The Flu Hunters: Racing To Outsmart A Pandemic

Research student Nick Cattle, working in the flu lab at the World Influenza Centre
Philip Hollis for TIME

From Time Magazine:

On April 25, Rod Daniels, the deputy director of the World Influenza Centre in London, was at a meeting in Germany when he received a call from a co-worker: an influenza outbreak had been reported in Mexico and the first samples of the virus were on their way to London for examination. A virologist who has studied flu for more than 30 years, Daniels knew exactly what he was looking for. Influenza A viruses — the type that can cause pandemics — use a protein called hemagglutinin to bind to the cells of their animal hosts. When a virus jumps from animals to humans, its contagiousness is largely determined by what is called the "binding specificity" of this protein. An alpha-2,3 binding specificity means the virus is well suited to the cells in an animal respiratory tract but probably not human cells. An alpha-2,6 binding specificity, on the other hand, means the virus can easily bind to human cells.

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Traffic Jam In Brain Causes Schizophrenia Symptoms; First Mouse To Develop Disease As Teenager, Just Like Humans

There are fewer pathways (green strands) for information to flow between neurons in the brain of a mouse bred to exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia compared to a normal mouse. Fewer pathways make it hard for information to flow between neurons and results in the symptoms of schizophrenia. (Credit: Peter Penzes, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2009) — Schizophrenia waits silently until a seemingly normal child becomes a teenager or young adult. Then it swoops down and derails a young life.

Scientists have not understood what causes the severe mental disorder, which affects up to 1 percent of the population and results in hallucinations, memory loss and social withdrawal.

Read more ....

Hole In The Earth

The Aorounga crater is spproximately 345–370 million years old based on the age of the sedimentary rocks deformed by the impact.

From Live Science:

A meteorite that rocked the Sahara desert over 300 million years ago left behind quite a scar that's been photographed before.

New satellite images released by NASA this week provide a closer view of the Aorounga Impact Crater in north-central Chad, one of the best preserved impact structures in the world.

The crater measures 10 miles (17 kilometers) across with a peak that is surrounded by a small sand-filled trough. This feature is surrounded by an even larger circular trough. Winds at the site blow from the northeast and sand dunes formed between the ridges are actively migrating to the southwest. Measuring 10 miles (17 kilometers) across,

Read more ....

Saturn's Rings to Disappear Tuesday

Magnificent blue and gold Saturn is seen in 2007, as one of its moons, Dione, hangs in the distance. A day on Saturn is pretty short, and it just got shorter. The time it takes the beringed behemoth to complete a spin on its axis has just been calculated by astrophysicists at 10 hours, 34 minutes and 13 seconds, more than five minutes shorter than previous estimates. (AFP/NASA-HO/File)

From Yahoo News/Space:

In a celestial feat any magician would appreciate, Saturn will make its wide but thin ring system disappear from our view Aug. 11.

Saturn's rings, loaded with ice and mud, boulders and tiny moons, is 170,000 miles wide. But the shimmering setup is only about 30 feet thick. The rings harbor 35 trillion-trillion tons of ice, dust and rock, scientists estimate.

The rings shine because they reflect sunlight. But every 15 years, the rings turn edge-on to the sun and reflect almost no sunlight.

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Perseid Meteors To Shower Down Late Tuesday, Early Wednesday

From Salt Lake Tribune:

The most-watched meteor shower of the year is coming back late Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, and this year, stargazers may be treated to even more fiery streaks of light zooming across the night sky.

Under the right conditions, observers away from city light pollution are sometimes able to see an average of one and sometimes two Perseid meteors per minute, said Patrick Wiggins, NASA solar system ambassador to Utah.

"But this year," he said, "NASA is predicting the possibility of an enhanced shower Wednesday morning between 2 and 3 a.m."

The more frequent meteor sightings could happen if the Earth passes through what astronomers suspect to be a particularly rich pocket of meteor-producing particles cast off by the shower's parent comet nearly 400 years ago in 1610.

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Oldest Known Paralyzed Human Discovered

The remains of the world's oldest known paralyzed human are excavated in Vietnam. Researchers have found that the man suffered from a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, a condition involving congenital fusion of the spine.

From Discovery:

The remains of a man who could be the world's oldest known paralysis victim have been unearthed by Australian bio-archaeologists in northern Vietnam.

Found at the Neolithic cemetery site of Man Bac, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Hanoi, the remains are between 3,500 and 4,000 years old and belong to an adult male who died around age 25.

Called Man Bac Burial 9, or simply M9, the young man suffered from paraplegia or possibly quadriplegia due to a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, a condition involving congenital fusion of the spine.

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Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

Whether because exercise makes us hungry or because we want to reward ourselves, many people eat more — and eat more junk food, like doughnuts — after going to the gym. Ben Bloom / Getty

From Time Magazine:

As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I'll spend five minutes warming up on the VersaClimber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I'll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy — an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from which I will push myself up in various hateful ways for an hour. Friday will bring a 5.5-mile run, the extra half-mile my grueling expiation of any gastronomical indulgences during the week.

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Earth Rotational Periods Cause Ice Ages And Warmings

From Future Pundit:

Changes in how large planets such as Jupiter and Saturn pull at the Earth's rotation cause the Earth to go into periodic cooling and warming periods.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years – they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth's rotation and axis.

In a publication to be released Friday in the journal Science, researchers from Oregon State University and other institutions conclude that the known wobbles in Earth's rotation caused global ice levels to reach their peak about 26,000 years ago, stabilize for 7,000 years and then begin melting 19,000 years ago, eventually bringing to an end the last ice age.

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Social Networking Has Hidden Dangers For Teens

Many teens who post risque material online come to regret it.
Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images

From San Francisco Chronicle:

From behind their bedroom doors, more than 1 out of every 10 teenagers has posted a nude or seminude picture of themselves or others online - a "digital tattoo" that could haunt them for the rest of their lives, according to a poll being released today.

Aside from the nudity, the survey also found that at least a quarter of the young people polled had posted something they later regretted, made fun of others or created a false identity online.

While teens are spending more and more time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace - with 22 percent saying they check their sites more than 10 times a day - they don't seem to be aware of the long-term personal havoc they could create with a click of a button.

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Mysterious Object Rips Through One of Saturn's Rings

Saturn Gets Served: A mysterious object passing through Saturn's "Ring F"

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

From Popular Science:

Saturn's approaching equinox reveals a possible ring collision with a small object.

An unknown object appears to have punched through one of Saturn's rings and left a calling card in the form of trailing debris. NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped the image on June 11, 2009 during its ongoing tour of Saturn and its moons.

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Why Every Geek Should be Hoping For A Mac Tablet

Image: Memory Alpha

From Geekdad/Wired:

We’ve all heard the rumors: Apple is going to be releasing some kind of touchscreen tablet computer, either in September or 1st quarter 2010 (depending upon the source). It could be a fully functioning computer, like a MacBook with a touchscreen, or an extra-large iPod Touch/iPhone. What I do know is that for a geek like me, another little piece of sci-fi futurism from my youth is about to hit the market, and I couldn’t be more excited.

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The Top Seven Social Networking Sites For Kids

(Peter Dazeley)

From Times Online:

Forget Facebook. Tweet off, Twitter. We find out where today's children are really logging on.

How do you know when a social networking site isn’t cool anymore? The day that your dad joins up. A new study has found that young people are turning their backs on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, the number of 35 to 54-year-olds using such sites has rocketed by 25 per cent in the last year.

So what can you do if you don’t want to be poked by your mum or added by your gran? Here’s a round up of the coolest sites and virtual worlds for children – just make sure you hide this page from your parents.

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Swine Flu: 'Tamiflu Harm Outweighs Benefits For Children'

Their study found that Tamiflu caused vomiting in some children, which can lead to dehydration and complications Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

Children should not be given the anti-viral drug Tamiflu for swine flu because its harms outweigh any benefits, Oxford researchers have said.

They called on the Department of Health to have an urgent rethink of its current policy in the swine flu pandemic.

Their study found that Tamiflu caused vomiting in some children, which can lead to dehydration and complications.

Read more ....

An Operating System For The Cloud

Credit: Brian Stauffer

From Technology Review:

Google is developing a new computing platform equal to the Internet era. Should Microsoft be worried?

From early in their company's history, Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wanted to develop a computer operating system and browser.

They believed it would help make personal computing less expensive, because Google would give away the software free of charge. They wanted to shrug off 20 years of accumulated software history (what the information technology industry calls the "legacy") by building an OS and browser from scratch. Finally, they hoped the combined technology would be an alternative to Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, providing a new platform for developers to write Web applications and unleashing the creativity of programmers for the benefit of the masses.

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Hole in the Earth

FROM LIVE SCIENCE

A meteorite that rocked the Sahara

A meteorite that rocked the Sahara desert over 300 million years ago left behind quite a scar that's been photographed before.

New satellite images released by NASA this week provide a closer view of the Aorounga Impact Crater in north-central Chad, one of the best preserved impact structures in the world.

The crater measures 10 miles (17 kilometers) across with a peak that is surrounded by a small sand-filled trough. This feature is surrounded by an even larger circular trough. Winds at the site blow from the northeast and sand dunes formed between the ridges are actively migrating to the southwest. Measuring 10 miles (17 kilometers) across,

READE MORE....

Bookyards Editor: For more SCIENCE , Bookyards section is here.....

Machismo Cuts Men's Lives Short

FROM: LIVE SCIENCE

Why they don't go


Tough guys who buy into ideals of masculinity are much less likely to seek preventive healthcare services, such as a prostate exam, compared with other men.

The new finding, based on survey data, reveals that such manly beliefs could help to explain the lower life expectancy of men compared with women.

In the United States in 2005, life expectancy for women averaged about 80 years, while for men it was about 75 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

READE MORE...


Bookyards Editor: For more health books go here...

NOAA Lowers Hurricane Season Outlook

(Click Above Image to Enlarge)
While NOAA is lowering forecasts, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) from FSU COAPS is also quite low. Ryan Maue’s Tropical web page at Florida State University has this graph that shows accumulated cyclone energy (ACE)

From Watts Up With That?

According to its August Atlantic hurricane season outlook, NOAA now expects a near- to below-normal Atlantic hurricane season, as the calming effects of El Niño continue to develop. But scientists say the season’s quiet start does not guarantee quiet times ahead. The season, which began June 1, is entering its historical peak period of August through October, when most storms form.

Read more ....

Swimming With Sharks

Watch CBS Videos Online

1 Million MPH Stars Move Through Galaxy

From FOX News/Space:

Stars in a distant galaxy move at stunning speeds — greater than 1 million mph, astronomers have revealed.

These hyperactive stars move at about twice the speed of our sun through the Milky Way, because their host galaxy is very massive, yet strangely compact. The scene, which has theorists baffled, is 11 billion light-years away. It is the first time motions of individual stars have been measured in a galaxy so distant.

While the stars' swiftness is notable, stars in other galaxies have been observed to travel at similarly high speeds. In those situations, it was usually because they were interlopers from outside, or circling close to a black hole.

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Earth's Most Prominent Rainfall Feature Creeping Northward

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

From Science Daily:

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

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

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Why 'Willy' Could Never Be Free

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

From Live Science:

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

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

But things didn’t quite turn out as planned.

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

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Freak Wave 'Hot Spots' Identified

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

From The BBC:

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

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

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

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

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

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Twitter Attack Triggers Conspiracy Theories But Few Seem Plausible

From The Scientific American:

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

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Hurricane Season 2009: Where Are All the Storms?

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

From National Geographic:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Virtual Computer Army Takes On The Botnets

From New Scientist:

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

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

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

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How The Apple Tablet Could Ruin Computing

The Mythical Apple Tablet, Imagined: via Gizmodo

From Popular Science:

Hint: the mobile network providers are involved.

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

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

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

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

From The New York Times:

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

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

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

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

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

Freaky Sleep Paralysis: Being Awake In Your Nightmares

From Wired Science:

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

You’ve awakened into the dream world.

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

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Brain Power And Computers

Watch CBS Videos Online

My Comment: This is so cool.

Why Are Flu Viruses Seasonal?

Heide Benser / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

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

Read more ....

Mapping The Globe's Soils

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

From Scientific American:

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

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

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

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

Read more ....

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

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

From The Daily Mail:

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

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

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

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How Sensitive Is The Earth’s Climate?

From Watts Up With That?

Introduction

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

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

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Chicken-hearted Tyrants: Predatory Dinosaurs As Baby Killers

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

From Science Daily:

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

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Robot Chefs Run A Restaurant

From Live Science:

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

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

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Perseids Meteors To Light Up Skies Midweek

From San Francisco Chronicle:

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

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

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

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

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Which Search Engine Do You Choose In The Blind Test?

From The Washington Post:

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

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

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

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

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

From Space Daily:

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

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

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

Read more ....

The Truth About Airplane Turbulence

(Photograph courtesy of NASA Langley Research Center)

From Popular Mechanics:

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

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

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PHOTOS: World's Largest Telescope Unveiled

From National Geographic:

August 6, 2009--A low-hanging sun brightens the fields around the dome of the Gran Telescopio Canarias, or GTC, the latest addition to the handful of Earth-based optical telescopes designed to study the heavens.

Crowds gathered last week on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands--a Spanish territory--to watch Spanish King Juan Carlos inaugurate the U.S. $180-million GTC, which is co-owned by Spain, Mexico, and the University of Florida in the U.S.

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Shuttle Astronauts Practice Launch Pad Escape

The space shuttle Discovery lifts off (Reuters: Scott Audette)

From Yahoo News/Space.com:

Seven astronauts climbed aboard NASA's space shuttle Discovery Friday for a vital drill to practice escaping from the spacecraft at the launch pad and go over plans for their late August blast off.

Clad in bright orange pressure suits, the astronauts strapped into Discovery at NASA's seaside Kennedy Space Center in Florida and rehearsed the last few hours before liftoff before scurrying out the shuttle's hatch to a set of baskets designed to zip down a 1,200-foot slide wire away from the launch pad in the event of an emergency.

The exercise capped a three-day training session to give Discovery's astronauts some hands-on experience with the spacecraft before their planned Aug. 25 launch to the International Space Station.

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Why ARE So Many Planes Falling Out Of The Sky? A Spate Of Disastrous Crashes Reveals One Terrifying Common Flaw...

Some of the debris from the missing Air France flight was eventually recovered

From the Daily Mail:

Three hours into the flight, none of the 216 passengers would have had any reason to be concerned. As the dinner plates in business class were being cleared away, the beaches of northern Brazil, 35,000ft below, were slipping past at 550mph. Some of the passengers might have ordered an after-dinner drink, others might have been crawling beneath their blankets, hoping for a few hours' sleep.

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San Diego Zoo's Giant Panda, Bai Yun, Gives Birth To A Healthy Cub

From The L.A. Times:

Late last month, the San Diego Zoo announced that its resident female giant panda, Bai Yun, was pregnant. Pandas' reproductive systems are still largely a mystery to researchers, so even zoo staff, who'd been monitoring Bai Yun extremely closely, didn't know when she would give birth.

Today just before 5 a.m., Bai Yun gave birth to what the zoo's senior research technician Suzanne Hall called a "vigorous, squawking" cub. For about 24 hours prior to the birth, Bai Yun had been restless, alternating between sleep and bouts of nest-building, Hall wrote on the zoo's blog. The cub's gender is not yet known.

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Twitter Continues to Battle DDoS Attack

From PC World:

More than two days after experiencing a complete outage as a result of a distribute denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, Twitter and other social networking sites such as Facebook are still battling a surge in traffic related to the attack. Twitter has taken some steps to mitigate the spike in traffic and ensure that the site is not knocked offline again, but some of those steps are having an impact on third-party tools that link to Twitter through API's (application programming interface).

Read more ....

More Accurate Weather Forecasts Coming Soon

Queen's University Belfast engineers Raymond Dickie (L) and Professor Robert Cahill (R) are pictured with their new filter, that for the first time, will give scientists access to a completely new range of data, leading to improved accuracy in weather forecasting. (Credit: Queen's University Belfast Media Services)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2009) — More accurate global weather forecasts and a better understanding of climate change are in prospect, thanks to a breakthrough by engineers at Queen's University Belfast's Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT).

The ECIT team has developed a high performance electronic device -- known as a dual polarized Frequency Selective Surface filter -- that is to be used in future European Space Agency (ESA) missions.

Read more ....

How Fast Can Sprinters Go?

From Live Science:

Well, maybe Usain Bolt was right after all. As discussed in our Physiology of Speed story, Bolt predicted he could run 100 meters in 9.54 seconds, lowering his own world record of 9.69 seconds.

Now, researchers from Tilburg University in the Netherlands say he could shave another 3/100ths of a second off and hit the tape at 9.51 seconds.

Using the "extreme value theory," Professor of Statistics John Einmahl and former student Sander Smeets have calculated the fastest possible times for men and women. Between 1991 and 2008, they chronicled the best times for 762 male sprinters and 469 female sprinters. They did not trust the data prior to 1991 as possibly being tainted by doping athletes (not that's its gotten much better since then.)

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Extinction Hits 'Whole Families'

From The BBC:

Whole "chunks of life" are lost in extinction events, as related species vanish together, say scientists.

A study in the journal Science shows that extinctions tend to "cluster" on evolutionary lineages - wiping out species with a common ancestor.

The finding is based on an examination of past extinctions, but could help current conservation efforts.

Researchers say that this phenomenon can result in the loss of an entire branch of the "tree of life".

The message for modern conservation, say the authors, is that some groups are more vulnerable to extinction than others, and the focus should be on the lineages most at risk.

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Fast-Spinning Black Holes Might Reveal All

Image: Spinning away in space (Image: David A. Aguilar (CfA))

From New Scientist:

IT IS the ultimate cosmic villain: space and time come to an abrupt end in its presence and the laws of physics break down. Now it seems a "naked" black hole may yet emerge in our universe, after spinning away its event horizon.

In 1969, physicist Roger Penrose postulated that every singularity, or black hole, must be shrouded by an event horizon from which nothing, including light, can escape. His Cosmic Censorship Conjecture has it that singularities are always hidden.

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Apollo Led To Cosmic Shift In Human Condition

The Earth is photographed, seemingly rising up from behind the Moon, by Apollo 8 crewmember Bill Anders in December 1968. Credit: NASA

From Cosmos:

One of the many legacies of the Apollo program was the way it caused an extraordinary, enduring – and, for some, troubling – change in how we perceived the universe and our place in it.

Before Apollo, the Moon was distant and aloof, a symbol of everything that is unattainable, a place of dreams, an object of superstition and veneration.

After being explored by Apollo 11 on July 20 1969, the Moon's enigma was stripped away. Human willpower and the rigour of science revealed it to be an arid, airless, inhospitable rock for which there was little use as a resource.

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How Lice Thwarted Napoleon's Invasion of Russia

Napoleon's failed 1812 invasion of Russia has long been blamed on the weather. But a new theory argues that body lice were to blame. DPA

From Der Spiegel:

His invasion of Russia failed miserably, leaving a trail of corpses from Moscow all the way to Paris. In a new book, one historian blames not the wintry march but the spread of "war plague" -- typhus -- through Napoleon's Grand Army.

The fate of Napoleon's Grand Army was sealed long before the first shot was fired. In the spring of 1812, more than 600,000 men marched towards Russia under the command of the diminutive Corsican -- an army larger than the population of Paris at the time.

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Raise A Glass To The Science Of Beer

John Mills enjoys a drink in the classic film Ice Cold in Alex (1958)
Photo: Ronald Grant Archive

From The Telegraph:

As the Great British Beer Festival opens in London, a scientific look at the drink that helped shape the nation.

He is the stock in trade of cartoonists and comics – that lonely figure, tie askew, sitting at the bar, contemplating fate while gazing into a pint of beer. Should you find yourself in this situation, short of company, you could do a lot worse than stare into your own glass, for it is there that you will find a microcosm of the world around you.

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'Cloud Ship' Scheme To Deflect The Sun's Rays Is Favourite To Cut Global Warming

The unmanned ships would be directed by satellite to areas with the best conditions for increasing cloud cover.

From The Telegraph:

Ships with giant funnels which travel the world's seas creating more clouds to deflect the sun's rays could help cut global warming, say scientists.

The "cloud ships" are favoured among a series of schemes aimed at altering the climate which have been weighed up by a leading think-tank.

The project, which is being worked on by rival US and UK scientists, would see 1,900 wind-powered ships ply the oceans sucking up seawater and spraying minuscule droplets of it out through tall funnels to create large white clouds.

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The Future of Farming: Eight Solutions For a Hungry World

Desert Oasis: The Sahara Forest Project will use concentrating solar power to provide energy to greenhouses in the desert. Paul Wootton

From Popular Science:

The challenge of growing twice as much food by 2050 to feed nine billion people—with less and less land—is everyone’s problem. But scientists are hard at work fomenting a second green revolution.

Today’s crops crisscross the globe: Mexico’s tomatoes end up on your plate, our wheat heads to Africa. As a result, the challenge of growing twice as much food by 2050 to feed nine billion people—with less and less land—is everyone’s problem. But scientists are hard at work fomenting a second green revolution. Here’s how nitrogen-spewing microbes, underground soil sensors and fruit-picking robots will help keep food on our tables.

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