Was The Threat of H1N1 Flu Exaggerated?

Win McNamee / Getty

From Time Magazine:

By the summer of 2009, shortly after the H1N1 flu pandemic had first emerged, there was a waiting list for the first several million doses of the forthcoming new flu vaccine. At the head of the line, naturally, were the world's richest nations. "Again we see the advantage of affluence," said Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), at a news conference on July 14. "Again we see access denied by an inability to pay." Describing H1N1 as "entirely new and highly contagious," Chan scolded rich countries at the time for hoarding the "lion's share" of the global H1N1-vaccine supply.

Read more ....

Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous... Egyptians

Virtual recreation of King Tut's Death Mask. Heritage Key

From The Independent:

The rich and famous people of ancient Egypt lived a decadent lifestyle with fine wine, sex, high fashion, and plenty of partying. How do they compare with their equivalents today - the modern western celebrity set?

The main differences might be regarding who were the richest people then, and who are the richest people now. In ancient Egypt the pharaoh was at the top of the ‘pyramid’ and his family, noble people who owned land, and the priests came after. Scribes, architects and doctors were well off, and skilled craftsmen also had many privileges.

Read more ....

Engineers Plot The Future Of A Hobbled Mars Rover

European Pressphoto Agency

From The New York Times:

PASADENA, Calif. — As they have on many days during the past six years, about 10 engineers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory gathered in a conference room here last Tuesday to plan the schedule of the Mars rover Spirit.

From Cornell University in upstate New York, Steven W. Squyres, the mission’s principal investigator, appeared on a screen in the room as he presided over the “surface operations working group” meeting that day — a SOWG meeting for short, pronounced “sog.”

Read more ....

Ozone Hole Healing Could Cause Further Climate Warming

Total Antarctic ozone - September 2009. (Credit: NOAA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 26, 2010) — The hole in the ozone layer is now steadily closing, but its repair could actually increase warming in the southern hemisphere, according to scientists at the University of Leeds.

The Antarctic ozone hole was once regarded as one of the biggest environmental threats, but the discovery of a previously undiscovered feedback shows that it has instead helped to shield this region from carbon-induced warming over the past two decades.

Read more ....

No Help Wanted: Shopping Tactics Different For Men

From Live Science:

The stereotype of a man refusing to ask for directions while driving may carry over to shopping as well, researchers announced recently.

The results, which are based on survey questions, show that women are much more likely to seek out other people for guidance about wine purchases, usually from interpersonal relationships, such as friends and family. But men are less likely to ask others for help, and instead prefer to get information from impersonal and published materials, as well as from their own experiences.

Read more ....

What Happens In Sex Rehab?

Gentle Path facility in Hattiesburg, Miss.

From Time Magazine:

The calls for Tiger Woods to get help did not go unheeded: on Jan. 16, after weeks of sordid allegations regarding his extramarital affairs, Radaronline.com reported that Woods had enrolled in the Gentle Path program at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services, in Hattiesburg, Miss., to be treated for sex addiction. Local television stations later confirmed the story.

Few people know what actually happens at sex rehab. While those who treat it say sex addiction is a disease like any other compulsion, the field is in its infancy: there is virtually no research on it compared to the vast resources on drug or alcohol addiction. "You look at ways that your behavior has made your life unmanageable. That's really the question," says Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, who has been treated for sex addiction himself. "That often differentiates a sex addict from a nonsex addict."

Read more ....

Hunt For Earth's 'Twin Planet' Takes Leap Forward

Scientists claim the search for an Earth-like planet outside the solar system has entered a new phase Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Scientists are on the brink of discovering the first Earth-like planet outside the solar system, a leading astronomer has claimed.

Professor Michel Mayor, the scientist who led the team that identified the first extrasolar planet in 1995, believes a planet similar in size and composition to Earth will soon be found.

Prof Mayor, of Geneva University, said that the prospect of finding a planet habitable for humans had come a step closer through rapid technological advances allowing observation of planets outside the solar system.

Read more ....

World Wide Web May Split Up Into Several Separate Networks

From Investors Business Daily:

Google's threat to exit China is igniting worries that the Web, a linchpin of globalization, may fracture into regional fiefdoms.

The U.S. and China are ratcheting up rhetoric over the Internet's future. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday warned that "a new information curtain is descending across much of the world."

China says it'll make no exception for Google (GOOG) or other U.S. firms on its Internet policies. China's government has lashed back at Clinton's speech, saying it damaged bilateral ties. On Monday, the Communist Party's People's Daily accused the U.S. of using social Web sites like Twitter to cook up unrest in Iran.

Read more ....

Video: Airborne Laser Tracks and Engages A Missile in Flight

From Popular Science:

Remember the Airborne Laser (ABL), the jumbo-jet-mounted chemical laser weapon designed to knock hostile missiles out of the air in mid-flight? The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has released a video of this futuristic system in action, tracking and engaging a test missile fired from San Nicolas Island off the California coast. While the video might come off just a bit anti-climactic, with no dramatic explosion to cap off the laser blast, it does prove one key thing: the system, at least if the video is to be believed, actually works.

Read more ....

My Comment: I have to assume that the video is accurate (even if it was probably taken under controlled conditions) .... if it was not I am sure that critics of the program would be yelling to anyone who would listen right now.

Having said that, I recall how critics were calling this program "mission impossible" 25 years ago. Hmmmm .... 25 years later and billions spent .... I guess nothing is no longer impossible.

Mozilla Leader Worries About Internet Limits

From Yahoo News/AP:

MUNICH, Germany (AP) -- The leader of the Mozilla Project, whose Firefox Web browser now has 350 million users, said Sunday that she is concerned that legal restrictions could limit Internet expansion.

Mitchell Baker said she worried about "the increase in laws that make it difficult to run an open network," especially rules about content.

"You suddenly become liable for anything that gets downloaded, whether it's legal or not," she said. "If you said to a municipality, if you build a road, you have to guarantee nothing illegal happens on it -- that's what's happening on the Internet now. So that's the kind of regulatory disruption that's going to have some long-term consequences."

Read more ....

Has USA Hit Its Final Frontier In Human Space Exploration?

Gravitating toward the International Space Station: If it continues to get the government's support, which space experts say is likely, that will limit the money needed to send humans to the moon or Mars. NASA via AP

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Still hoping for that Jetsons future?

Ruh-roh, as the Jetsons' dog, Astro, might put it.

Just six years ago, President Bush laid out a vision of space exploration that harked back to NASA's halcyon days built on astronauts as explorers. Bush wanted to sling them from low Earth orbit to a base on the moon and then, perhaps, on to a first manned landing on another planet, Mars.

But that was before huge federal deficits arrived, public support failed to show, and unmanned explorers scored successes — namely the Hubble telescope and Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are still sending back signals years after they were expected to expire.

Read more ....

Apple ‘Tablets’ Sniffed By Analytics Are More Likely iPhones

From Gadget Lab:

A mobile analytics company has come forward with what it touts as evidence that Apple tablet prototypes are being tested — without offering any solid details suggesting the mystery devices are tablets at all.

Analytics firm Flurry has tracked down 50 devices that it believes are Apple’s expected tablet. The devices’ IPs and GPS data give away they have not left Apple’s Cupertino campus, according to Flurry, which raises the firm’s suspicion that these are prototypes in testing. Flurry goes on to say its app tracking matches the “characteristics of Apple’s rumored tablet device” even though the analytics don’t provide any data about the characteristics of the prototypes.

Read more ....

Stone Age Surgery Discovered After 7,000-Year-Old Man Found With Expertly Amputated Arm

From The Daily Mail:

Evidence of surgery carried out nearly 7,000 year ago has emerged – suggesting our Stone Age ancestors were more medically advanced than first thought.

Early Neolithic surgeons used a sharpened flint to amputate the left forearm of an elderly man, scientists have discovered.

And, more remarkable yet, they ensured the patient was anaesthetised and the limb cut off cleanly while the wound was treated afterwards in sterile conditions.

Read more ....

Global Warming: 'Cooling' Forests Can Heat Too

Pine forest. The simple formula we've learned in recent years -- forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming -- may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. (Credit: iStockphoto/Jeremy Sterk)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2010) — The simple formula we've learned in recent years -- forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming -- may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. This is a conclusion of a paper that will be published on January 22, in Science by scientists in the Weizmann Institute's Faculty of Chemistry.

Read more ....

Good And Bad Angels In Hollywood And The Bible

Polls have indicated that nearly 70 percent of Americans think angels exist.
Credit: Screen Gems

From Live Science:

The new film "Legion" is about the final days of mankind, as a group of angels make a last stand in a small diner in New Mexico to protect a woman pregnant with humanity's new savior.

The archangel Michael is played by Paul Bettany, who portrays Charles Darwin in the new film "Creation," also released this Friday. The film poster shows Michael with a hunting knife in one hand and a machine gun in the other. This ain't your grandmother's angel.

Read more ....

Gates, The Philanthropist, On Lessons Learned (Q&A)

Last year marked Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' first year working full time as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In an interview with CNET, done in conjunction with the release of his annual foundation letter, he shared his insights into his philanthropy work, as well as some highlights of his travels. Gates talks with employees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle last month. Photo by Courtesy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

From CNET News:

SEATTLE--Bill Gates thought that coming up with vaccines would be the hard part and that delivering vaccines would be the easy part.

It turns out they are both hard.

That's one of the lessons that Gates tells CNET he has learned in his new role as full-time philanthropist. In travels to Africa, he saw firsthand the challenges of delivering vaccines, many of which have to be kept cold to be effective and are needed in places with no refrigeration.

Read more ....

The Intricate Beauty Of The Solar Corona

(Click Image to Enlarge)

From Discovery News:

The solar corona is the magnetically dominated atmosphere of the sun, reaching millions of miles into space. Paradoxically, the corona is many times hotter than the solar 'surface' (the photosphere) and solar physicists are currently trying to understand why this is the case.

The photosphere has an average temperature of approximately 6000 degrees Celsius, whereas the corona can be millions of degrees Celsius. This is analogous to the air surrounding a hot light bulb being hotter than the bulb itself; in reality, the air surrounding the bulb is cooler than the bulb's glass surface, and it gets cooler the further you move your hand away.

Read more ....

Prions 'May Keep Nerves Healthy'

Photo: Removing prion proteins led to a breakdown of the myelin sheath surrounding the nerve.

From BBC:

Experiments on mice may help scientists understand the workings of the prion protein linked to brain disease vCJD.

Swiss researchers say there is evidence that prions play a vital role in the maintenance of the sheath surrounding our nerves.

They say it is possible that an absence of prions causes diseases of the peripheral nervous system.

One expert said there was growing evidence that the prion had a number of important roles in the body.

Read more ....

China Scientists Lead World In Research Growth

From The Financial Times:

China has experienced the strongest growth in scientific research over the past three decades of any country, according to figures compiled for the Financial Times, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.

Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, said China’s “awe-inspiring” growth had put it in second place to the US – and if it continues on its trajectory it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020.

Read more ....

Climate Change's Latest Storm -- A Commentary

From The Wall Street Journal:

Good news for the Earth, bad news for the IPCC.

It's been a good week for the future of Life as We Know It. First the keepers of the climate-science consensus admitted that the Himalayan glaciers are not on the verge of disappearing, as these columns pointed out last month. Now we've learned that there wasn't much science behind the claim, also trumpeted in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, that rising temperatures were leading to more-intense storms and more-expensive natural catastrophes.

This is good news for everyone, except perhaps the IPCC itself.

Read more ....