15 Awesome Ultramodern Fireplaces

From Multifuel Stoves:

The following 15 fireplaces are at the cutting-edge of modern fireplace design.


1. Fireplace In a Can

We have managed to put everything else in a can, so why can’t we do the same thing with fire? Designer Camillo Vanacore must have been thinking the very same thing when he dreamed up this portable, encapsulated fireplace.

The concept involves a form of magical ceramic from outer space. It starts out opaque, and then becomes transparent when it is exposed to heat generated by a flame. The fireplace in a can is also small enough to fit in just one hand. It’s an interesting design that is great when on a camping trip or in an emergency, but I don’t expect to go to the grocery store to pick up a six-pack of fire anytime soon.

Read more ....

Abiotic Synthesis Of Methane: New Evidence Supports 19th-Century Idea On Formation Of Oil And Gas

An oil pump taps deposits of petroleum deep beneath the Earth. Scientists are reporting new evidence that oil may have originated from processes other that the decay of prehistoric plants. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks.

Their study is scheduled for Nov./Dec. issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication. Anurag Sharma and colleagues note that the traditional process involves biology: Prehistoric plants died and changed into oil and gas while sandwiched between layers of rock in the hot, high-pressure environment deep below Earth's surface. Some scientists, however, believe that oil and gas originated in other ways, including chemical reactions between carbon dioxide and hydrogen below Earth' surface.

Read more ....

Music Improves Brain Function

From Live Science:

WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- For most people music is an enjoyable, although momentary, form of entertainment. But for those who seriously practiced a musical instrument when they were young, perhaps when they played in a school orchestra or even a rock band, the musical experience can be something more. Recent research shows that a strong correlation exists between musical training for children and certain other mental abilities.

The research was discussed at a session at a recent gathering of acoustics experts in Austin, Texas.


Read more ....

Skunks: From A Continuing Series On Revolting Creatures.

From Slate:

A mother skunk trailed by six little striped kits is a sight at least as charming as ducklings following their mother. Skunks themselves are not revolting. It's the pungent, oily, yellow-green liquid that streams out of nozzles on either side of a skunk's anus that is revolting. Lovable though the creatures are, there will never be a children's book called Make Way for Skunks.

Read more ....

Sesame Street Celebrates 40th Anniversary with Premiere on November 10th

From Geek Dad:

COOKIE!!!

Cookie Monster is no doubt the least good-for-you part of Sesame Street but it was always my favorite. And then there’s Oscar the Grouch, who’s already been the subject of a Geek Dad post.

One of us.

Likely the Cookie Monster is the favorite of many others too, since Google placed him on their homepage to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary, which is Tuesday, November 10, as new segments will begin airing on PBS stations. There are preview clips available at the official website linked above but, be warned, there is video that turns on instantly, so if you’re not in the mood for Ernie, you might want to hit the mute button.

Read more ....

How Much Would You Pay To See Your Future?

Image: Whole-genome sequencing could be affordable and accurate enough to perform on every newborn with a simple heel-prick blood test in a matter of years.
(Credit: Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)

From CNET:

My dad used to say technology is advancing so quickly that, by the time a product reaches market, it is already obsolete. Moreover, if you wait just a little longer, you can pay a lot less. The sequencing of the human genome takes the advancement of technology, and its fast reduction in cost, to an entirely new level.

Read more ....

How Astronomers Fill In Uncharted Areas Of The Universe

This image of the remnants of an exploded star was taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers. By studying it, astronomers gained a better understanding of new details about the role of supernova remnants as the Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators. (NASA/CXC/University of Ultrech/J.Vink/AFP)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Thanks to new tools, scientists are quickly mapping the stars.

Astronomers are filling in the blank spaces on their 3-D map of our universe thanks to their ability to sense almost every conceivable form of electromagnetic radiation. Those blanks include remote regions of space and time when the first stars formed and when young galaxies began to group themselves into gravitationally bound clusters.

Read more ....

Aluminum Fuel Could Power Future Space Trips

Powered by Powdered Aluminum: This test rocket soared 1300 feet into the air using seven inches of a new, environmentally friendly fuel made of nanoaluminum and ice. Purdue University/Steven Son

From Discovery News:

Aluminum and water is usually a boring combination, but light a mixture of nanoaluminum and ice and the results are explosive.

Scientists from Purdue University have created a new, environmentally friendly solid rocket fuel that recently sent a rocket screaming 1300 feet into the air using seven inches of nanoaluminum and ice. The new fuel could power missions to the moon or Mars while dramatically reducing the amount of on-board fuel.

"Theoretically you can get very high temperatures using aluminum and water, but the kinetics would be so slow and it would be so hard to ignite that it's very hard to actually make the rocket work," said Steven Son, a professor at Purdue University in Indiana who helped develop the new fuel.

Read more ....

Beyond North and South: Evidence For Magnetic Monopoles

Field Day: Magnets always have a north pole and a south pole. Physicists have managed to separate them in unusual materials called spin ices, enabling each pole to move freely. Cordelia Molloy Photo Researchers, Inc.

From Scientific American:

A sighting, of sorts, of separate north-south magnetic poles.

Magnets are remarkable exemplars of fairness—every north pole is invariably accompanied by a counterbalancing south pole. Split a magnet in two, and the result is a pair of magnets, each with its own north and south. For decades researchers have sought the exception—namely, the monopole, magnetism’s answer to the electron, which carries electric charge. It would be a free-floating carrier of either magnetic north or magnetic south—a yin unbound from its yang.

Read more ....

Comic Books Are Good For Children's Learning

From The Telegraph:

Parents should not "look down" on comics as they are just as good for children as reading books, a new study claims.

Researchers believe they can benefit from tales about the caped crusader, Superman and even Dennis the Menace in the same way they can from reading other types of literature, despite teachers and parents often being snooty about comics, experts say.

According to the research, critics say that reading comics is actually a "simplified version" of reading that doesn't have the complexity of "real" books with their "dense columns of words and lack of pictures".

Read more ....

Which One To Choose? Apple's Store Tops 100,000 Applications

iPhone users can now choose from 100,000 different applications

From The Daily Mail:

Apple revealed today that developers have crammed the virtual shelves of their App Store with more than 100,000 programmes for iPhones and iPod Touch devices.

Applications can range from time-wasting games, to maps that interact with real-time videos which create an augmented reality.

Even celebrities are getting in on the app action. Noel Edmonds has created a Cosmic Ordering programme to maker user's dreams come true while David Hasselhoff has launched 'Ask the Hoff' to answer your tricky questions.

Read more ....

Early Origins For Uncanny Valley

Macaques find fake monkeys creepy

From The BBC:

Human suspicion of realistic robots and avatars may have earlier origins than previously thought.

The phenomenon, called the uncanny valley, describes the disquiet caused by synthetic people which almost, but not quite, match human expressiveness.

Experiments with macaque monkeys show they too are suspicious of replicas that fall short of the real thing.

The research suggests a deep-seated evolutionary origin for the reactions such artificial entities evoke.

Read more ....

Archaeologists Track Infamous Conquistador Through Southeast

Sixteenth century glass beads are among the rare artifacts discovered at Fernbank Museum of Natural History's archaeology site, which scholars believe is a stop along Hernando de Soto's trek through the Southeast in 1540. (Credit: Dan Schultz/Fernbank Museum of Natural History)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 5, 2009) — Archaeologists at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History have discovered unprecedented evidence that helps map Hernando de Soto's journey through the Southeast in 1540. No evidence of De Soto's path between Tallahassee and North Carolina has been found until now, and few sites have been located anywhere.

Read more ....

The Truth About 2012 Doomsday Hype

An ancient Mayan Pyramid at Chchen Itza. The Mayan calendar ends in 2012, but Mayans never predicted the world would end. Rather, the ending of their calendar is rather like how our Gregorian calendar ends each Dec. 31. Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

2012 is coming very soon. The movie, that is — the disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich depicting global catastrophe of Biblical proportions. The year itself is of course a few dozen months away, and there is growing interest, excitement, and concern for both events.

The film "2012," which opens Nov. 13, takes place, rather obviously, in the year 2012, though it could have been set in 1995 or 2013. The movie's disasters have no particular link to that year, it's just when the Earth happens to start burping earthquakes and farting fire. 2012 made a perfect promotional hook for the film, because the ancient Mayans predicted that the world would end that year, if not specifically on December 21, 2012.

Read more ....

Remembering A Former Caltech Rocket Scientist And The Founder Of China's Space Program

China's Rocket Pioneer: Left: A Chinese Long-March 4-B rocket blasts off on Nov. 6, 2004. Right: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits Qian Xuesen on August 2, 2008. Xinhua

From Popular Science:

Qian Xuesen has died at 98; he helped found Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before being deported as a suspected Communist.

One can only imagine how history might have played out if the United States had not deported a Chinese-born Caltech rocket scientist on suspicion of being a Communist in 1955. Qian Xuesen first fought his deportation, but later accepted his fate and went on to become the founder of China's missile and space programs. His death this past Sunday comes as China broadens its space exploration efforts to become a potential challenger to a troubled U.S. space program, or perhaps a partner.

Read more ....

Can We Really Control The Weather?

Cloud-seeding is a controversial practice common in Russia and China. Getty

From The Independent:

Recently both Russia and China have claimed to be able to use cloud seeding to increase rainfall and snowfall, or change the location of where it falls. In the past, snow-making experiments have been carried out in North American ski resorts in the past with little evidence of success. So how have the Russian and Chinese scientists achieved this feat and what evidence is there that it is in fact due to cloud seeding?

Read more ....

Nanoparticles Could Damage DNA At A Distance, Study Suggests

Doses of nanoparticles used in the study were higher than anything a human might be exposed to.
Photograph: Getty Images

From The Guardian:

Lab tests show that metal nanoparticles can affect DNA without actually coming into contact with it – though the results are difficult to extrapolate to the human body.

Nanoparticles of metal can damage the DNA inside cells even if there is no direct contact between them, scientists have found. The discovery provides an insight into how the particles might exert their influence inside the body and points to possible new ways to deliver medical treatments.

Read more ....

Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?

INVISIBLE OR NONEXISTENT? A composite image of the galaxy cluster Abell 520 shows the inferred presence of matter, primarily dark matter, in blue. X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVic./A.Mahdavi et al.; Optical/Lensing: CFHT/UVic./A.Mahdavi et al.

From Scientific American:

Modifications to the theory of gravity could account for observational discrepancies, but not without introducing other complications.

Theorists and observational astronomers are hot on the trail of dark matter, the invisible material thought to account for puzzling mass disparities in large-scale astronomical structures. For instance, galaxies and galactic clusters behave as if they were far more massive than would be expected if they comprised only atoms and molecules, spinning faster than their observable mass would explain. What is more, the very presence of assemblages such as our Milky Way Galaxy speaks to the influence of more mass than we can see. If the mass of the universe were confined to atoms, the clumping of matter that allowed galaxies to take shape would never have transpired.

Read more ....

Carl Sagan Day Celebrated At Florida University

From The Telegraph:

The first Carl Sagan Day is being celebrated at Broward College, Florida, in honour of the great astronomer, novelist and sceptic.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who died in 1996, would have turned 75 on Monday 9 November 2009. Broward College is to hold a day of activities and talks in his memory.

The university, near Davie, Florida, held planetarium shows and star-gazing, as well as a talk by the magician and sceptic James Randi, a friend of Dr Sagan.

Read more ....

A Neutron Star Is Born: Stellar Core Just 12 Miles Across Spotted 11,000 Light Years Away

This supernova was captured by Nasa's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. The neutron star is the blue dot at the centre of the picture

From The Daily Mail:

An infant neutron star, the super-dense core of a stellar explosion, has been observed for the first time.

The 12.4 mile-wide object is the youngest object of its kind ever discovered, having appeared just 330 years ago.

It has been cloaked in mystery since it was identified as a powerful X-ray source in 1999. Astronomers now know the source is a neutron star 11,000 light years from Earth at the centre of the supernova Cassiopeia A.

Read more ....