Killer Whales Visit 'Social Clubs'

From BBC:

Killer whales create and visit social clubs just like people do, scientists have discovered.

Up to 100 fish-eating killer whales come together in the Avacha Gulf, off the coast of Russia.

But no-one knew why the whales form these huge superpods, when they normally live in smaller groups.

Now scientists report in the Journal of Ethology that these groups act as clubs in which the killer whales form and maintain social ties.

Read more ....

The Long Legacy Of Peru's "Mine Of Death"

Image from Chemistry World blog

From Earth Magazine:

The Inca knew there was something sinister about the cinnabar they hauled out of the ground at Huancavelica in Peru hundreds of years ago. They called the mine the Mine of Death. Now, a new study has exposed a 3,500-year history of mercury pollution from the cinnabar mines, a much longer legacy than researchers had previously realized.

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Previous Post: Mercury pollution from ancient Inca mines -- Chemistry World Blog

You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again

From Epicenter:

More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plugin to track users and store information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called Flash Cookies in their privacy policies, UC Berkeley researchers reported Monday.

Unlike traditional browser cookies, Flash cookies are relatively unknown to web users, and they are not controlled through the cookie privacy controls in a browser. That means even if a user thinks they have cleared their computer of tracking objects, they most likely have not.

What’s even sneakier?

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Planet Smash-Up Sends Vaporized Rock, Hot Lava Flying

This artist's concept shows a celestial body about the size of our moon slamming at great speed into a body the size of Mercury. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope found evidence that a high-speed collision of this sort occurred a few thousand years ago around a young star, called HD 172555, still in the early stages of planet formation. The star is about 100 light-years from Earth. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2009) — NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has found evidence of a high-speed collision between two burgeoning planets around a young star.

Astronomers say that two rocky bodies, one as least as big as our moon and the other at least as big as Mercury, slammed into each other within the last few thousand years or so -- not long ago by cosmic standards. The impact destroyed the smaller body, vaporizing huge amounts of rock and flinging massive plumes of hot lava into space.

Read more ....

Men Not Choosy In One-Night Stands

From Live Science:

It's no secret that men are more likely than women to jump into the sack. But a new study adds some twists to the rules of such casual sex.

The research suggests men are far less choosy about the attractiveness of a potential one-night stand. For women to be tempted into considering casual sex, the guy better be a hottie.

These results, based not on real-life encounters but rather on interviews, match with past research showing that men lower their standards when it comes to one-night stands. And it turns out, from the new study, women raise their standards.

Read more ....

Mediterranean-Style Diet And Exercise 'Cuts Chances Of Alzheimer's'

From The Telegraph:

Following a Mediterranean-style diet and exercising regularly can cut the chances of developing Alzheimer's by as much as 60 per cent, a new study shows.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that following a healthy lifestyle can offer protection against the devastating disease.

Experts warn that this is crucial because there are few ways to treat the condition once it develops.

Read more ....

Are We On The Brink Of Creating A Computer With A Human Brain?

Professor Markram claims he plans to build an electronic human brain 'within the next ten years'

From The Daily Mail:

There are only a handful of scientific revolutions that would really change the world. An immortality pill would be one. A time machine would be another.
Faster-than-light travel, allowing the stars to be explored in a human lifetime, would be on the shortlist, too.
To my mind, however, the creation of an artificial mind would probably trump all of these - a development that would throw up an array of bewildering and complex moral and philosophical quandaries. Amazingly, it might also be within reach.

Read more ....

Google Reveals Caffeine: A New Faster Search Engine

The front end of the improved search engine looks no different. It is the back end technology which Google developers hope will noticeably index new content faster. Photo: AP

From The Telegraph:

Google has revealed project “caffeine”, a new test version of its search engine which it claims will be faster and more relevant than ever before.

In the face of increasing innovation and competition in the search market, Google is upping the ante by developing new technology which will speed up indexing search results and create a larger index.

Read more ....

What A Shower! Catch Up On Meteors With Twitter

The Horsehead Nebula from 'Ancient Light: a Portrait of the Universe' by David Malin

From The Independent:

Astronomy becomes art in a new book of photographs which takes us to parts of the universe our eyes cannot normally see. The results are out of this world, says Hannah Duguid.

In 1609, when Galileo first looked at the universe through a telescope, he was limited by the boundaries of his vision. He could see only what his eye was capable of perceiving. It was not until the birth of photography in the mid-19th century that astronomy was able to progress.

Read more ....

NASA Falling Short of Asteroid Detection Goals

The team says it is almost certain that a large Baptistina fragment created the 180km Chicxulub crater off the coast of the Yucatan 65 million years ago. The impact that produced this crater has been strongly linked to the mass extinction event that eliminated the dinosaurs. Image from The BBC.

From Wired Science:

Without more funding, NASA will not meet its goal of tracking 90 percent of all deadly asteroids by 2020, according to a report released today by the National Academy of Sciences.

The agency is on track to soon be able to spot 90 percent of the potentially dangerous objects that are at least a kilometer (.6 miles) wide, a goal previously mandated by Congress.

Asteroids of this size are estimated to strike Earth once every 500,000 years on average and could be capable of causing a global catastrophe if they hit Earth. In 2008, NASA’s Near Earth Object Program spotted a total of 11,323 objects of all sizes.

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Last Female Space Shuttle Commander Leaves NASA

Astronaut Pamela Melroy

From Yahoo News/Space:

Astronaut Pamela Melroy, the last-ever female space shuttle commander, is leaving NASA's spaceflying ranks for a new career in private industry.

Melroy is a veteran of three shuttle missions. On her third flight, the STS-120 flight of Discovery in 2007, she became the second woman to command a space shuttle -a role reserved for astronauts who have been trained as pilots, rather than mission specialists.

Despite the significance of her achievement, Melroy said the distinction wasn't a big deal for her.

Read more ....

GM Claims Chevy Volt Will Get 230 MPG--But How?

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt General Motors

From Popular Science:

General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson says the EPA will certify the Chevrolet Volt with triple-digit mileage. How'd they come up with that?

General Motors calls the Chevrolet Volt an extended-range electric vehicle. That's because the only motive force comes from the electric motor; the gas engine only charges the batteries. In a press conference earlier today, GM's CEO Fritz Henderson said the Volt will have a city mileage figure of 230 miles per gallon--almost five times more efficient than a Prius. But considering the uniqueness of the Volt's powertrain, how did the EPA get that figure?

Read more ....

A Metal Coating That Repairs Itself

Healing bubbles: Tiny fluid-filled capsules a few hundred nanometers wide are dispersed throughout a thin electroplated metal layer. The capsules could be filled with polymers to make metal coatings that repair themselves. Credit: Fraunhofer IPA

From Technology Review:

Electroplated metal could be used to make self-healing construction materials, car parts, and machinery.

Airplanes, cars, and ships that don't corrode are the promise of self-healing paint coatings and polymer materials. Now researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation in Stuttgart, Germany have come up with a metal coating that may be able to repair itself after sustaining damage.

Read more ....

Could Robots Unite Under One Operating System?

Robots Unite: Patch my operating system to 3.0 now, human! Warner Bros.

From Popular Science:

A common robot operating system could lead to a robotics revolution -- scientifically speaking, of course.

Today's robots represent islands unto themselves that don't share either software or hardware with each other. But researchers have begun developing a common operating system that could revolutionize robotics and permit easier collaboration with less reinvention of the proverbial wheel. The change could rival that which rippled through the PC industry when Microsoft's Disk Operating System (DOS), and later Windows, burst onto the scene and became standard.

Read more ....

Mars, Methane And Mysteries

From Scientific American:

Mars may not be as dormant as scientists once thought. The 2004 discovery of methane means that either there is life on Mars, or that volcanic activity continues to generate heat below the martian surface. ESA plans to find out which it is. Either outcome is big news for a planet once thought to be biologically and geologically inactive.

The methane mystery started soon after December 2003, when ESA's Mars Express arrived in orbit around the red planet. As the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) began taking data, Vittorio Formisano, Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario CNR, Rome, and the rest of the instrument team saw a puzzling signal. As well as the atmospheric gases they were anticipating, such as carbon monoxide and water vapour, they also saw methane. "Methane was a surprise, we were not expecting that," says Agustin Chicarro, ESA Mars Lead Scientist. The reason is that on Earth much of the methane in our atmosphere is released by evolved life forms, such as cattle digesting food. While there are ways to produce methane without life, such as by volcanic activity, it is the possible biological route that has focused attention on the discovery.

Read more ....

What's Luck Got To Do With It? The Math Of Gambling

From New Scientist:

FIVE years ago, Londoner Ashley Revell sold his house, all his possessions and cashed in his life savings. It raised £76,840. He flew to Las Vegas, headed to the roulette table and put it all on red.

The wheel was spun. The crowd held its breath as the ball slowed, bounced four or five times, and finally settled on number seven. Red seven.

Revell's bet was a straight gamble: double or nothing. But when Edward Thorp, a mathematics student at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology, went to the same casino some 40 years previously, he knew pretty well where the ball was going to land. He walked away with a profit, took it to the racecourse, the basketball court and the stock market, and became a multimillionaire. He wasn't on a lucky streak, he was using his knowledge of mathematics to understand, and beat, the odds.

Read more ....

Experimental Drug Helps Ward Off Osteoporosis

An X-ray of the human shoulder
Photodisc / Getty

From Time Magazine:

An experimental drug has successfully reduced hip and spine fractures in the two largest patient populations at risk for osteoporosis — postmenopausal women and men being treated for prostate cancer — according to two major studies published online on Aug. 11 by the New England Journal of Medicine. The new compound, denosumab, is being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration. If approved, it has the potential to become a standard treatment for certain patients.

Read more ....

First Black Holes Born Starving

FROM SCIENCE DAILY

The first black holes in the universe

The simulations were carried out by astrophysicists Marcelo Alvarez and Tom Abel of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, jointly located at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, and John Wise, formerly of KIPAC and now of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Several popular theories posit that the first black holes gorged themselves on gas clouds and dust in the early universe, growing into the supersized black holes that lurk in the centers of galaxies today. However, the new results, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, point to a much more complex role for the first black holes.
"I'm thrilled that we now can do calculations that start to capture the most relevant physics, and we can show which ideas work and which don't," said Abel. "In the next decade, using calculations like this one, we will settle some of the most important issues related to the role of black holes in the universe."

MORE......

Bookyards Editor: For more books on astromomy go here...

Men Not Choosy in One-Night Stands

FROM : LIVE SCIENCE

It's no secret that men are more likely than women to jump into the sack.

It's no secret that men are more likely than women to jump into the sack. But a new study adds some twists to the rules of such casual sex.
The research suggests men are far less choosy about the attractiveness of a potential one-night stand. For women to be tempted into considering casual sex, the guy better be a hottie.
These results, based not on real-life encounters but rather on interviews, match with past research showing that men lower their standards when it comes to one-night stands. And it turns out, from the new study, women raise their standards.

MORE.......

Bookyards Editor: For more books on psychology go here...

Biggest Meteor Shower of the Year Peaks Tonight

From Wired News:

Stay up past midnight, grab a blanket and go stargazing tonight: The year’s most spectacular meteor shower is expected to peak Wednesday morning around 1 a.m., and then again just before dawn.

The Perseid meteor shower happens every year in August, when the Earth travels through a cloud of debris left by the periodic comet Swift-Tuttle, which last approached the Earth in 1992. Under optimal conditions, up to 80 shooting stars can be seen every hour, although how many you’ll see tonight depends on cloud cover, the brightness of the moon and the proximity of city lights.

Read more ....

Isotope Shortage Means A Healthcare Crisis

Click on Image to Expand

From The L.A. Times:

The radioisotope is needed to scan for heart disease and cancer. Two nuclear reactors that produce it have been shut down, severely limiting the supply, and alternatives are scant.

The abrupt shutdown of two aging nuclear reactors that produce a radioisotope widely used in medical imaging has forced physicians in the U.S. and abroad into a crisis, requiring them to postpone or cancel necessary scans for heart disease and cancer, or turn to alternative tests that are not as accurate, take longer and expose patients to higher doses of radiation.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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....

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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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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?

Read more ....

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."

Read more ....

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.

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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.

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