Solar System May Be More Compact Than Thought

A cloud of comets surrounds the main disc of the solar system - new research suggests the cloud may be more compact than previously thought (Illustration: T Pyle/SSC/JPL-Caltech/NASA)

From The New Scientist:

The solar system may be significantly more compact than previously thought, according to a new computer simulation of the cloud of comets that enshrouds the solar system. The work suggests the cloud may not contain as much material as once suspected, which could resolve a long-standing problem in models of how the planets formed.

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Galileo Space Navigation System To Be Ready In 2014

Photo: Use of basic Galileo services will be free,
while high-accuracy capabilities will be restricted to paying users

From Deutsche Welle:

After much delay, the European Commission has awarded contracts for work to start on building the highly-anticipated Galileo space navigation system. The first 14 satellites will be built by a German company.

The European Commission announced on Thursday that the long-delayed Galileo project, the European alternative to the American GPS satellite navigation system, will begin operation in 2014.

The Commission has awarded the German company OHB System AG a 566 million euro (813 million dollar) contract to build the first 14 satellites for the EU's new space-based navigation system.

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Skiff E-Reader Has Some New Tricks

From Popular Mechanics:

LAS VEGAS—The barrage of new products from CES includes a number of e-Ink devices, all lining up to dislodge the Kindle from its perch at the top of the market. Among the double fistful of readers for sale in 2010 will be the Skiff Reader, a sleek 11.5-inch device that has received a healthy share of buzz in the past few days. We've refrained from writing about Skiff until now because it's backed by Hearst, Popular Mechanics' own parent company, and because over the past year we've been sharing ideas on the device with the company's development team. (As you can see from the photo, we've created sample content for Skiff that will be shown this week in Las Vegas.)

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Tripping The Light Fantastic: 66 Black Holes Found 'Dancing' The Galactic Night Away

Hubble Space Telescope images of two small galaxies colliding to form one

From The Daily Mail:

It is the ultimate dance routine but get too close and it may be your last.

A team of astronomers have discovered 33 pairs of 'waltzing' black holes in distant galaxies which will eventually combine to form one.

Nearly every galaxy has a central super-massive black hole with a mass up to a billion times the mass of the Sun and galaxies often collide.

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97 Reasons To Quit Smoking

Image: (FOTOLIA/ISTOCKPHOTO)

From Health.com:

1. You won't have to pay more and more and more and more each year.
Yup, taxes will almost certainly continue to go up. New Jersey, Vermont, and Connecticut are among the states leaning harder on smokers for revenue, but even some tobacco-growing states are beginning to milk the coffin-nail cash cow. Lawmakers' reasoning: There is evidence that price increases cause smokers to reduce consumption. And the medical costs of smoking are astronomical—a huge burden to the states.

2. You'll inhale fewer germs.
New research suggests cigarettes are crawling with germs, which can be inhaled along with the smoke. It’s not clear if the germs can make you sick, but the yuck factor is undeniable.

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Physicists Beginning To See Data From The Large Hadron Collider

Last month the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider began recording proton-proton collisions at a record energy of 2.36 trillion electron volts. Image courtesy of the ATLAS experiment. (Credit: Image courtesy of Iowa State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 7, 2010) — Three Iowa State University physicists who took winter trips to the Large Hadron Collider for meetings and experimental work are starting to see real data from the planet's biggest science experiment.

Finally.

The multibillion-dollar collider made international news on Sept. 10, 2008, when it sent its first beam of protons around 17 miles of underground tunnel near Geneva, Switzerland. But breakdowns in the machine's high-current electrical connections forced a complete shutdown for more than a year of repairs and tests.

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Can A Person Freeze To Death?

From Live Science:

Extremely cold weather has descended upon most of the nation this week, and this frigid air may have you feeling like you could "freeze to death." Paranoia aside, when temperatures dip, frostbite and other health risks are real concerns. And death strikes long before the body actually freezes.

Yet our bodies are pretty hardy, as we have two built-in mechanisms to protect us from the cold.

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Free Flipper! Argues Scientist

Studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future. Photo: JASON HELLER / BARCROFT MEDIA

From The Telegraph:

Dolphins should be treated as “non-human persons” and merit special rights above other animals because they are so bright, scientists claim.

Researchers argue that it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in captivity or to kill them for food.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children.

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Landmark DNA Study Of 3,000 People To Unlock Mystery Of Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes, characterised by insulin resistance, can cause blindness and impotence

From Times Online:

The genetic roots of type 2 diabetes are to be explored in unprecedented depth to help to find better ways to diagnose and treat a disease that affects more than 2 million people in Britain.

A £15 million study is to read the complete DNA of 3,000 people, more than ten times more than have so far had their genomes sequenced, The Times has learnt.

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The World In 2020: Thrift, Hard Work – And No Smoking

'Labelling on all alcohol drinks was altered to proclaim 'drinking kills''. Matt Murphy

From The Independent:

What will our lives be like a decade from now? In the second part of our series, Independent writers glimpse the future.

By 2020 the people of Britain had grown accustomed to the "nanny state" telling them what to do. Smoking had been totally unacceptable for several years, after the smoking ban had been extended to outdoor public spaces such as parks, beaches and playgrounds. There was even talk of banning smoking in blocks of flats.

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One In Ten Stars 'Have Solar Systems Like Ours'

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the
American Astronomical Society in Washington DC Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

One in ten stars in the universe may host solar systems like the Sun's family of planets, astronomers believe.

Potentially hundreds of millions of stars may have solar systems that could harbour life-supporting Earth-like planets.

Our solar system has far-flung gas-giant planets with small rocky worlds such as the Earth and Mars nearer the parent star.

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Chilling Out In The Coldest Place on Earth

Just when you think it can't get any colder (Image: Michael Studinger/Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory/Columbia University)

From New Scientist:

VOSTOK Station in Antarctica currently holds the crown for the coldest place on the planet. It recorded -89.2 °C on 21 July 1983. But it could get even colder, with temperatures dropping to about -96 °C, if "perfect" cold-weather conditions prevail.

John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey and colleagues analysed the weather conditions that brought about the record chill and found it was caused by an unusual, near-stationary atmospheric vortex. "This isolated Vostok and prevented the waves of warm air that normally come up from the ocean," says Turner. After that big chill, the temperature bounced up by over 20 °C in one day (Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029/2009JD012104).

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The Top 4 Sites To Land On Mars And Their Biggest Mysteries

Holden Crater

From Popular Mechanics:

The Spirit Rover is nearly history, stuck deep in sand, and while Opportunity travels on, it's not likely that it will travel much farther. Now, scientists are building the next rover to be sent to Mars. But before they fuel the rockets, researchers have to pick a spot to explore. Here are NASA's frontrunners.

Call it the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's version of the Final Four. Scientists at the Pasadena, Calif.–based NASA research center will decide within the next two years where to send the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover after it launches in the fall of 2011. MSL's mission is to scour the Red Planet for environments that may once have harbored, or may still harbor, microbial organisms. Such an environment would have to contain the basic ingredients of life—including water, organic carbon and a source of energy to sustain the microbes' metabolism.

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Nearby T Pyxidis Supernova Could Destroy Life On Earth

Too Close for Comfort T Pyxidis, a star on the verge of growing too massive and collapsing into a type Ia supernova, was discovered to be closer to Earth than previously thought – close enough to end life here when it finally explodes. NASA

From Popular Science:

Doomsdayers and 2012 blog-keepers, take note. Astronomers at this week's American Astronomical Society meeting revealed that a massive white dwarf star in the throes of multiple nova is much closer to our solar system than once thought. When it does finally collapse into a type Ia supernova -- okay, if it collapses into a type Ia supernova -- the resulting thermonuclear blast will destroy life on earth. Seriously.

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NASA's Kepler Finds Its First Five Planets - An Odd Assortment

Kepler's first five exoplanets are compared to those in our
solar system in this illustration from NASA. NASA

From Christian Science Monitor:

NASA's Kepler space telescope is just beginning its three-year mission to find Earth-like planets in habitable zones around stars. The first new planets it has found, announced Monday, include two so hot they would melt iron.

NASA's planet-hunting telescope Kepler has bagged its first quarry: five new planets Neptune's size and larger, including one with the density of Styrofoam, making it one of the lightest planets yet found.

In addition to the new planets, Kepler results suggest that the light output from two-thirds of some 43,000 sun-like stars in its field of view is virtually as stable as the sun's output.

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'Ferropaper' Is New Technology For Small Motors, Robots

Purdue researchers have created a magnetic "ferropaper" that might be used to make low-cost "micromotors" for surgical instruments, tiny tweezers to study cells and miniature speakers. Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering, holds a miniature birdlike shape made from the material. The wings move slowly, but the structure is not capable of flight. (Credit: Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 6, 2010) — Researchers at Purdue University have created a magnetic "ferropaper" that might be used to make low-cost "micromotors" for surgical instruments, tiny tweezers to study cells and miniature speakers.

The material is made by impregnating ordinary paper -- even newsprint -- with a mixture of mineral oil and "magnetic nanoparticles" of iron oxide. The nanoparticle-laden paper can then be moved using a magnetic field.

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Mystery of World's Biggest Beasts Possibly Solved

The primitive whale Mammalodon colliveri might have sucked up prey from seafloor mud, suggesting the origin of today's giant filter-feeding whales. Credit: Brian Choo, Museum Victoria

From Live Science:

The origins of the largest animals in the world, the baleen whales, might be rooted in the mud, which they potentially sucked up like vacuum cleaners, analysis of a bizarre extinct dwarf whale now suggests.

The baleen whales include the largest animal to have ever lived, the blue whale. Instead of teeth, they use baleen to feed — plates with frayed edges in the upper jaw that filter seafood from the water.

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Milky Way's Dark Matter 'Turned On Its Side'

From New Scientist:

The cloud of dark matter that is thought to surround the Milky Way may be shaped like a squashed beach ball. This halo of invisible matter also seems to sit at an unexpected angle – which could be a strike against a theory that challenges Einstein's account of gravity.

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Intermediate Black Hole Implicated In Star's Death

From Discovery News:

Astronomers presenting at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington D.C. on Jan. 4, have reported the detection of the emission generated by a black hole as it devoured a white dwarf star in the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399.

This may not appear to be a huge deal to begin with -- stars being eaten by supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies have been detected before -- but it would appear that this particular white dwarf was ripped apart and then devoured by a mysterious "intermediate-mass" black hole.

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Study Pinpoints Autism Clusters in Calif.

Image: (CBS/iStockphoto)

From CBS News:

More Cases Found in Areas where Parents are Better Educated and Near Autism Treatment Centers

(CBS) Researchers in California have identified 10 regions in the state where cases of autism are higher than in nearby regions.

The study finds that the areas, called clusters, are in places where parents have above average levels of education, or are also places located near large autism treatment facilities.

The research, conducted by scientists at UC Davis, showed that the clusters appear in highly populated areas of Southern California and the Bay Area.

Read more ....

Two Killer Whale Types Found In UK Waters

Forming a new species? The 'type 2' dolphin hunting killer whales.

From The BBC:

Scientists have revealed that there is not one but two types of killer whale living in UK waters.

Each differs in its appearance and diet, with males of one type being almost two metres longer than the other.

The killer whales could be at an early stage of becoming two separate species, the researchers say.

The international group of scientists has published its results in the journal Molecular Ecology.

Read more ....

Oil And Gas Drilling In Greenland To Begin This Summer

From Popular Mechanics:

When the 748-foot Stena Forth plows into the deep waters of Greenland’s Disko West zone next summer, the advanced drillship will be taking the first crack at what could be the world’s biggest untapped reservoir of oil and gas. The ship, built by Samsung in South Korea’s Geoje shipyard just over a year ago, can drill to 35,000 feet, in 10,000 feet of water.

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Manned And Unmanned Helicopters Most Efficient When Working Together

Flock of Copters Fly, my pretties! U.S. Army/Spc. George Welcome

From Popular Science:

Flying alongside drones might seem a bit strange for U.S. Army chopper pilots, but it has major payoffs. The U.S. Army found that a mixed flight force of manned and unmanned helicopters could locate and kill 90 percent of targets, compared to manned helicopter forces that located just 70 percent of targets, according to DOD Buzz.

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My Comment: This is another reason why unmanned helicopters and UAVs are the big thing in the military .... their kill rate is impressive.

Tellyphone: America Is Finally Poised To Get Mobile Television

From The Economist:

YOUR correspondent is always miffed when he sees others taking for granted things he has waited years for. Case in point: the way the Japanese think it is perfectly normal to watch live national and local television free on their mobile phones. In fact, they can do so on practically anything they care to carry around with them—from portable game consoles and electronic dictionaries to satnavs for their cars. And it is not just in Japan that you can watch live television on the hoof. It is also taken for granted in South Korea, China, Brazil and parts of Europe.

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Whale Activists Say Their Catamaran Was Sunk By Japanese Vessel

Whale Wars: How Was The Sea Shepherd's New Ship Sunk? -- Christian Science Monitor

Paul Watson, star of "Whale Wars," and his eco-vigliantes at the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have been sailing close to the legal wind for some time, harassing Japanese whalers. Wednesday the Sea Shepherd's $2.5 million speedboat Ady Gil was sunk.

The reaction of Paul Watson, the controversial leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to the destruction of the crown jewel in his tiny anti-whaling fleet on Wednesday was swift. But Watson also managed to get a plug in for his reality TV show, "Whale Wars."

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When Robots Want Rights

Many believe super-intelligent machines are inevitable,
but will we treat them as mere property? REUTERS

From The Globe And Mail:

Many believe super-intelligent machines are inevitable, but will we treat them as mere property? REUTERS

In late November, Gecko Systems announced that it had been running trials of a “fully autonomous personal companion home-care robot,” also known as a “CareBot,” designed to help elderly or disabled people live independently. The company reported that a woman with short-term memory loss broke into a big smile when the robot asked her, “Would you like a bowl of ice cream?” The woman answered “yes,” and presumably the robot did the rest.

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Nature's Most Precise Clocks May Make 'Galactic GPS' Possible: Pulsars Help In Search For Gravitational Waves

Fermi Large Area Telescope first year map of the gamma-ray sky at energies above 100 MeV with the locations of the new millisecond pulsars shown. The symbols are color coded according to the discovery team: red led by Scott Ransom (NRAO) using NRAO's Green Bank Telescope (GBT), cyan led by Mallory Roberts (Eureka Scientific/GMU/NRL) also using the GBT, green led by Fernando Camilo (Columbia University) using Australia's CSIRO Parkes Observatory, white led by Mike Keith (ATNF) also using Parkes, and yellow led by Ismael Cognard (CNRS) using France's Nançay Radio Telescope. (Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 6, 2010) — Radio astronomers have uncovered 17 millisecond pulsars in our galaxy by studying unknown high-energy sources detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The astronomers made the discovery in less than three months. Such a jump in the pace of locating these hard-to-find objects holds the promise of using them as a kind of "galactic GPS" to detect gravitational waves passing near Earth.

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All Creatures' Calls Are Somewhat Alike

An analysis of over 500 animal species shows that the sounds they make are pretty similar.
Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

Mother Nature offers up a cacophony of diverse sounds. But after examining the calls of hundreds of species from cricket chirps to chimp hoots, scientists have found they aren't so different from one another.

Their research on the calls made by nearly 500 animal species has led to simple mathematical models that can predict an animal's sounds based on the rate at which that individual takes up and uses energy.

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Astronomers Predict Discovery Of Avatar Moon

Avatar has become the fastest movie yet to break box office records for hitting US$1 billion in ticket sales. Now astronomers says it could be possible to find an Earth-like world as depicted in the film. Credit: 20th Century Fox

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: Habitable alien moons such as 'Pandora' – the world featured in the blockbuster film Avatar – could be detectable within a decade, says a new study.

In that movie, the fictional, life-harbouring moon is found orbiting a gas giant called Polyphemus, which itself orbits the star Alpha Centauri A.

NASA's Kepler Mission has already shown the potential to detect Earth-sized planets within the Milky Way (see "Kepler telescope finds five new exoplanets").

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Kepler Telescope Spots 'Styrofoam' Planet

NASA's Kepler telescope has discovered five giant planets that whip around their stars on tight orbits (Illustration: NASA/JPL)

From New Scientist:

A giant planet with the density of Styrofoam is one of a clutch of new exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler telescope. The planets are too hot to support life as we know it, but the discoveries, made during the telescope's first few weeks of operation, suggest Kepler is on the right track to find Earth's twins, researchers say.

More than 400 planets have now been found orbiting other stars, but Earth-sized planets – which may be the best habitats for life – have remained elusive.

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Where Is El Niño When We Need Him?

From Discovery News:

Just when we might be expecting the influence of unusually high Pacific ocean temperatures to warm us up -- or for global warming to bring relief -- along comes another wave of incredibly cold storms. How the season finally turns out is still up in the air, so to speak, but clearly, that weather patterns that are typical of El Niño have not taken hold across the United States.

And it's easy to forget that global warming is a long-term climate trend that has little to do with individual seasons in one part of the world or another. In fact, it might be hard to appreciate just now, but the year just ended -- 2009 is a single data point -- actually came in a little warmer than the two years before and is fairly close to the middle range of model simulations of the long-term trend that has provoked international scientific concern about global warming.

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Google Unveils Nexus One Smartphone

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News/CNET:

(CNET) You've read all the exhaustive coverage of Google's Nexus One phone over the last month. The Android-based device emerged at a company holiday party and has been the talk of the smartphone industry ever since. And at an event here at its headquarters on Tuesday, Google unveiled the Nexus One and announced a plan to sell it directly to consumers. The following is a live blog from the event.

9:52 a.m.: We're awaiting the start of Google's Android event here in Building 43 at Google's headquarters in Mountain View. The event is expected to start in about 10 minutes, and the requisite pounding get-excited music is blaring inside a large conference room. There's maybe 100 people crammed into the room, and Google executives Vic Gundotra and Andy Rubin have already been spotted.

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Pi Calculated To 'Record Number' Of Digits

From The BBC:

A computer scientist claims to have computed the mathematical constant pi to nearly 2.7 trillion digits, some 123 billion more than the previous record.

Fabrice Bellard used a desktop computer to perform the calculation, taking a total of 131 days to complete and check the result.

This version of pi takes over a terabyte of hard disk space to store.

Previous records were established using supercomputers, but Mr Bellard claims his method is 20 times more efficient.

The prior record of about 2.6 trillion digits, set in August 2009 by Daisuke Takahashi at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, took just 29 hours.

However, that work employed a supercomputer 2,000 times faster and thousands of times more expensive than the desktop Mr Bellard employed.

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The Moment Comet Was Eaten Up After Orbiting Too Close To The Sun

From The Daily Mail:

A comet has been captured by Nasa being 'eaten' as it flies too close to the sun.

The space agency's solar-focused agency - Solar and Helioscopic Observatory (SOHO) - captured footage of the Kreutz Sungrazer as it made its fateful approach.

The footage has proven popular on YouTube and scientific and astronomical websites and blogs.

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C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists

A satellite image of East Siberian Sea from 1999-2008. This image has been degraded
to hide the satellite’s true capabilities. USGS

From The New York Times:

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis.

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My Comment: The CIA has some great equipment .... I cannot blame the scientists who want to get their hands on this data.

Can Full-Body Airport Scanners Harm You?

The scanners are supposed to be the high-tech version of a physical pat-down.
(Credit: TSA)

From CNET:

Since explosive materials were sneaked onto a U.S. domestic flight on Christmas Day, full-body scanning machines are far more likely to make their way to security lines at your local airport, even though they might not have detected said materials.

While the Transportation Security Administration already has 40 such devices in place, it just bought 150 to be placed in U.S. airports and says it plans to buy 300 more (they go for $170,000 apiece). On Wednesday, the Netherlands announced that these scanners would be used on passengers for all flights out of Amsterdam to the U.S., and there is talk of scanners in Nigeria as well.

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My Comment: They better find the answers soon before we start spending billions of dollars for this tech.

Apple To Unveil Tablet In January, Ship In March - WSJ

From Apple Insider:

Apple later this month will preview its long-awaited touch-screen tablet before shipping the device to consumers two months later, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Echoing claims of an early 2010 launch of the 10-inch device first reported by AppleInsider last July, the financial paper cited "people briefed on the matter" as saying that Apple has been experimenting with "two different material finishes" for the hardware.

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New Exoplanet Hunter Makes First 5 Discoveries

From Wired Science:

The Kepler Space Telescope, a designated planet-hunting satellite, has found its first five planets, among them an odd, massive world only as dense as Styrofoam.

The number of planets now known outside the solar system has risen to more than 400, but none is yet Earth-like enough to harbor life. Right now, Kepler can only detect large planets orbiting close to their stars, which means that these first planets are too hot to hold liquid water, a requirement for life as we know it.

But over the next year, the mission’s scientists will be homing in on ever more life-friendly places.

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Precious Metals That Could Save The Planet

The Rare Earth Research Institute is in Baotou City, above,
in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, China

From The Independent:

Rare earth elements are driving a revolution in low-carbon technology. Cahal Milmo reports on the commodity that has become the new oil.

Baotou was of little interest to the outside world for millennia. When one of the first visitors reached its walls in 1925, it was described as "a little husk of a town in a great hollow shell of mud ramparts". Some 84 years later, this once barren outpost of Inner Mongolia has been transformed into the powerhouse of China's dominance of the market in some of the globe's most sought-after minerals.

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The Real Frankenstein Experiment: One Man's Mission To Create A Living Mind Inside A Machine

Professor Markram believes that if his 'Blue Brain' project is successful,
it will render vivisection obsolete

From The Daily Mail:

His words staggered the erudite audience gathered at a technology conference in Oxford last summer.

Professor Henry Markram, a doctor-turned-computer engineer, announced that his team would create the world's first artificial conscious and intelligent mind by 2018.

And that is exactly what he is doing.

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Microorganisms Cited As Missing Factor In Climate Change Equation

The research incorporates into global computer models the significant impact an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, has on the chemical form of carbon dioxide released from the soil and reduces uncertainties in estimates of CO2 taken up and released in terrestrial ecosystems. (Credit: iStockphoto/Stefan Klein)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 4, 2010) — Those seeking to understand and predict climate change can now use an additional tool to calculate carbon dioxide exchanges on land, according to a scientific journal article publishing this week.

The research, publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, incorporates into global computer models the significant impact an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, has on the chemical form of carbon dioxide released from the soil and reduces uncertainties in estimates of CO2 taken up and released in terrestrial ecosystems.

Read more ....

Diet Demystified: Why We Overeat

From Live Science:

As Americans begin the process of breaking their New Year's resolutions — sure, one king-sized Kit Kat won’t hurt anyone — they can forgive themselves with a consolation: Hormones may be to blame.

In a new study, which was published online Dec 24 in the journal in the future] published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry, researchers have found that the hormone ghrelin causes mice to search out food — even when they weren’t hungry.

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Dubai Set To Open World's Tallest Building

From CBS News:

Security Tight at Unveiling of Tower More Than 160 Stories Tall.

(AP) Dubai is set to open the world's tallest building amid tight security on Monday, celebrating the tower as a bold feat on the world stage despite the city state's shaky financial footing.

But the final height of the Burj Dubai - Arabic for Dubai Tower - remained a closely guarded secret on the eve of its opening. At more than 2,625 feet, it long ago vanquished its nearest rival, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

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Sex And Shopping – It's A Guy Thing

It's not what you give, it's what your gift says about you that counts
(Image: George Eastmant House/Hulton/Getty)

From New Scientist:

PEOPLE have radically diverse responses to the very idea of conspicuous consumption. Some folks consider it blindingly obvious that most economic behaviour is driven by status seeking, social signalling and sexual solicitation. These include most Marxists, marketers, working-class fundamentalists and divorced women. Other folks consider this an outrageously cynical view, and argue that most consumption is for individual pleasure ("utility") and family prosperity ("security"). Those folks include most capitalists, economists, upper-class fundamentalists, and soon-to-be-divorced men.

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2009’s Sleepy Sun Finally Woke Up In December

From Wired Science:

2009 will go down as the sun’s third quietest year on record, under-shone only by 1913 and 2008.

Two hundred-sixty of the year’s 365 days (71 percent) were sunspotless. Last year saw 266 sunspotless days, while the sun had no spots on 311 of the days in 1913. It was only a very active December that kept 2009 from falling below last year’s mark.

Sunspot activity waxes and wanes in a roughly 11-year cycle, so hitting solar minima isn’t surprising. But what the numbers underscore is that we spent much of the year still in the midst of the deepest, longest solar minimum in a long time.

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Slim, Large Screen E-Reader Skiff To Debut On Sprint

From Gadget Lab:

E-readers are likely to get hotter with the next generation of devices sporting color screens and large displays expected to launch through the year.

One of the first products to announce its arrival is the Skiff e-reader, a lightweight device with a 11.5-inch full flexible touchscreen that makes it the largest e-reader on the market, beating the 9.7-inch display Kindle DX.

Read more ....

Children Reaching Age 3 Without Being Able To Say A Word, Survey Finds

From Times Online:

Children are reaching the age of 3 without being able to say a word, according to a survey that also found boys are almost twice as likely to struggle to learn to speak as girls.

The average age for a baby to speak their first word is 10 to 11 months. However, a significant minority (4 per cent) of parents reported that their child said nothing until they were 3.

Toddlers between the ages of 2 and 3 should be able to use up to 300 words, including adjectives, and be able to link words together, according to I CAN, the children’s communication charity. Late speech development can lead to problems, such as low achievement at school or mental health problems.

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Deadly Animal Diseases Poised To Infect Humans

Health workers culling poultry at Shoilpur village near the Indian city of Kolkata. The H5N1 bird flu pandemic spread across the world in 2003 causing widespread panic and has so far killed 260 people. Reuters

From The Independent:

Environmental disruption set to trigger new pandemics, scientists warn.

The world is facing a growing threat from new diseases that are jumping the human-animal species barrier as a result of environmental disruption, global warming and the progressive urbanisation of the planet, scientists have warned.

At least 45 diseases that have passed from animals to humans have been reported to UN agencies in the last two decades, with the number expected to escalate in the coming years.

Read more ....

New Images Show Evidence Of Lakes On Mars, Say Scientists

A Nasa image of depressions interpreted as ancient lake basins. Photograph: NASA/PA

From The Guardian:

Nasa pictures suggest existence of 12 mile-wide lakes of melted ice on Martian equator 3bn years ago.

Lakes of liquid water existed on Mars at a time when the planet was previously thought to be a frozen desert, new satellite images have shown.

A team of British-led scientists now believes 12 mile-wide lakes of melted ice were dotted around parts of the Martian equator 3bn years ago.

No one had expected to find evidence of a warm, wet climate capable of sustaining surface water on Mars during this period of the planet's history, known as the Hesperian epoch.

Read more ....

G-Day Is Tomorrow: Google To unveil 'iPhone Killer' Nexus One... With An Online Price Tag Of £300

Calling the future: How Google's new Nexus One phone will look, according to an internet preview

From The Daily Mail:

Google will finally reveal its first mobile phone tomorrow after months of frenzied speculation about its arrival.

The Nexus One handset, which uses software designed by the internet giant, has been developed to take on the dominant iPhone, which is used by 25million people worldwide.

Full details of the Google-branded touchscreen device - manufactured by Taiwanese company HTC - have mostly been kept under wraps despite occasional leaks.

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Hitachi Reportedly Develops Brain-Powered Remote Control

From Market Watch:

TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Hitachi Ltd. has developed a prototype remote control that allows users to operate electronic devices telepathically -- simply willing the television channel to change or the air-conditioning to turn on -- according to a report Monday.

Hitachi's (TSE:JP:6501) (NYSE:HIT) "brain-machine interface system" features a headset that measures slight changes in blood flow in the brain, specifically by scanning it with near-infrared rays, business daily Nikkei reported in its Monday evening edition.

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Using Modern Sequencing Techniques To Study Ancient Humans

New research shows how it is possible to directly analyze DNA from a member of our own species who lived around 30,000 years ago. (Credit: iStockphoto/Andrey Prokhorov)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2010) — DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals, or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution. So far, studies of this kind on ancestral members of our own species have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish the ancient DNA from modern-day human DNA contamination.

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Future Robots Will Run Like Cockroaches

Researchers at Oregon State University are using studies of guinea hens and other animals such as cockroaches to learn more about the mechanics of their running ability, with the goal of developing robots that can run easily over rough terrain. Credit: Oregon State University

From Live Science:

Most people find cockroaches repulsive, but not John Schmitt. A mechanical engineer at Oregon State University, Schmitt is using the leggy pests as a model for futuristic robots that can run effortlessly over rough terrain.

Current robots require too much computing power to get around, Schmitt explained. "We are trying to create robots that are more stable and take less energy," he said.

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Mankind's Greatest Explorations And Adventures

Corbis

From Time Magazine:

From the Moon to Mount Everest, our list of the greatest leaps and highest climbs in human history.

The crew of Apollo 11 faced risks that were literally out of this world. Engine failure could have left them stranded on the lunar surface or forever lost in space. Solar radiation and re-entry heat could have cooked them alive. A space-suit failure could have suffocated them in the most gruesome way. By today's standards, Apollo 11's technology was primitive — the onboard navigation computer contained only 74 kilobytes of memory, not enough to store a single MP3 music file. But as soon as Neil Armstrong took his first tentative step on the lunar surface, the risks were forgotten. For an all-too-brief moment, everyone on the planet was caught up in the thrill of human achievement, of a millennia-old fantasy come to life. Other lunar explorers would follow, but Apollo 11 was the first to take the giant leap for mankind.

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