El Niño Is Back, Bringing Droughts, Floods, Crop Failures And Social Unrest

A parched paddy field, blamed on Rl Nino, in Merlebau village near Kota Marudu on the Malaysian eastern state of Sabah in Borneo island. (David Loh/Reuters)

From Times Online:

El Niño, the warming of the Pacific Ocean that creates chaos in global weather patterns, is on its way back, threatening droughts, floods, crop failure and social unrest.

According to scientists at America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a new bout of El Niño is under way as the surface of tropical waters across the eastern Pacific has warmed roughly 1C (1.8F) above normal and is still rising.

Further down, some 150 meters (500ft) below the surface, the waters are heating up — by around 4C (7.2F).

These indications have been emerging for about the past month from satellite pictures and an array of robotic buoys strung out across the Pacific. “The persistently warm sea temperatures are important indicators of an El Niño,” Mike Halpert, of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Centre, said.

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Why It Is Easy To Encode New Memories But Hard To Hold Onto Them

Activated PAK (red) gathers at synapses (green), and might help consolidate fresh memories. (Credit: Rex, C.S., et al. 2009. J. Cell Biol. doi:10.1083/jcb.200901084)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 14, 2009) — Memories aren't made of actin filaments. But their assembly is crucial for long-term potentiation (LTP), an increase in synapse sensitivity that researchers think helps to lay down memories. In the July 13, 2009 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology, Rex et al. reveal that LTP's actin reorganization occurs in two stages that are controlled by different pathways, a discovery that helps explain why it is easy to encode new memories but hard to hold onto them.

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Why Are Human Brains So Big?

Human brains are about three times as large as those of our early australopithecines ancestors that lived 4 million to 2 million years ago, and for years, scientists have wondered how our brains got so big. A new study suggests social competition could be behind the increase in brain size. Credit: NIH, NIDA

From Live Science:

There are many ways to try to explain why human brains today are so big compared to those of early humans, but the major cause may be social competition, new research suggests.

But with several competing ideas, the issue remains a matter of debate.

Compared to almost all other animals, human brains are larger as a percentage of body weight. And since the emergence of the first species in our Homo genus (Homo habilis) about 2 million years ago, the human brain has doubled in size. And when compared to earlier ancestors, such as australopithecines that lived 4 million to 2 million years ago, our brains are three times as large. For years, scientists have wondered what could account for this increase.

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Web Site Recreates Apollo 11 Mission In Real Time

Apollo 11

From Yahoo News/AP:

Families crowded around black-and-white television sets in 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong take man's first steps on the moon.

Now, they'll be able to watch the Apollo 11 mission recreated in real time on the Web, follow Twitter feeds of transmissions between Mission Control and the spacecraft, and even get an e-mail alert when the lunar module touches down. Those features are part of a new Web site from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum commemorating the moon mission and Kennedy's push to land Americans there first.

"Putting a man on the moon really did unite the globe," said Thomas Putnam, director of the JFK Library. "We hope to use the Internet to do the same thing."

The Web site — WeChooseTheMoon.org — goes live at 8:02 a.m. Thursday, 90 minutes before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It will track the capsule's route from the Earth to the Moon, ending with the moon landing and Armstrong's walk — in real time, but 40 years later.

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Space Station Is Near Completion, Maybe the End

The international space station, as seen from the space shuttle Discovery. The station is scheduled to be completed next year, then returned to Earth in 2016. (Courtesy Of Nasa)

From Washington Post:

Plan to 'De-Orbit' in 2016 Is Criticized.

A number of times in recent weeks a bright, unblinking light has appeared in the night sky of the nation's capital: a spaceship. Longer than a football field, weighing 654,000 pounds, the spaceship moved swiftly across the heavens and vanished.

Fortunately, it was one of ours.

The international space station is by far the largest spacecraft ever built by earthlings. Circling the Earth every 90 minutes, it often passes over North America and is visible from the ground when night has fallen but the station, up high, is still bathed in sunlight.

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Can Wine Fight Dementia?

Photo: A glass or two of wine a day -- but no more -- appears to protect older adults from developing dementia, researchers reported here at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease.(Riser/Getty Images)

From ABC News:

A Glass a Day in the Golden Years May Protect Against Dementia, Study Says.

A glass or two of wine a day – but no more -- appears to protect older adults from developing dementia, researchers reported here at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease.

"Among cognitively normal older adults, one to two alcoholic drinks a day is associated with a 37 percent decreased risk of dementia over 6 years," said Dr. Kaycee Sink, a gerontologist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

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Hungry Cats Trick Owners With Baby Cry Mimicry

From New Scientist:

Cat owners will know the feeling. Your pet is purring loudly, demanding to be fed, and isn't going to give up until it gets what it wants. What most doting owners won't realise is that the cat is using an acoustic ruse.

According to Karen McComb of the University of Sussex, UK, domestic cats hide a plaintive cry within their purrs that both irritates owners and appeals to their nurturing instincts.

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Mystery Mechanism Drove Global Warming 55 Million Years Ago

Photo: Close up of a melting glacier. A runaway spurt of global warming 55 million years ago turned Earth into a hothouse but how this happened remains worryingly unclear, scientists said on Monday.

From Breitbart/AFP:

A runaway spurt of global warming 55 million years ago turned Earth into a hothouse but how this happened remains worryingly unclear, scientists said on Monday.

Previous research into this period, called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, estimates the planet's surface temperature blasted upwards by between five and nine degrees Celsius (nine and 16.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in just a few thousand years.

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First Direct Evidence Of Substantial Fish Consumption By Early Modern Humans In China 40,000 Years Ago

Lower mandible of the 40 000 year old human skeleton, found in the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing. Analyses of collagen extracted from this bone prove that this individual was a regular consumer of fish. (Credit: Hong Shang / Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 13, 2009) — Freshwater fish are an important part of the diet of many peoples around the world, but it has been unclear when fish became an important part of the year-round diet for early humans.

A new study by an international team of researchers, including Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, shows it may have happened in China as far back as 40,000 years ago.

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This Is Why the Shuttle Launch Is Delayed

From Popsci.com:

It's hard to launch a Space Shuttle when the launch pad keeps getting struck by lighting. NASA cameras caught 11 lightning strikes, including one direct hit to the pad, near the space shuttle Endeavour's launch pad, during a thunderstorm on July 10.

The storm forced the space agency to call for a 24-hour delay to inspect the shuttle for possible damage. One spectacular strike even hit the top of the launch pad's lightning rod, which channeled the electricity harmlessly away from the shuttle through a series of metal wires.

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New Treatment Hope For Sufferers Of Cancer That Has Hit Patrick Swayze

Oncologist Dr Andrew Gaya (L) and patient Robert Ferrant are seen with the new CyberKnife system at Harley Street in London Photo: PA

From The Telegraph:

A man suffering from pancreatic cancer – one of most deadly forms of the disease and which has also struck Dirty Dancing star Patrick Swayze – has been given hope of long-term survival after being treated with an advanced form of radiotherapy.

Robert Ferrant, 62, who is one of the first in Britain to undergo the procedure, was given just a few months to live after he was diagnosed with the condition.

Only 13 per cent of people who contract it are alive a year after diagnosis and only three per cent surviving for five years.

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The First Earthling To Journey To Mars - Conan The Bacterium

Victoria crater, an impact crater at Meridiani Planum, near the equator of Mars.
Photograph: Anonymous/AP

From The Guardian:

Pictures from a Nasa mission reveal new glimpses of a world as fantastic as any imagined by a science-fiction writer.

Scientists have picked the first crew of Earthlings to fly to another planet. Those chosen for a Mars mission to be launched in October include specimens of thale cress and brewer's yeast, and a microbe known as Conan the Bacterium.

Together with several other microscopic organisms, these representatives of earthly life will be carried in a package that will be flown on a Russian robot spacecraft and are scheduled to be returned to Earth in 2012. The experiment - Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment, or Life - is designed to show if living organisms can survive unprotected in space for long periods and thus support the theory of panspermia, which argues that simple organisms can survive for years as they float through space and that life on Earth could have been wafted here from another world.

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Is Grapefruit Juice Toxic?

From Live Science:

This Week's Question: My daughter heard that grapefruit juice can be toxic for some people. Is that true?

The juice, itself, is not toxic, but you should be careful taking medicine with any grapefruit.

Grapefruit juice can raise the level of some medications in the blood. The effect of grapefruit was discovered after using juice to mask the taste of a medicine. So, be sure to ask your doctor or pharmacist if it is safe to have grapefruit with your medications.

Taking medicine can be hazardous to your health. You have to know what you're doing.

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Apollo Special: Mirrors On The Moon

Photo: Measuring the distance of the moon from Earth is one way of testing Einstein's theory of relativity (Image: Dan Long)

From New Scientist:

EACH clear night when the moon is high in the sky, a group of astronomers in New Mexico take aim at our celestial neighbour and blast it repeatedly with pulses of light from a powerful laser. They target suitcase-sized reflectors left on the lunar surface by the Apollo 11, 14 and 15 missions, as well as by two Russian landers.

Out of every 300 quadrillion (1015) photons that are sent to the moon, about five find their way back. The rest are lost to our atmosphere, or miss the lunar reflectors altogether.

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Multi-Galaxy Collision Caught in Action

From Wired Science:

Four galaxies are involved in this pile-up 280 million light years from Earth. The bright spiral galaxy at the center of the image is punching through the cluster at almost two million miles per hour.

That speeding galaxy may be what is causing the curved swath of X-rays, shown in blue near the center of the image, which were captured by NASA’s orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory. The three other yellowish galaxies in the collision are optically visible and were imaged by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on the summit of the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii.

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Top 10 Scientific Music Videos

From Wierd Science:

Music can make the driest scientific concepts entertaining, or even hilarious. Catchy tunes about DNA blend genetics with jokes. Ballads about the heart and pi bring dull facts to life. Here are some of our favorite videos that show how hard science rocks.

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Human History Written in Stone and Blood

Figure 1. Hunter-gatherer people living in southern Africa in the Middle Stone Age left behind artifacts in natural rock shelters and caves. At top is Sibudu Cave, located about 40 kilometers north of Durban. Below that is Ntloana Tsoana, a rock shelter located on the south bank of the Phuthiatsana River in the Lesotho highlands. At bottom, right of center in the photo, is Blombos Cave, located about 300 kilometers east of Cape Town. That’s where archaeologists found artifacts representing innovative behavior previously thought to have emerged in Europe much later. Improved dating of such artifacts helped the authors evaluate what contemporary factors might have contributed to the origins of modern human behavior. Top photograph courtesy of Lyn Wadley. Middle photograph courtesy of Richard Roberts. Bottom photograph courtesy of Chris Henshilwood.

From American Scientist:

Two bursts of human innovation in southern Africa during the Middle Stone Age may be linked to population growth and early migration off the continent

In the past decade it has become clear that symbolic expression associated with modern human behavior began in Africa, not Europe. And it occurred tens of thousands of years earlier than was once thought. Answering why is difficult. A first step was more reliable dating of when culturally and technologically advanced people lived during the Middle Stone Age in the south of Africa. Zenobia Jacobs and Richard G. Roberts accomplished that dating, which prompted them to reject climate change as a primary cause for the advancements. Instead, drawing on genetic research, they embrace population growth as a likely, key influence.

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Super-Slow-Motion Pictures Show Soap Bubble Bursting In Stunning Detail

After being poked the surface of the breaks up, from one side to another, turning its surface into a multitude of droplets which appear to hang in the air.

From The Daily Mail:

To the human eye the bursting of a bubble is a simple affair. One prod of a finger and - pop! - it's vanished in a split second.

But as these breathtaking pictures show, the process is spectacular - if only we could see it.

These images were taken with a slow-motion camera to show every stage of the soap bubble's disappearance.

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Herschel Shows Breadth Of Vision

Herschel-SPIRE's view of M74 (R) compared with that of Nasa's Spitzer space telescope. The larger mirror on Herschel (3.5m vs 0.85m) pays dividends, and will allow the European telescope to build on Spitzer's discoveries.

From The BBC:

Europe's Herschel space observatory is set to become one of the most powerful tools ever to study the Universe.

The "first light" data from its three instruments demonstrates a remarkable capability even though their set-up is still not complete.

Galaxy images released on Friday by the European Space Agency show detail previously unseen in the objects.

The pictures - and the thousands that will follow - should give new insights on star formation and galaxy evolution.

"We have some excellent images; they're not calibrated, but they look spectacular," said Dr Göran Pilbratt, Esa's Herschel project scientist.

"They tell you we are working; it's just fantastic," he told BBC News.

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Machines That Heal

Arms of Steel John B. Carnett

From Popsci.com:

In the movies, entrusting human life to robot helpers and sophisticated machines inevitably ends in fire, destruction and death.

But in reality, the automatons are actually saving lives. Take the devices here: the hulking robot arms that rehabilitate stroke victims, the laser beam that calms Parkinson’s tremors, and the android that can fix you toast when you’re sick. Even the scary-looking, mind-reading skullcap will one day let paralyzed people turn on the lights just by thinking about it. No fire, no destruction, no death—just eye-popping technology and better medical care.

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Getting More Out Of Crude

Image: Holey catalyst: Rive Technology is designing a zeolite catalyst with pores larger than those found in conventional zeolites, which are widely used in petroleum and petrochemical production. The larger pores allow the catalysts to handle a wide range of compounds. Credit: Rive Technology

From Technology Review:

An improved catalyst could help oil refineries get more gasoline out of a barrel of crude petroleum.

In an effort to make gasoline production cleaner and more efficient, Rive Technology of Cambridge, MA, is developing a catalyst that can help turn a greater percentage of crude petroleum into gasoline and other usable products. The company, which is testing the catalyst in its pilot plant in South Brunswick, NJ, believes that the technology will be able to process lower-grade fossil fuels and reduce the amount of energy that goes into the refining process.

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New Kind Of Astronomical Object Around Black Hole: Living Fossil Records 'Supermassive' Kick

This artist's conception shows a rogue black hole that has been kicked out from the center of two merging galaxies. The black hole is surrounded by a cluster of stars that were ripped from the galaxies. New calculations by David Merritt, from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeremy Schnittman, from Johns Hopkins University, and Stefanie Komossa, from the Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany suggest that hundreds of massive black holes, left over from the epoch of galaxy formation, are waiting to be detected in the nearby universe. (Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2009) — The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick.

A paper published in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal discusses the theoretical properties of “hypercompact stellar systems” and suggests that hundreds of these faint star clusters might be detected at optical wavelengths in our immediate cosmic environment. Some of these objects may already have been picked up in astronomical surveys, reports David Merritt, from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeremy Schnittman, from Johns Hopkins University, and Stefanie Komossa, from the Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

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Swearing Makes Pain More Tolerable

From Live Science:

That muttered curse word that reflexively comes out when you stub your toe could actually make it easier to bear the throbbing pain, a new study suggests.

Swearing is a common response to pain, but no previous research has connected the uttering of an expletive to the actual physical experience of pain.

"Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon," said Richard Stephens of Keele University in England and one of the authors of the new study. "It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain."

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The Moon Walkers: Twelve Men Who Have Visited Another World

Neil Armstrong in the Eagle after his historic moonwalk. Photograph: Nasa

From The Guardian:

What did it take to become a member of the most exclusive club in human history?

The 12 members of the most exclusive club in human history had many things in common.

All came from a highly technical background and all but one studied aeronautical or astronautical engineering. Growing up, many had been Boy Scouts and even more were active members of their University fraternities. They all went on to study for further degrees – many at military test pilot schools – and almost all of them saw active service in cold war skies, often flying nuclear weapons behind enemy lines.

These high-risk professions often claimed the lives of those to the left and right of them and frequently it was only luck that kept them alive long enough to apply to Nasa.

We might expect such parallel lives in men picked through a selection process devised to seek out "the right stuff". But despite the similarities in their CVs, no two men were from the same mould, as became evident in the years after Apollo.

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Why New Chrome OS Won't Turn Google Into a Monopoly: Analysis

From Popular Mechanics:

As Google announces its intention to create a full Web-based operating system, senior technology editor Glenn Derene has a flashback to the late '90s—when the Justice Department brought an antitrust action against Microsoft. Could Google's new browser-as-operating system kill competition?

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) brought an antitrust action against Microsoft for a variety of anti-competitive practices in the software industry—chief among them the bundling of the company's Internet Explorer browser into its dominant Windows operating system. The trial revealed plenty of bare-knuckled tactics and market manipulation on behalf of Microsoft, and stained the company's brand for years (perhaps forever, frankly) as a corporate bully. But the central argument from Microsoft was that, with the ascent of the Internet, the browser had become an integral part of the OS, and that competing stand-alone browsers such as Netscape and Opera were moribund products from a transition era. Microsoft contended that it needed to evolve the OS to adapt to the Internet-based era just to stay competitive as a company—a claim that seemed ludicrous back in the '90s, when the software giant seemed to have indomitable market power.

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When Galaxies Collide, 280 Million Light Years Away

Stephan's Quintent, Colliding: NASA

From Popsci.com:

A new image using data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory captures Stephan's Quintet in a new light.

130 years ago, astronomers discovered Stephan's Quintent--a compact group of galaxies 280 million light years from Earth. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured the X-rays generated by the interstellar collision, as one of the galaxies is sucked through the center of the group at 2 million miles per hour.

The ridge of blue in the center represent the X-rays emitted by the collision, as shock wave heats the galaxy's gasses.

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100 Essential Skills for Geeks

From Geek Dad/Wired:

As Geeks we are expected to have a certain set of skills that the majority of the population does not possess. This list is by no means complete, but I think it is a good sample of the skills required to be a true geek. I won’t pretend to have all the skills listed here. I even had to Google a few of them.

Like all good Geeks you should be able to utilize resources to accomplish any of these things. Knowing where to look for the knowledge is as good as having it so give yourself points if you are certain that you could Google the knowledge necessary for a skill.

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U.S. Science Is Tops, But Most Americans Don't Think It Is, A New Survey Finds.

From Scientific American:

Today the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Pew Research Center released results of a survey examining the attitudes of the general public and the scientific community as they regard to science.

The results, collected from 2,553 AAAS members and 2,001 public respondents, suggest that although average Americans hold a positive view of scientists and support the funding of research, they do not share the same perspectives as the scientific community on a variety of science issues.

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How To Ensure Lost Wallets Are Returned

Wallets containing the picture of an infant were most likely to
trigger an honest reaction from the finder Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Lost wallets which contain a snapshot of a baby are more likely to be returned to their owners, scientists have discovered.

Researchers left 240 wallets on the streets of Edinburgh last year to see how many were returned to their owners. Some of the wallets contained one of four photographs – the baby, a cute puppy, a family and a portrait of an elderly couple.

Other wallets contained a card suggesting the owner had recently made a charity donation, while a control batch contained no additional items.

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Reduced Diet Thwarts Aging, Disease In Monkeys

Rhesus monkeys, left to right, Canto, 27, and on a restricted diet, and Owen, 29, and a control subject on an unrestricted diet, are pictured at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on May 28, 2009. The two are among the oldest surviving subjects in a pioneering long-term study of the links between diet and aging in Rhesus macaque monkeys, which have an average life span of about 27 years in captivity. Lead researcher Richard Weindruch, a professor of medicine in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, and co-author Ricki Colman, associate scientist at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, report new findings in the journal Science that a nutritious, but reduced-calorie, diet blunts aging and delays the onset of such aged-related disorders as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy. (Credit: Jeff Miller)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2009) — The bottom-line message from a decades-long study of monkeys on a restricted diet is simple: Consuming fewer calories leads to a longer, healthier life.

Writing July 10 in the journal Science, a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital reports that a nutritious but reduced-calorie diet blunts aging and significantly delays the onset of such age-related disorders as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy.

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Birds Fireproof Their Homes

Photo: This somewhat fireproof next is a courting zone of a male great bowerbird. Credit: Tomoki Okida, Japan Ethological Society and Springer Japan

From Live Science:

To beguile females, some males build mansions, others build bowers.

Male great bowerbirds (Chlamydera nuchalis) of northern Australia erect two walls of twigs partially flanking a six-foot-long passageway that they pave with conspicuous bits of bones, stones, shells, and fruits. There, the males strut their stuff, inviting females over for a tryst.

Bower construction takes a week or longer, so it's no fun when brush fire sweeps through the savanna and threatens the males' handiwork.

Yet, as a new study shows, the bowers seem strangely immune to fire.

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Rival Designs Race To Harness Ocean Energy

Photo: SeaGen was installed in the tidal currents of Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland in 2008. However, there is a suite of rival designs racing to harness ocean energy (Image: SeaGen / David Erwin)

From New Scientist:

A bout of gawky prototypes have taken to the water for the first time in recent weeks, signalling a new assault on a decades-old problem: how to generate power from the oceans.

While most wind turbines look much the same, the contest to tap that power is more like wacky races than Formula 1. A suite of varied designs are under development in an attempt to work out the most efficient way to generate juice in the harsh chemical and physical environment of the waves and tides.

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Fate Of The Potato May Foretell The Future Of Food

From The Detroit News:

A tale from history offers us a prediction about the future of food.

The wonder crop is new and unfamiliar, lauded by scientists and politicians as having the potential to end famine and feed the poor. But the public is skeptical, regarding this new food as unnatural and dangerous. The reaction to genetically modified crops today? In fact, this is what happened when potatoes were introduced into Europe from the Americas in the 1500s and 1600s.

Scientists were enamored with this new foodstuff because it had several valuable properties. Potatoes thrive even in years when the wheat crop has failed, noted a committee of the Royal Society, Britain's pioneering scientific association, in the 1660s. Better still, potatoes can be grown in almost any kind of soil and take only three to four months to mature, against 10 for cereal grains. And potatoes produce two to four times as many calories per acre as wheat, rye or oats. The case for widespread adoption of the potato, the scientists argued, was obvious.

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The Wonder Of Mars In Its Seasonal Glory

These images of sand dunes in Proctor Crater were taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

From The Independent:

The astonishing diversity of the Red Planet's landscape is captured by the world's most powerful camera, reports Science Editor Steve Connor.

The most powerful camera that has ever been used to survey another planet is capturing spectacular pictures of the surface of Mars to reveal a rich tapestry of geological features. Located on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a Nasa probe launched in 2005, the HiRise camera has already taken detailed images of the outlines of ancient extra-terrestrial seas and rivers – the first unambiguous evidence that shorelines once existed on the Red Planet.

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Did an Ancient Volcano Freeze Earth?

Remnant. Toba today comprises a caldera lake, a newly arising cone (central island), and a pip-squeak of a volcanic progeny named Pusukbukit (left). Credit: NASA

From Science Now:

One fine day about 74,000 years ago, a giant volcano on Sumatra blew its top. The volcano, named Toba, may have ejected 1000 times more rock and other material than Mount St. Helens in Washington state did in 1980. In the process, it cooled the climate by at least 10°C, causing a global famine. But could the aftermath have been even worse? A new study puts to rest questions about whether Toba plunged Earth into a 1000-year deep freeze and whether an equivalent event today could jump-start a new, millennia-long ice age.

Giant volcanic eruptions such as Toba briefly cause the opposite of global warming. Although eruptions do emit greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, volcanoes also spew sulfur dioxide. Combined with water vapor, sulfur dioxide forms sulfate aerosols, which can spread around the globe, blocking solar radiation and chilling the air before becoming acid rain and snow.

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New Kind Of Astronomical Object Around Black Hole: Living Fossil Records 'Supermassive' Kick

This artist's conception shows a rogue black hole that has been kicked out from the center of two merging galaxies. The black hole is surrounded by a cluster of stars that were ripped from the galaxies. New calculations by David Merritt, from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeremy Schnittman, from Johns Hopkins University, and Stefanie Komossa, from the Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany suggest that hundreds of massive black holes, left over from the epoch of galaxy formation, are waiting to be detected in the nearby universe. (Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 10, 2009) — The tight cluster of stars surrounding a supermassive black hole after it has been violently kicked out of a galaxy represents a new kind of astronomical object and a fossil record of the kick.

A paper published in the July 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal discusses the theoretical properties of “hypercompact stellar systems” and suggests that hundreds of these faint star clusters might be detected at optical wavelengths in our immediate cosmic environment. Some of these objects may already have been picked up in astronomical surveys, reports David Merritt, from Rochester Institute of Technology, Jeremy Schnittman, from Johns Hopkins University, and Stefanie Komossa, from the Max-Planck-Institut for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

Read more ....

Could Michael Jackson Have Been Cloned?

Dolly, right, the first cloned sheep produced through nuclear transfer from differentiated adult sheep cells, and Polly, the world's first transgenic lamb, are in their pen at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, in early December, 1997. Scientists at the Roslin Institute produced Molly and Polly cloned with a human gene so that their milk will contain a blood clotting protein that can be extracted for use in treating human hemophilia. Ian Wilmut's technique motivated many governments to ban research on human cloning. Dolly was later naturally mated and gave birth to a healthy lamb. (AP Photo/John Chadwick)

From Live Science:

Michael Jackson reportedly was very interested in being cloned.

"I really want to do it Uri, and I don’t care how much it costs," he is said to have told Uri Geller, a self-proclaimed psychic who claims to bend spoons with his mind (boy, if I had that power I'd sure use it for something besides spoon-bending!).

Whether the news report is accurate or not, the fact is the science didn't advance soon enough for Jackson. There have been no substantiated claims of cloned human embryos grown into fetal stages and beyond, despite rumors to the contrary. The capability to so do is near, however.

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My Comment: When stories like this one start to come out .... you know that the Michael Jackson story has been beaten to death.

10 Wind Turbines That Push the Limits of Design

From Popular Mechanics:

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) released their 20% Wind Report Card on July 8, following up on a study in which the Department of Energy proposed a goal where 20 percent of U.S. electricity comes from wind energy by 2030. The AWEA gave the overall U.S. push for wind power a “solid B”—high marks from an advocacy group that grades U.S. infrastructure. The highest letter in the report was an A- awarded for “Technology Development.” This is no big surprise—for years now, the government, alternative-energy researchers and entrepreneurs have been putting time and money into making better tech for cleaner, more efficient energy production. Here are 10 wind turbine designs that push the limits of the current design and may help the U.S. get back to being an A student by 2030.

Read more ....

This Message Will Self Destruct: Scientists Develop Programmable, Self-Erasing Documents

Self-Erasing Documents Powered By Disappearing Nanoparticles

From Popsci.com:

Researchers are harnessing nanoparticle properties to develop fading ink.

Remember when, as a kid, you would pass “top-secret” notes written in lemon juice that your friends could only read in the right light? Well, in light of new nanotechnology research, this now sounds absurdly antiquated, like cave painting in the modern era. Instead, the youth of the future (and adults, too) could have to option to communicate via documents that self-erase at a programmed time.

Read more ....

Ball Aerospace: Where Satellites Come From

Space-Based Surveillance Satellite courtesy Ball Aerospace & Technologies

From Popsci.com:

PopSci visits the Colorado facility of the company that makes satellites, advanced instruments, and mason jars.

When it comes to space, what goes up must be sturdy, safe and secure if it's to live very long. Satellites must survive the bone-rattling jostle and pressure of launch, and once they reach orbit, they've got to weather the vast temperature changes they experience with every sunrise and sunset. Their skins must be thick enough to survive pummeling by micro-debris, and they'd better have trusty gyroscopes to be able to change directions or keep their balance.

That's why space-bound objects undergo thorough testing at firms like Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., builders of satellite skeletons, gyroscopes, advanced instruments, and mason jars. (Well, that's a different division.)

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California Gives Desalination Plants a Fresh Look

From The Wall Street Journal:

Process to Make Seawater Drinkable Gains Traction, but Environmentalists Object to Heavy Energy Use, Harm to Marine Life.

Early next year, the Southern California town of Carlsbad will break ground on a plant that each day will turn 50 million gallons of seawater into fresh drinking water.

The $320 million project, which would be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, was held up in the planning stages for years. But a protracted drought helped propel the project to its approval in May -- a sign of how worried local authorities are about water supplies.

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Phantom Menace To Dark Matter Theory

Image: The answer to the riddle of dark matter could be found in our own solar system (Image: NASA)

From New Scientist:

A SUBTLE anomaly in the orbit of the planets in our solar system could prove a controversial idea that goes beyond Einstein.

The orbit of the innermost planet, Mercury, departs from what it should be under Newton's laws. A century ago, when Einstein explained this anomaly, it confirmed his theory of gravity - the general theory of relativity.

Now an Israeli physicist predicts that a similar but far more subtle anomaly in the orbits of the planets, if detected, might prove his own theory, known as modified Newtonian dynamics, or MOND. This provides an alternative theory to dark matter to explain why stars orbiting at the edge of spiral galaxies are not flung out into space. These stars are travelling at speeds too fast for conventional gravity from the mass at the heart of a spiral galaxy to hold them in their orbits, so something else must be keeping them on track.

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New Wonder Material, One-Atom Thick, Has Scientists Abuzz

Graphene has been described as a carbon nanotube unrolled. Its two-dimensional sheet is made up of a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal pattern like a honeycomb. Electrons can move ballistically through these sheets even at room temperature, making graphene a prime target of the electronics industry. image from Science@Berkeley Lab

From McClatchy News/Yahoo News:

WASHINGTON — Imagine a carbon sheet that's only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

That's graphene, the latest wonder material coming out of science laboratories around the world. It's creating tremendous buzz among physicists, chemists and electronic engineers.

"It is the thinnest known material in the universe, and the strongest ever measured," Andre Geim , a physicist at the University of Manchester, England , wrote in the June 19 issue of the journal Science.

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Rubik Cube Inventor Devises New Puzzle To Drive Us All To Distraction

From Times Online:

His cube was one of the most popular and infuriating toys of all time. Now Professor Ernö Rubik is hoping that the sphere will bring sleepless nights to the world’s obsessive puzzlers.

The creator of Rubik’s Cube is back with his first new puzzle for almost 20 years and early indications are that it is going to be every bit as irritating as the original.

Rubik’s 360, which goes on sale next week, features six small balls inside three interlocking spheres. The task is to lock each ball into colour-coded capsules on the outermost sphere. Professor Rubik said of his cube that it was “easy to understand the task, but hard to work out the solution”. It is just as aggravating to crack the 360.

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What Does a Drug That Extends Life In Mice Mean For Humans?

Getty Images

From Time Magazine:

A natural compound, used as an immunosuppressant in organ-transplant patients, has been found to extend life in mice, according to a study published Wednesday by the journal Nature. Aging mice that were given the substance, rapamycin, lived significantly longer than mice that didn't get the drug: females that received rapamycin were 13% older at death, and males 9% older.

The research, conducted as part of the National Institute of Aging Interventions Testing Program, took place at three separate test sites and involved nearly 2,000 genetically similar mice. Trials began when mice were about 600 days old — well into middle age, at a stage roughly equivalent to 60-year-old humans.

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Update: Secret to a longer life lies on Easter Island -- The Independent

Finding Fear: Neuroscientists Locate Where It Is Stored In The Brain

For the first time, neuroscientists have located the neurons responsible for fear conditioning in the mammalian brain. (Credit: iStockphoto/Kurt Paris)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 8, 2009) — Fear is a powerful emotion, and neuroscientists have for the first time located the neurons responsible for fear conditioning in the mammalian brain. Fear conditioning is a form of Pavlovian, or associative, learning and is considered to be a model system for understanding human phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.

Using an imaging technique that enabled them to trace the process of neural activation in the brains of rats, University of Washington researchers have pinpointed the basolateral nucleus in the region of the brain called the of amygdala as the place where fear conditioning is encoded.

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My Comment: Inhibit the fear .... you will have the ultimate soldier.

Laughter: Not Just For Funny Stuff

Laughter comes in two main types, scientists found. Credit: Dreamstime

From Live Science:

Scientists say there are two types of laughter: the kind that comes from pure glee, and the kind that's meant to send a social message. New research suggests autistic children don't often express the latter type, a finding that could reveal more about the nature of human laughter.

Laughter probably predates human speech by millions of years, scientists think. It likely evolved as an early form of communication to help people negotiate group dynamics and establish hierarchy, said William Hudenko, a psychologist at Ithaca College who led the new study.

Babies usually learn to laugh before they learn to speak.

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Europe Targets Manned Spaceship

From The BBC:

Europe has taken the first step towards building its own manned spaceship.

The European Space Agency has asked industry to work out the requirements of the craft and its likely cost.

Known as the Advanced Re-Entry Vehicle, it would be developed in phases - first as an unmanned vessel to carry cargo, and then as an astronaut crew ship.

At the moment, Europe has no independent capability to transport humans into space and must hitch rides on American or Russian systems.

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Google Announces PC Operating System To Compete With Windows

From Epicenter/Wired:

Google is releasing a lightweight, open-source PC-operating system later this year, the company announced Tuesday night, a move that threatens the very heart of Microsoft, long seen as Google’s biggest rival.

Chrome OS is intended to be a very lightweight, quick-starting operating system whose central focus is supporting Google’s Chrome browser. Applications will run mostly inside the browser, making the web — not the desktop — into the computer’s default operating system.

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Was Ancient Earth A Green Planet?

From The New Scientist:

Earth's landmasses in the late Precambrian probably weren't pleasant, but at least they were green. A new analysis of limestone rocks laid down between 1 billion and 500 million years ago suggests that there was extensive plant life on land much earlier than previously thought.

The plants were only tiny mosses and liverworts, but they would have had a profound effect on the planet. They turned the hitherto barren Earth green, created the first soils and pumped oxygen into the atmosphere, laying the foundations for animals to evolve in the Cambrian explosion that started 542 million years ago.

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Scientists Create 'Artificial Brain Cell'

From The Telegraph:

Scientists have created an artificial brain cell they believe could one day be used to treat devastating neurological diseases.

The team has managed to pass messages within the mind in the same way as nerve cells, using a tiny piece of plastic which can transmit electricity.

These messages are used by the brain to control many actions in the body.

Correcting when they go awry could be the key to treating some diseases like Parkinson's disease researchers believe.

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Archaeologists Dive Deep Into The Lost World Of The Maya

From USA Today:

CARA BLANCA, Belize — Machete chops echo and leaves rustle underfoot when the vines clear, revealing cobalt-blue water in a cliff-sided pool.

Hidden beneath the dry-season forest, these waters, the blue cenotes (cen-NO-tays) of Cara Blanca, represent a mystery for scholars, one left by the ancient Maya. What lies within these sacred wells?

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My Comment: A compelling and a must read on Mayan history.

Human Sperm Created From Stem Cells In World First, Claims British University

From The Telegraph:

British scientists have created human sperm using stem cells in a medical first that could revolutionise fertility treatment, they claim.

Researchers at the pioneering Northeast England Stem Cell Institute say they have made the breakthrough using stem cells from an embryo.

They claim that with some minor changes the sperm could theoretically fertilise an egg to create a child.

Within 10 years, the scientists say the technique could also be used to allow infertile couples to have children that are genetically their own. It could even be possible to create sperm from female stem cells, they say, which would ultimately mean a woman having a baby without a man.

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New Evidence That Vinegar May Be Natural Fat-fighter

Found in many salad dressings, pickles, and other foods, vinegar could help prevent accumulation of body fat and weight gain, scientists report. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 7, 2009) — Researchers in Japan are reporting new evidence that the ordinary vinegar — a staple in oil-and-vinegar salad dressings, pickles, and other foods — may live up to its age-old reputation in folk medicine as a health promoter. They are reporting new evidence that vinegar can help prevent accumulation of body fat and weight gain.

Tomoo Kondo and colleagues note in the new study that vinegar has also been used as a folk medicine since ancient times. People have used it for a range of ills. Modern scientific research suggests that acetic acid, the main component of vinegar, may help control blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and fat accumulation.

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