Earth's Most Prominent Rainfall Feature Creeping Northward

The band of heavy precipitation indicates the intertropical convergence zone. The new findings are based on sediment cores from lakes and lagoons on Palau, Washington, Christmas and Galapagos islands. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Washington)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 9, 2009) — The rain band near the equator that determines the supply of freshwater to nearly a billion people throughout the tropics and subtropics has been creeping north for more than 300 years, probably because of a warmer world, according to research published in the July issue of Nature Geoscience.

If the band continues to migrate at just less than a mile (1.4 kilometers) a year, which is the average for all the years it has been moving north, then some Pacific islands near the equator – even those that currently enjoy abundant rainfall – may be drier within decades and starved of freshwater by midcentury or sooner. The prospect of additional warming because of greenhouse gases means that situation could happen even sooner.

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Why 'Willy' Could Never Be Free

Keiko in home waters. Credit: F. Ugarte/arc-pic.com

From Live Science:

In 1998, with much fanfare, a 20-year-old orca named Keiko took a one-way trip on an Air Force cargo plane from Oregon to Iceland. There, attended by dozens of biologists and trainers, and at a cost reportedly topping $20 million, the orca was gradually reintroduced to his native waters.

Keiko, of course, had starred in three "Free Willy" movies, which sparked a public campaign to free him after nineteen years in captivity.

But things didn’t quite turn out as planned.

A team of his former caretakers, led by Malene J. Simon of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources in Nuuk, has analyzed logs of Keiko’s behavior and data from satellite tags recording his travels and dives. They point out that Keiko never managed to integrate with Icelandic orca pods and didn’t seem to do much diving or fishing. He spent two several-week-long stretches on his own at sea, but ultimately chose to return to human care.

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Freak Wave 'Hot Spots' Identified

In 2008, a cargo ship was grounded off Blackpool after being hit by a freak wave.

From The BBC:

Scientists in the US have made a major advance in their understanding of so-called freak waves.

These monster waves present a major risk to ships and offshore platforms.

A computer simulation developed by oceanographers in the US could help locate where and when these "rogue" phenomena are most likely to occur.

The theoretical study shows that coastal areas with variations in water depth and strong currents are hot spots for freak waves.

The history of seafaring is littered with tales of rogue waves capable of rending ships asunder.

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Twitter Attack Triggers Conspiracy Theories But Few Seem Plausible

From The Scientific American:

The same week that the Obama Administration lost its acting cyber security czar, cyber attacks torpedoed several of the Web's most popular social-networking sites, in particular Twitter and Facebook. Although the denial-of-service attacks (which overwhelm Web servers with phony requests) were the latest reminder of the difficulties of defending the Web against cyber threats, it appears that these crashed sites were collateral damage in the ongoing conflict between Russia and Georgia. Or were they?

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Hurricane Season 2009: Where Are All the Storms?

El Niño conditions over the Pacific Ocean have so far kept a lid on the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season, experts said in August 2009. But there's still plenty of time for a "monster" to form by season's end. Hurricane Andrew, seen above barreling toward Florida on August 24, 1992, also formed during an El Niño year. Andrew was the third most powerful hurricane to make U.S. landfall in recorded history. Photograph courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

From National Geographic:

Before the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season kicked off on June 1, forecasters were calling for 12 named storms, with about half developing into hurricanes.

Now, about two months into the season, zero storms have formed in the Atlantic.

That's because El Niño conditions over the Pacific Ocean have so far kept a lid on the 2009 hurricane season, experts say.

Still, meteorologists warn that a monster hurricane could be spawned before the season ends on November 30.

"Oases of favorable conditions" could exist in the Atlantic Basin long enough to allow a powerful storm to form, said Keith Blackwell, a meteorologist at the University of South Alabama's Coastal Weather Research Center in Mobile.

"It's very plausible that we still could get one or two intense hurricanes this year," Blackwell said. "And it only takes one to make it a bad season."

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Virtual Computer Army Takes On The Botnets

From New Scientist:

MORE than 1 million virtual computers are set to provide insight into how networks of infected computers called botnets wreak havoc on the internet, as the Conficker worm did recently.

Ron Minnich and Don Rudish of Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, crammed 250 independent linux "kernels" - the core system of a computer - onto each of 4400 networked Thunderbird machines, creating a total of over 1.1 million individual virtual computers.

While this network cannot mimic the internet's estimated 600 million computers, the duo hope to use it to study how a small number of machines can attack and bring down larger networks. They can also study, for example, why some botnets prefer to be small and others large.

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How The Apple Tablet Could Ruin Computing

The Mythical Apple Tablet, Imagined: via Gizmodo

From Popular Science:

Hint: the mobile network providers are involved.

Though whispers of an Apple tablet device practically predate Australopithecus, this week they’ve reached a fever pitch. It’s been reported by several news outlets that the supposed iTablet will feature a 10-inch touchscreen, both Wi-Fi and 3G data, and a custom ARM processor. It’s already been priced at $800 and even greenlit by none other than His Majesty Steve Jobs for a September release. Not one iota of this has been officially confirmed, but the prospect of a Mac Tablet seems more within reach than ever before.

This is not a good thing. If an Apple tablet is ever actually released, we should all be very concerned for the future of what most of us take for granted today: our d

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Breakfast Can Wait. The Day’s First Stop Is Online.

Liz Steyer after breakfast with three of her four children, ages 5 to 16. Laptops and cellphones are banned during meals. Jim Wilson/The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Karl and Dorsey Gude of East Lansing, Mich., can remember simpler mornings, not too long ago. They sat together and chatted as they ate breakfast. They read the newspaper and competed only with the television for the attention of their two teenage sons.

That was so last century. Today, Mr. Gude wakes at around 6 a.m. to check his work e-mail and his Facebook and Twitter accounts. The two boys, Cole and Erik, start each morning with text messages, video games and Facebook.

The new routine quickly became a source of conflict in the family, with Ms. Gude complaining that technology was eating into family time. But ultimately even she partially succumbed, cracking open her laptop after breakfast.

“Things that I thought were unacceptable a few years ago are now commonplace in my house,” she said, “like all four of us starting the day on four computers in four separate rooms.”

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My Comment: A social trend that has even hit my own home.

Freaky Sleep Paralysis: Being Awake In Your Nightmares

From Wired Science:

You wake up, but you can’t move a muscle. Lying in bed, you’re totally conscious, and you realize that strange things are happening. There’s a crushing weight on your chest that’s humanoid. And it’s evil.

You’ve awakened into the dream world.

This is not the conceit for a new horror movie starring a ragged middle-aged Freddie Prinze Jr., it’s a standard description of the experience of a real medical condition: sleep paralysis. It’s a strange phenomenon that seems to happen to about half the population at least once.

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Brain Power And Computers

Watch CBS Videos Online

My Comment: This is so cool.

Why Are Flu Viruses Seasonal?

Heide Benser / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

U.S. health officials are bracing for a resurgence of the new H1N1/09 flu virus this fall, when the influenza season kicks into high gear with the resurgence of cold weather. By October, the government hopes to have 120 million doses of vaccine ready to fight the new virus, which is currently spreading around the world in the first pandemic in more than 40 years. Already, H1N1 is hitting the southern hemisphere hard: Argentina has recorded more than 160 deaths from H1N1, second most after the U.S. That's because it's winter in the southern hemisphere, and flu infections tend to spike during the fall and winter months in temperate countries.

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Mapping The Globe's Soils

DIGITIZING DIRT: A global soil map could aid many areas of scientific research, including agriculture and climate modeling. ISTOCKPHOTO/ANTHONYROSENBERG

From Scientific American:

The lack of good information on global soils is hampering efforts to improve agriculture and combat climate change.

Long left in the dust by their peers in climate research, a small group of soil scientists is spearheading an effort to apply rigorous computer analysis to the ground beneath our feet.

Their goal: to produce a digital soil map of the entire world.

It is a daunting task. In many parts of the world, such as Africa and South Asia, knowledge of soil is sketchy at best, relying on fading paper maps. And without accurate soil information, it is difficult for planners to know where crops are best grown, or for climate modelers to predict how much carbon might be released from soil into the atmosphere.

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Life On Mars Theory Goes Up In A Puff: Scientists Find Methane Gas Would Make Planet Poisonous

Are we alone? Scientists believed methane gas on Mars was proof of life on the planet - but now that theory could be wrong

From The Daily Mail:

The discovery of seasonal plumes of methane on Mars was embraced as evidence of life on the red planet.

With most of the methane on Earth produced by living organisms, the Nasa finding earlier this year was a tantalising sign we may not be alone in the universe.

But alas, it now seems it could actually be the opposite.

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How Sensitive Is The Earth’s Climate?

From Watts Up With That?

Introduction

Projections of climate warming from global circulation models (GCM’s) are based on high sensitivity for the Earth’s climate to radiative forcing from well mixed greenhouse gases (WMGG’s). This high sensitivity depends mainly on three assumptions:

1. Slow heat accumulation in the world’s oceans delays the appearance of the full effect of greenhouse forcing by many (eg. >20) years.

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Chicken-hearted Tyrants: Predatory Dinosaurs As Baby Killers

Fossil evidence suggests that the large carnivores hunted mainly juvenile dinosaurs instead of giant herbivorous adults. (Credit: iStockphoto/David Coder)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2009) — Two titans fighting a bloody battle – one that often turns fatal for both of them. This is how big predatory dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus are often depicted while hunting down their supposed prey, even larger herbivorous dinosaurs. The fossils, though, do not account for that kind of hunting behavior but indicate that theropods, the large predatory dinosaurs, were hunting much smaller prey.

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Robot Chefs Run A Restaurant

From Live Science:

The FuA-Men - Fully Automated raMen restaruant in Nagoya, Japan features a chef and assistant - both fully autonomous robots. The robots perform all of the cooking tasks needed to make eighty bowls per day, serving the customers who come to their small shop.

When asked, customers seem to feel that there is little difference between noodle dishes prepared by real, human chefs, and meals prepared by autonomous robots. For those who appreciate precision in food preparation, you can't beat robot chefs.

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Perseids Meteors To Light Up Skies Midweek

From San Francisco Chronicle:

The rocky debris from a wandering comet is filling the sky with shooting stars these nights, just as scribes in ancient China saw them 2,000 years ago and modern stargazers see them every August.

They are the Perseids, an annual meteor shower that makes a brilliant show wherever the viewing is good and the night sky is dark and clear.

This year, the bright streaks and occasional blazing fireballs of the meteors should reach their peak well before dawn Wednesday and after sunset that night.

But Tuesday night should offer a better view as the waning gibbous moon doesn't rise until 11 p.m and the sky will be darkest before the moonlight interferes, says Andrew Fraknoi, chairman of astronomy at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills.

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Which Search Engine Do You Choose In The Blind Test?

From The Washington Post:

Have you tried out this blind search tool yet? It provides results from Google, Yahoo and Bing in three columns but doesn't tell you which column is which search engine. You then tell it which one you think shows the best results, and you then see which answers are from which engines. I keep choosing Yahoo as the best results.

A few search engine experts we've spoken with over the years say that users tend to think Google results are better just because they're from Google. If you take any search engine and put the logo on top, it tests better. So Yahoo results with a Google logo will always test better than, say, Google results with the Yahoo or Bing logo. People are just used to thinking about Google as the best search.

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My Comment: I prefer Google and Yahoo .... and sometimes Ask.

China's First Mars Orbiter In Russia For Launch: State Media

Image: Yinghuo-1, the 110-kilogramme (242-pound) Chinese satellite.

From Space Daily:

China's first satellite to probe Mars has been transported to Russia for a launch later this year, state media reported Thursday.

Yinghuo-1, the 110-kilogramme (242-pound) Chinese satellite, is scheduled to be launched along with Russia's "Phobos Explorer" aboard a Zenit rocket in October after final testing, the Beijing News said.

After entering Mars' orbit -- 10 to 11 months later -- the orbiter will probe the Martian space environment, with a special focus on what happened to the water that appears to have once been abundant on the planet's surface.

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The Truth About Airplane Turbulence

(Photograph courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center)

From Popular Mechanics:

Rough air injured more than two dozen airline passengers this week, but that's just one unavoidable risk you take while flying. Or is it? Our primer explains the three kinds of airplane turbulence, and what you can do to stay safe on a plane.

It's an unpleasant but familiar experience: You're cruising along at 30,000 feet when turbulence seems to yank the airplane out from under you. If you're like some of the 26 injured passengers on Continental Airlines Flight 128 last Monday (or the two people on Delta Airlines Flight 2871 last Tuesday) and you're not buckled in when this happens, you could meet the ceiling with unpleasant results.

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