Tievoli's sister lived on Giglio, and invited him to the bridge as they cruised past. With its 13 brightly lit decks, the ship was more brilliant than anything on the island. The 4200 people onboard outnumbered the island's residents four to one.

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My Comment: Something to think about should you decide to go on a cruise.

Sinister Truth About Google Spies

Sinister Truth About Google Spies: Web Giant Deliberately Stole Information But Executives 'Covered It Up' For Years -- Daily Mail

* Work of Street View cars to be examined over allegations Google used them to download personal details
* Emails, texts, photos and documents taken from wi-fi networks as cars photographed British roads
* Engineer who designed software said a privacy lawyer should be consulted
* Calls for police and Information Commissioner to investigate new evidence

Google is facing an inquiry into claims that it deliberately harvested information from millions of UK home computers.

The Information Commissioner data protection watchdog is expected to examine the work of the internet giant’s Street View cars.

They downloaded emails, text messages, photographs and documents from wi-fi networks as they photographed virtually every British road.

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Update: How Google used tech to ‘pry into people’s lives’ -- Times of India

My Comment: Makes you wonder if foreign intelligence agencies are doing the same thing.

Will The U.N. Regulate The Internet?

House To Examine Plan For United Nations To Regulate The Internet -- The Hill

House lawmakers will consider an international proposal next week to give the United Nations more control over the Internet.

The proposal is backed by China, Russia, Brazil, India and other UN members, and would give the UN’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) more control over the governance of the Internet.

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My Comment: Governments want to assert control and devise ways to extract money from the internet. In short .... governments are doing what governments do. Sen. Marco Rubio's comments are spot on .... let us hope that his fellow law makers are listening to him.

Darpa Is Still Developing Robots

Meet ‘Robbie’: Darpa’s Seeing, Feeling, Two-Armed Robot -- Danger Room

It’s only been three months since the Pentagon’s latest robot — the one able to staple paperwork and answer phone calls with a single autonomous arm — demonstrated some of those amazing skills. Now, the freaky humanoid ‘bot is back. And this time, he has two arms. And a name.

Meet Robbie. This particular robot was designed by RE2, a robotics firm in Pittsburgh, which showed him off to IEEE Spectrum at their International Conference on Robotics and Automation last week. RE2 was one of six teams initially contracted by Darpa, the Pentagon’s robo-loving research agency, to work on their Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program. Launched two years ago, the program aims to develop robots that can perform complex tasks with minimal input from their human overlords.

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My Comment: I guess this program stems from the military's dream of having their terminator robots.

Fears Of The Next HIV

Image from AIDS response

African Monkey Meat That Could Be Behind The Next HIV -- The Independent

Deep in Cameroon's rainforests, poachers are killing primates for food. Evan Williams reports from Yokadouma on a practice that could create a pandemic

Deep in the rainforest of south-east Cameroon, the voices of the men rang through the trees. "Where are the white people?" they shouted. The men, who begin to surround us, are poachers, who make their money from the illegal slaughter of gorillas and chimpanzees. They disperse but make it known that they are not keen for their activities to be reported; the trade they ply could not only wipe out critically endangered species but, scientists are now warning, could also create the next pandemic of a deadly virus in humans.

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My Comment: It's seems that we are destined to experience the next pandemic.

Record-Breaking Parachuteless Skydive (Video)

Video: In Record-Breaking Parachuteless Skydive, Man Jumps 2,400 Feet Into a Pile of Boxes -- Popular Science

Gary Connery broke the record today for skydiving sans parachute and also, presumably, took home a gold medal in being a badass. But that wasn’t all: The 42-year-old father-stuntman-crazy-person gave Newton’s First Law one more slap in the face by diving from 2,400 feet above Buckinghamshire, England, and straight into 18,600 cardboard boxes.

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My Comment: I particularly like Gary Connery's remarks on what he was feeling before the jump .... before the leap, Connery, a veteran of 880 sky dives and 450 base jumps, told reporters he was “a bit scared.”

Neil Armstrong Narrates His Moon Landing (Video)

Neil Armstrong During Apollo 11 Buzz Aldrin took this photo after Armstrong completed his lunar EVA during Apollo 11. NASA/via Wikimedia

Watch: Neil Armstrong Narrates His Moon Landing In a Rare TV Interview -- Popular Science

The immortal first words on the moon, uttered so shakily by a man who has done his best to avoid the spotlight ever since, are even more impressive in hindsight. The Eagle lander nearly plunked Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong in a boulder field, and Armstrong had to take over from autopilot to set the spacecraft down. This is according to very rare new commentary from Armstrong himself.

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My Comment: This reminds me of the great age of American space exploration.

Building Tesla (Photo Gallery)

Tesla Motors will deliver its first batch of Model S sedans this July. Here, one is guided past a series of robotic spray-paint guns. Photographs by John Stocklin

Building Tesla -- Technology Review

At its electric-car factory in Silicon Valley, Tesla obsesses over details like making its own high-tech tools.

Just as Tesla’s cars don’t feel like anything from Detroit, the ­California factory that produces the company’s upcoming Model S electric sedan is inspired as much by Tesla’s high-tech neighbors in Silicon Valley as by a typical auto plant. In particular, Tesla is obsessive about taking care of details itself—whether it’s forming the cars’ bodies from scratch or making tools for the robots that build the vehicles.

CSN Editor: The photo gallery starts here.

'Bionic Eye' Returns Sight To Two Patients

An x-ray of the 'bionic eye' given to Chris James

‘Bionic Eye’ Returns Sight To Two Men After Over 20 Years Of Blindness -- Scotsman

TWO blind men have regained partial sight for the first time in more than 20 years after becoming the first in Britain to be fitted with a “bionic eye”.

Scientists said the first clinical trials of the microchip eye implant, which measures just 3mm across and is fitted behind the eyeball, have proved successful and “exceeded expectations”.

Eye experts developing the pioneering new technology said the first group of British patients to receive the implants were regaining “useful vision” just weeks after undergoing surgery, with one of them describing dreaming “in vivid colour” for the first time in 25 years.

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My Comment: What was a fantasy when The Six Million Dollar Man show was on the air .... is now reality.

A Birth Control Pill For Men?

Gene Discovery Could Lead To Birth Control Pill For Men -- FOX News

When it comes to birth control, numerous options are available to women to help them regulate their menstrual cycle and prevent ovulation. But what if a birth control pill for men were available?

That prospect may soon become a reality now that researchers at the University of Edinburgh have recently discovered a gene that is essential for the development of sperm. Their study, published in the journal PLos Genetics, highlights the gene Katnal1, which causes temporary infertility in male mice when blocked.

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My Comment: There is a market for this .... albeit probably not as big as it is for women.

The Easter Island Heads Also Have BODIES

Here's something not many people know: The Easter Island statues have bodies which go down many feet

Hidden Treat: The Easter Island Heads Also Have BODIES -- Daily Mail

The enduring image in the public's mind of the mysterious heads on Easter Island is simply that - heads.

So it comes as quite a shock to see the heads from another angle - and discover that they have full bodies, extending down many, many feet into the ground of the island.

The Easter Island Statue Project has been carefully excavating two of 1,000-plus statues on the islands - doing their best to uncover the secrets of the mysterious stones, and the people who built them, as best they can.

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My Comment: Something has to keep those heads erect.

SpaceX Makes History With Dragon Docking

Image Credit: NASA TV

SpaceX Makes History With Dragon Docking -- Red Orbit

SpaceX made history today as its Dragon capsule became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.

Dragon launched on Tuesday, May 22 at 3:44 a.m. from Cape Canaveral towards the ISS, reaching the orbiting laboratory on Thursday.

SpaceX had to perform a series of tests before being given the go-ahead by NASA to attempt to dock Dragon with the station.

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My Comment: Congrats on a job well done.

Google Says It Removes 1 Million Infringing Links Monthly

Google Says It Removes 1 Million Infringing Links Monthly -- Threat Level

Each month, Google removes more than 1 million links to infringing content such as movies, video games, music and software from its search results — with about half of those requests for removal last month coming from Microsoft.

The search and advertising giant revealed the data Thursday as it released sortable analytics on the massive number of copyright takedown requests it receives — adding to its already existing data on the number of times governments ask for users’ personal data.

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My Comment: In all the years of my blogging, I have had only one image removed from this blog, and 4 images from my other blogs and websites. In everyone of these cases, I thought that the images were in the public domain.

Polio Remains Endemic in Nigeria, Pakistan And Afghanistan

Polio Remains Endemic in Nigeria, Pakistan And Afghanistan: Health Officials -- International Business Times

Although polio has been eradicated across much of the world, the disease remains endemic in Nigeria, Pakistan, Chad and Afghanistan, according to an international group.

Moreover, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), gaps in funding and insufficient immunization programs raises the threat of polio transmission in many countries.

GPEI is affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO).

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My Comment: With wars ongoing in these regions, I cannot see a polio vaccination program in place.

When Creative Machines Overtake Man

When Creative Machines Overtake Man -- Kurzweil Artificial Intelligence

Machine intelligence is improving rapidly, to the point that the scientist of the future may not even be human! In fact, in more and more fields, learning machines are already outperforming humans. As noted in this transcript of a talk at TEDxLausanne on Jan. 20, 2012, artificial intelligence expert Jürgen Schmidhuber isn’t able to predict the future accurately, but he explains how machines are getting creative, why 40‚000 years of Homo sapiens-dominated history are about to end soon, and how we can try to make the best of what lies ahead.

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New Sensory Organ Found In Whales

A baby humpback whale plays at the surface. Biologists recently discovered that humpback whales have a sensory organ in their chin. Credit: iStockphoto

New Sensory Organ Found In Whales -- Cosmos/AFP

PARIS: Biologists have discovered a new sensory organ on blue, humpback, minke and fin whales that helps explain why these mammals are so huge.

In a study appearing in the journal Nature, researchers in the United States and Canada said the organ is located at the tip of the whale's chin, in a niche of fibrous tissue that connects the lower jaw bones.

Comprising a node of nerves, the organ orchestrates dramatic changes in jaw position that are essential for "lunge" feeding by the rorqual family of whales, Earth's biggest vertebrates.

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My Comment: We learn something new everyday.

Will Humans Communicate With Dolphions One Day?

Could we someday be able to talk to dolphins? Here, Beau Richter monitors the breath-holding capability of Puka, a bottlenose dolphin at UC Santa Cruz's Long Marine Laboratory. T. M. Williams/UCSC

Device May Let Humans Communicate With Dolphins -- Discovery News

A prototype dolphin speaker projects the full range of all dolphin-made sounds.

* Dolphins communicate in sounds beyond our realm of perception.
* A new device can project the wide range of sounds that dolphin used.
* The hope is one day it may be used to communicate with the smart animals.

A new dolphin speaker device could one day help us talk with these remarkably intelligent life forms, scientists say.

Dolphins live in a world of sound far beyond our own. They can distinguish very small differences in the frequency or pitch of sound waves, and can hear and generate low-frequency sounds below 20 kilohertz that lie within human capabilities, as well as high-frequency sounds of up to more than 150 kilohertz, well beyond the range of our hearing. In addition, dolphins not only can produce tones just as humans do, but they can also communicate at a variety of frequencies simultaneously. With whistles, burst-pulse sounds and clicks, dolphins use sound not only to communicate and to scan their surroundings and prey in the dark sea (called echolocation).

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My Comment: The day that such a communication is achieved ..... that will be an incredible day.

A Backpack Radar That Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres

Backpack Radar Can Detect Ambushers Within 150 Acres -- Popular Science

If you’re a soldier suspecting an ambush, you probably don’t have much time to spare, and you definitely can’t afford to be carrying any unnecessary weight. That’s why so much military tech involves shrinking whatever’s portable, and why, now, a company has thrown its radar-in-a-backpack into the ring.

The SpotterRF M600C weighs four pounds, uses just 10 watts of energy, and looks like the headrest on the driver’s seat of a jalopy (which is a good thing). If ambusher or otherwise comes within 150 acres, the system tracks it, no matter what the weather conditions are.

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My Comment: I can see them improving this tech to cover even greater territory.

Scientists Are Now Beginning To Have An Understand Of The Full Impact Bomb Blasts Have On A Soldier's Brain

Safe detonation of IED, Afghanistan 2012. Wikipedia

Study Measures Impact Of Bomb Blasts On Soldiers' Brains -- ABC News (Australia)

Scientists have begun to understand the full impact bomb blasts have on the brains of those who live through them.

Over the past decade, scores have been killed and maimed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and now new US research compares the survivors to concussed athletes.

Unfortunately the symptoms mimic and often overlap with those of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - and that is now a big problem for the Australian Defence Force.

Boston University neuroscientist Dr Lee Goldstein has replicated a typical IED blast and examined the effects on mice.

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My Comment: More research and faster results please.

A Look At How The U.S. Navy Transports Damaged Ships

A load of ship: The Blue Marlin gives the USS Cole a piggy-back as it heads to Mississippi

The Day One Boat Gave Another A Piggyback Following Suicide Bomber Attack On US Navy Ship -- Daily Mail

Here is something you don't see every day - one ship giving another a piggy-back.

This intriguing image is not a Photoshopped picture or a disaster of Titanic proportions, instead it is the Blue Marlin, a 217-metre, semi-submersible ship, designed to carry tremendous loads, giving a helping hand to the USS Cole.

The ship has been damaged by an Al Qaeda suicide bomber while anchored in Aden, Yemen, in October 2000 - and it is not easy to get the ship home with a 40ft gash in the side.

Following the attack, the U.S. Navy hired the Blue Marlin to get the Cole back home - and probably gave sailors on passing ships something of a shock.

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My Comment: That's one big boat.