Most U.S. Money Laced With Cocaine

From Live Science:

Traces of cocaine taint up to 90 percent of paper money in the United States, a new study finds.

A group of scientists tested banknotes from more than 30 cities in five countries, including the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, and Japan, and found "alarming" evidence of cocaine use in many areas.

U.S. and Canadian currency had the highest levels, with an average contamination rate of between 85 and 90 percent, while Chinese and Japanese currency had the lowest, between 12 and 20 percent contamination.

Read more ....

Moderate Drinking 'Boosts Bones'

From The BBC:

Women who drink moderate amounts of beer may be strengthening their bones, according to Spanish researchers.

Their study of almost 1,700 women, published in the journal Nutrition, found bone density was better in regular drinkers than non-drinkers.

But the team added that plant hormones in the beer rather than the alcohol may be responsible for the effects.

Experts urged caution, warning that drinking more than two units of alcohol a day was known to harm bone health.

Read more ....

Big Tropical Storms in Atlantic Hit 1,000-Year High

From ABC News:

Study Suggests Hurricane Frequency Has Increased Dramatically; Climate Change a Potential Culprit.

The people of U.S. Gulf Coast have felt unusually battered by big storms during the past few years. Now, it turns out their instincts are right.

A new report in the scientific journal Nature indicates that the last decade has seen, on average, more frequent hurricanes than any time in the last 1,000 years. The last period of similar activity occurred during the Medieval Warm Period.

The study is not definitive, but it is a unique piece of work that combines an analysis of sediment cores from inland lakes and tidal marshes with computer modeling and finds a "striking consistency" between the two, the authors suggest.

Read more ....

In Galileo’s Footsteps

Galileo

From Newsweek:

For the first time in hundreds of years, the most powerful telescopes may soon come from Europe.
Galileo has been getting a lot of press lately, and no wonder. Four centuries ago this year, the Italian genius pointed his small, primitive telescope at the night sky and saw wonders nobody had imagined. His discoveries transformed our view of the heavens, but also infected astronomers with a permanent desire to peer just a bit deeper in the universe and find a few more cosmic secrets. Which is why, less than 20 years after they put the finishing touches on a generation of telescopes so big they would have made the Renaissance stargazer swoon, the astronomers are at it again. Three teams are racing to build telescopes four times wider and with up to 16 times the light gathering power than what exists now, and to have them trained on the stars by 2018.

Read more ....

Augmented Reality Reveals History to Tourists

From : Science News Service

Doing virtual reality one better, a consortium of technology companies and European Union countries have created a "visual time machine" that allows tourists equipped with a smart phone to take a picture of an ancient object and then instantly review its history and see what it originally looked like.

This new technology, dubbed the "Intelligent Tourism and Cultural Information through Ubiquitous Services" (iTacitus, after the Roman historian), brings augmented reality to museums, palaces, castles and other tourist attractions, according to its developers."[Tourists] can look at a historic site and, by taking a photo or viewing it through the camera on the mobile device, be able to access much more information about it," said Luke Speller, a scientist with the BMT engineering group based in the U.K. "They are even able to visualize, in real time, how it looked at different stages in history."

More...........

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

Maine’s Windkeepers: From Ship Masts To Windmills

Mike Cianchette, operations manager of the Stetson Mountain wind project, scans the mountain ridge while making inspections on top of a 300-foot tall windmill, in Range 8, Township 3, Maine. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP)

From Christian Science Monitor:

Today, winds help turn on the lights, run TVs and power washers, dryers and ovens in thousands of homes all over New England.

Silent surroundings almost tease the ears as clouds skitter across the top of this eastern corner of Maine. The wind, barely audible, swishes through beech and fir trees crowding the hills of an area so remote it’s part of the state’s Unorganized Territory.

Along the rounded ridge of Stetson Mountain, wisps of wind gain a whoosh-whoosh cadence as they push into motion mammoth blades at the tops of towers reaching hundreds of feet into the air.

Read more ....

Cash In On Twitter -- But Beware

From CBS News:

(CBS) Twitter was once a place for people to stay in touch with each other and spread information, but now the site's taking on the role of marketplace.

The possibility of making money in 140 characters or less on Twitter has people atwitter about making big bucks via tweets. But is it really possible?

CBS News Science and Technology Correspondent Daniel Sieberg discussed it -- and ways others may try to cash in on you -- on "The Early Show" Friday.

Read more ....

Cosmos: Probably The Greatest Science Documentary In The Universe

Carl Sagan's Cosmos: A Personal Voyage provides a complete guide to life, the universe and everything.

From The Guardian:

Almost 30 years after it first aired, Carl Sagan's cosmic travel guide still educates, entertains and inspires awe.

I never got to watch Carl Sagan's epic science documentary Cosmos as a child. I was at boarding school in 1980 when it was released, so my TV watching was restricted. I've heard science journalist colleagues talk about the series almost with reverence, describing Sagan's commentary as "poetry". The 13 one-hour episodes of Cosmos: A Personal Voyage have just been re-released, digitally remastered and with updates on scientific progress in the quarter century that has passed since the series was created. Would it live up to such high expectations?

Read more ....

Send ET A Text Message From Earth

From Yahoo News/Space:

Here's a truly long-distance message...one aimed more than 20 light-years away.

A new Web site in Australia is gathering text messages from around the world, all to be beamed to a distant alien planet called Gliese 581d.

The clock is ticking to submit text messages of no longer than 160 characters – perhaps a signal that extraterrestrial life may have a case of attention deficit disorder. The project - called "Hello From Earth" - (http://www.HelloFromEarth.net) ends Aug. 24.

Once the communiques are amassed, they will be transmitted from NASA's Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex at Tidbinbilla.

Read more ....

What Came Before The Big Bang?

Mehau Kulyk / Science Photo Library / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Even as a boy watching the first moon landing on TV, Brian Clegg remembers wondering, "How did it all begin?" In his latest book, Before the Big Bang, the Cambridge-educated writer examines the theories that physicists and philosophers alike have put forth to explain how we got here. TIME spoke with Clegg about science as a social network, thinking outside of the box without losing his mind, and using Buffy the Vampire Slayer to explain Einstein.

Read more ....

India Launches Bhuvan, Rival To Google Earth

From Times Online:

India has launched a rival to Google Earth, the search engine's hugely popular satellite imagery service.

The online tool, dubbed Bhuvan (Sanskrit for Earth), has been developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). Its debut comes as India redoubles its efforts to reap profits from its 45-year-old state-sponsored space programme, criticised by some as a drain on a country where 700 million people live on $US2 a day or less.

The new site also follows in the slipstream of the country's first moon probe, Chandrayaan-1, which successfully reached the lunar surface last November.

Read more ....

Night-Time Photos Shed Light On Growing Economies

Bright lights, big GDP (Image: NOAA/SPL)

From New Scientist:

NIGHT-TIME images taken from kilometres above the Earth could help us better understand the economies of some of the planet's least developed countries. So say the US economists behind a method for measuring changes GDP using the intensity of street lights and other night-time lighting.

A better way of estimating GDP is badly needed, especially for poorer nations. Data collected by national governments is weak when it comes to informal sectors of the economy, such as street markets. In some countries, such as Liberia, economic information systems are so poor that meaningful data is sometimes non-existent.

Read more ....

Facebook Cornering Market on E-Friends

From The Washington Post:

Fight to Own Social Media Heats Up.

Facebook just bought the rights to nearly everything you do online. And it cost them only $47.5 million.

Facebook's purchase of FriendFeed, an obscure social-media platform, is potentially momentous. To understand why, we must understand FriendFeed, a start-up that is ubiquitous among techies and unknown to everybody else. It's a sleek application that acts as a clearinghouse for all of your social-media activities. Post something to Flickr? That will show up on your FriendFeed page. Digg something? FriendFeed will know. Post to Twitter from your phone? FriendFeed will syndicate your tweets. Once you initially tell it where to look, it will collect everything and tell it to the world.

Read more ....

Cave Complex Allegedly Found Under Giza Pyramids

From Discovery News:

An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs.

Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.

"There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow," British explorer Andrew Collins said.

Read more ....

Why Flamingoes Stand On One Leg

From The BBC:

It is one of the simplest, but most enigmatic mysteries of nature: just why do flamingoes like to stand on one leg?

The question is asked by zoo visitors and biologists alike, but while numerous theories abound, no-one has yet provided a definitive explanation.

Now after conducting an exhaustive study of captive Caribbean flamingoes, two scientists believe they finally have the answer.

Flamingoes stand on one leg to regulate their body temperature, they say.

Read more ....

New Class Of Astronomical Object: Super Planetary Nebulae

An optical image from the 0.6-m University of Michigan/CTIO Curtis Schmidt telescope of the brightest Radio Planetary Nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud, JD 04. The inset box shows a portion of this image overlaid with radio contours from the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The planetary nebula is a glowing record of the final death throes of the star. (Optical images are courtesy of the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS) team). (Credit: Image courtesy of Royal Astronomical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2009) — A team of scientists in Australia and the United States, led by Associate Professor Miroslav Filipović from the University of Western Sydney, has discovered a new class of object which they call “Super Planetary Nebulae.”

They report their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Planetary nebulae are shells of gas and dust expelled by stars near the end of their lives and are typically seen around stars comparable or smaller in size than the Sun.

Read more ....

Pollution Reduces Rain Vital To Crops

From Live Science:

Air pollution in China has cut the amount of light rainfall by 23 percent over the past 50 years, a new study finds.

The cause: Particles in air pollution cause smaller drops of water to form, and smaller drops have a harder time making rain clouds.

The result: Bad air could hamper the country's ability to grow food.

It is the first such study to link pollution to altered climate that can directly affect agriculture.

Read more ....

New Data: Mega-Quake Could Strike Near Seattle

Seattle Skyline

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Using sophisticated seismometers and GPS devices, scientists have been able to track minute movements along two massive tectonic plates colliding 25 miles or so underneath Washington state's Puget Sound basin. Their early findings suggest that a mega-earthquake could strike closer to the Seattle-Tacoma area, home to some 3.6 million people, than was thought earlier.

The deep tremors, which humans can't feel, occur routinely every 15 months or so and can continue for more than two weeks before they die back to undetectable levels.

Read more ....

Hubble's Deepest Look Into Space, Now Rendered In 3D

From Popular Science:

Over a period of four months in late 2003, the Hubble telescope assembled an image that represents the deepest look into space every composed. The Ultra Deep Field image captures an estimated 10,000 galaxies, some as old as 13 billion years (just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, going by most estimates), all squeezed into a sliver of sky no bigger than what you'd see behind a 1-millimeter square postage stamp held one meter away.

Here's what it looks like in 3D.

Read more ....

Longer Eyelashes Without Mascara, Thanks To Scientific Breakthrough

Long and luscious eyelashes have been considered a sign of beauty and glamour Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Brushes and bottles of mascara could be consigned to the dustbin after scientists discovered a way of making eyelashes grow longer.

Since the time of the pharaohs, mascara has formed an essential part of many women's daily beauty regime.

But now researchers have developed a gel which extends the length of time individual eyelashes grow for before they fall out, leading to longer and bushier eyelashes.

Read more ....

Defense Last In WH Science Goals

From DoD Buzz:

The Obama administration’s budget guidance for 2011 makes clear that basic research spending will stay flat in most areas or decline, including at the Pentagon.

Money will first go to research that can “drive economic recovery, job creation, and economic growth,” says the guidance issued in an Aug. 4 memo by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag. The administration also makes clear that since they expect little new money for science and technology funding then government agencies must move dollars to what it calls four “practical challenges.”

Read more ....

My Comment: Many of our greatest technological and engineering accomplishments have come from the labs of Darpa and other defense related laboratories. So much for the campaign rhetoric that the sciences will benefit from an Obama administration. In fact .... it is the science that conforms to the political agenda of the White House that will now get the funding.

Robotic Systems Help People with Disabilities

With the help of a remote human assistant, a person with disability pilots a robotic mobility and manipulation system and opens a refrigerator door to retrieve a pre-prepared meal from home. Cooperative control leaves the person with disability in command, and the ability to use the capabilities of both the local pilot and remote human assistant enable safe, effective, and efficient operation of the robotic system in natural environments. Credit: Rory Cooper, Department of Veterans Affairs/University of Pittsburgh

From Live Science:

People might be surprised to learn that about 50 million people in the world use, or could benefit from the use of, a wheelchair.

Wheelchairs are one of the most commonly used assistive devices for mobility, and they provide people with mobility within their homes and communities. While wheelchairs were once a symbol of inability and stigmatizing, they have evolved to be highly mobile forms of self-expression that are often fitted to each individual user.

Read more ....

A New Superbug Found In Britain Is Major Concern: Government Scientists

From The Telegraph:

A new superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics has been brought into Britain by patients having surgery abroad, Government scientists said.

A new superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics has been brought into Britain by patients having surgery abroad, Government scientists said.

Doctors are urged to be vigilent for a new bug that has arriving in Britain with patients who have travelled to India and Pakistan for cosmetic surgery or organ transplants and is now circulating here.

Read more ....

Physicists Hold Breath As Large Hadron Collider Prepares To Rise From Ashes

A region between two magnets in the LHC that was crushed in the incident on 19 September 2008. Photograph: Public Domain

From The Guardian:

If all goes to plan, the LHC will come back to life in November. Sam Wong explains the measures being taken to prevent another catastrophic failure, and gauges the mood of physicists at Cern. Can they bag the Higgs before the Americans?

It's been nearly a year since the world's biggest science experiment, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), was fired up for the first time in a flurry of excitement at Cern, the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. But ever since a catastrophic explosion in the particle accelerator's tunnel just nine days after startup, the gargantuan machine has sat idling, to the acute frustration and no little embarrassment of all involved.

Read more ....

New Sub "War" Range May Harm Rare Whales, Critics Say

A right whale mother and calf swim off Florida. Approved in August 2009, a planned U.S. submarine war-games zone has conservationists concerned for the survival of the North Atlantic right whale. The species numbers 300 to 350, and its only known calving ground is near the soon-to-be-built testing range. Photograph courtesy National Oceanic Atmospheric Association/AP

From National Geographic:

After considering several candidates, the U.S. Navy announced last week that it will build its latest submarine warfare training facility in the waters off Jacksonville, Florida. (See map.)

But even though the site won't open until 2014, the new tenant is already having trouble with its neighbors.

That's because the chosen site for the Undersea Warfare Training Range is just 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the only known calving grounds of the North Atlantic right whale.

Read more ....

My Comment: I am sure that every other maritime power in the world .... from China to India, Russia to Venezuela .... are just as (cough cough) equally concerned about the whales.

From my point of view I say forget about these maritime powers, we should focus on the native peoples of America who kill scores of whales each year off the Alaskan and Canadian coasts for "traditional reasons".

But all I hear is silence.

Tech Heroes Of The Past: Where Are They Now?

From Pingdom:

Have you ever wondered what the guy who invented the World Wide Web is up to these days? What about the guys who created Photoshop, or the one who created the PHP scripting language?

You may not recognize all of these people, but you’ll definitely recognize what they’ve accomplished. These are people who have made great contributions to computer and Internet technology in the past… but what are they up to now?

This list is a starting point, so help us add to it in the comments!

Read more ....

One Nano-Step Closer To Weighing A Single Atom

Composite image showing TEM images and schematic of bipyramid-shaped particles and time response of vibration. (Credit: Dr Matthew Pelton from the Centre for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2009) — By studying gold nanoparticles with highly uniform sizes and shapes, scientists now understand how they lose energy, a key step towards producing nanoscale detectors for weighing any single atom.

Such ultrasensitive measurements could ultimately be used in areas such as medical research and diagnostics, enabling the detection of minuscule disease-causing agents such as viruses and prions at the single molecule level.

Read more ....

NASA Drops Probes Into Volatile Volcano

Mount St. Helens is one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Credit: USGS

From Live Science:

High-tech sensor pods were recently air lifted into the mouth of a volcano to monitor hot spots and provide early warning if the peak starts to blow.

The sensors are part of a NASA project to study volcanoes from the inside.

On July 14 scientists lowered the pods into the mouth of Washington's Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States.

The project aims to improve our ability to predict impending eruptions, both on Earth and on other planets.

Read more ....

Legacy B-52 To Launch Futuristic WaveRider

The X-51A WaveRider hypersonic flight test vehicle was uploaded to an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 for fit testing at Edwards Air Force Base. (Credit: USAF)

From CNET:

The X-51A WaveRider is one step closer to its inaugural test flight later this year, now that airmen at Edwards Air Force Base have successfully "mated" the scramjet-propelled vehicle to a B-52 Stratofortress.

In December, an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 is scheduled to papoose the X-51A to 50,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean before cutting it loose. At that point, a solid rocket booster from an ATACMS missile will fire up, accelerating the X-51 to about Mach 4.5. That's when the supersonic combustion ramjet kicks in, pushing the WaveRider to more than Mach 6 for up to five minutes, longer than all of its predecessors combined. NASA tests have reached Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph, according to some reports, but not for very long. The previous record was less than 10 seconds. Flight data will be telemetered back to Edwards Force Base before the X-51A test vehicle crashes into the Pacific.

Read more ....

NASA's Moon Plan Too Ambitious, Obama Panel Says

From The Miami Herald:

A panel reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.

WASHINGTON -- NASA doesn't have nearly enough money to meet its goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020 -- and it might be the wrong place to go, anyway. That's one of the harsh messages emerging from a sweeping review of NASA's human space flight program.

Read more ....

NASA Completes First Test Rocket to Replace Shuttle

From Yahoo News/Space:

NASA has finished building the first of its new Ares I rockets slated to replace the aging space shuttle fleet and return astronauts to the moon - a gleaming white booster due to blast off this fall.

The Ares I-X rocket is the inaugural booster in NASA's first new rocket line for crew transport in more than 25 years. It is scheduled to launch Oct. 31 on a demonstration flight to prove the viability of the Ares I rocket to haul NASA's new astronaut-carrying Orion spacecraft into orbit.

Read more ....

Second Backwards Planet Found, A Day After The First

The planet HAT-P-7b, which is about 1.4 times as wide as Jupiter and 1.8 times as massive, seems to orbit its star in the opposite direction to the star's spin (Illustration: Leiden Observatory)

From New Scientist:

Just a day after the announcement of the first extrasolar planet found orbiting its star backwards, two other teams announced the discovery of a second one.

"It is funny that the two good cases for really misaligned orbits, even retrograde orbits, have come at around the same time," says Joshua Winn of MIT, lead author of one of the new papers.

Both Winn's team and another, led by Norio Narita at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, used the Japanese Subaru telescope to observe planet HAT-P-7b, a previously known planet about 1000 light years from Earth that was recently observed by NASA's new planet-hunting satellite Kepler.

Both teams found that the planet's orbit is wildly tilted with respect to its star's equator.

Read more ....

Women Like To 'Poach' Attached Men

A scientific study has found evidence that women really do have a preference for men who are attached Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

It's something that wives and girlfriends have long suspected – that women like to target men who are already in relationships.

Now a scientific study has found evidence that their fears are well founded, and that women really do have a preference for men who are attached.

In a phenomenon known as 'mate poaching' – but soon to be dubbed the 'Angelina Jolie effect' – women expressed a clear preference for those who were unavailable.

Read more ....

First Human Gene Implicated In Regulating Length Of Human Sleep

The discovery of the first gene involved in regulating the optimal length of human sleep offers a window into a key aspect of slumber. (Credit: iStockphoto/Diane Diederich)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2009) — Scientists have discovered the first gene involved in regulating the optimal length of human sleep, offering a window into a key aspect of slumber, an enigmatic phenomenon that is critical to human physical and mental health.

The team, reporting in the Aug. 14, 2009 issue of Science, identified a mutated gene that allows two members of an extended family to thrive on six hours of sleep a day rather than the eight to eight-and-a-half hours that studies have shown humans need over time to maintain optimal health. Working from this discovery, the scientists genetically engineered mice and fruit flies to express the mutated gene and study its impact.

Read more ....

5 UAVs That Are Going Places—Alone (With Video!)

X-47B Navy UCAS

From Popular Mechanics:

Gawkers from the armed services, media and defense industry gathered this week in 98 degree heat to watch military robot demonstrations at the Unmanned Systems Demo, an event hosted by the military and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. The crowd braved the sweltering Maryland summer to watch companies large and small fly sensor-studded UAVs on an unused naval aviation airfield. Here’s a roundup of five of the most notable flying droids on hand, with video of those that displayed their antics.

Read more ....

What a "Facebook Browser" Means For the Web

A screenshot from RockMelt.com

From Technology Review:

RockMelt could be the realization of the company's efforts to create a more social Web.

Rumors surfaced yesterday of a new "Facebook browser" called RockMelt, with a star-studded cast of backers and employees that includes Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt of Firefox fame.

There are no clear reports yet of what the Facebook browser would be like, but it's unlikely to be a simple Facebook client and I doubt that such smart people would simply copy an existing "social" Web browsers such as Flock.

Read more ....

Will Electric Cars Wreck The Grid?

PLUG-IN PROBLEM?: Some power generators worry that too many electric cars could wreak havoc on local electric grids. © GM Corp.

From Scientific American:

Plug-in electric cars could destabilize the distribution of power.

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Plug-in electric cars could destabilize the distribution of power, a utility executive cautioned at a conference here this week.

Ed Kjaer, director of Southern California Edison's electric transportation advancement program, said plug-in manufacturers, designers and component makers are poised to capitalize on a "perfect storm" that could push electric cars into the mainstream. Kjaer noted that 10 to 12 carmakers are ready to launch plug-in models between 2010 and 2012, creating a sense of "incredible excitement" around a sector that has seen its fair share of false starts.

Read more ....

Fire Used to Make Better Tools 75,000 Years Ago

From :Live Science

Early humans crossed a threshold around 75,000 years ago, when they started painting symbols, carving patterns and making jewelry. A new study found they also began to use fire to make tools around that time.

Until now, this complex, multi-step process for tool making was only known to occur as recently as 25,000 years ago in Europe. But the new findings show this breakthrough occurred much earlier, and in Africa, not Europe.
By heating up stones in a fire before chipping away at them to make blades, early humans could make tools sharper and produce them more efficiently.
Scientists think this advancement represents a link between the earlier use of fire for cooking and warmth, and the later production of ceramics and metals

More..........

Bookyards Editor: For more Ancient History , Bookyards section is here.

Antarctic Meltdown: Glacier Larger Than Scotland Shrinking FOUR Times Faster Than Last Decade

In decline: The Pine Island Glacier drains an enormous volume of ice from

the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to the sea

From The Daily Mail:

An Antarctic glacier twice the size of Scotland is melting much faster than scientists had bargained for.

The Pine Island Glacier in west Antarctica is losing ice four times quicker than a decade ago, researchers warned today.
If the thinning continues to accelerate at this speed, the main section of the glacier will be gone within the next 100 years - six times faster than was previously estimated.

Read more ....

Spoon-Bending For Beginners: Teaching Anomalistic Psychology To Teenagers

Uri Geller holds a spoon he claims to have bent using supernatural powers. Photograph: David Furst/AFP/Getty Images

From The Guardian:

Why introduce students to a field of psychology investigating claims that fly in the face of mainstream science? Chris French can think of several good reasons.

From next month, potentially thousands of teenagers at schools and colleges throughout the UK will start lessons that deal with telepathy, psychokinesis, psychic healing, near-death experiences and talking to the dead. Surely the minds of the nation's youth will be corrupted by all this mumbo-jumbo?

Read more ....

India's Water Use 'Unsustainable'

Much of the water used in paddy fields is pumped from underground.

From The BBC:

Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according to results from Nasa's gravity satellites.

The Grace mission discovered that in the country's north-west - including Delhi - the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.

Writing in the journal Nature, they say rainfall has not changed, and water use is too high, mainly for farming.

The finding is published two days after an Indian government report warning of a potential water crisis.

That report noted that access to water was one of the main factors governing the pace of development in the world's second most populous nation.

Read more ....

Experiments Push Quantum Mechanics To Higher Levels

John Martinis and Matthew Neeley are researchers at University of California - Santa Barbara. (Credit: George Foulsham, Office of Public Affairs, UCSB)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 13, 2009) — Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have devised a new type of superconducting circuit that behaves quantum mechanically – but has up to five levels of energy instead of the usual two. The findings are published in the August 7 issue of Science.

These circuits act like artificial atoms in that they can only gain or lose energy in packets, or quanta, by jumping between discrete energy levels. "In our previous work, we focused on systems with just two energy levels, 'qubits,' because they are the quantum analog of 'bits,' which have two states, on and off," said Matthew Neeley, first author and a graduate student at UCSB.

Read more ....

Fire Used To Make Better Tools 75,000 Years Ago

Experimentally replicated blade tools produced with heat treated silcrete. Some of these tools may have been mounted unto a wood handle to create a tool with disposable blades, as pictured above. Credit: © Science/AAAS

From Live Science:

Early humans crossed a threshold around 75,000 years ago, when they started painting symbols, carving patterns and making jewelry. A new study found they also began to use fire to make tools around that time.

Until now, this complex, multi-step process for tool making was only known to occur as recently as 25,000 years ago in Europe. But the new findings show this breakthrough occurred much earlier, and in Africa, not Europe.

By heating up stones in a fire before chipping away at them to make blades, early humans could make tools sharper and produce them more efficiently.

Read more ....

Another Nutritional Challenge For Space Food

From L.A. Times:

You may have read yesterday’s story about the food scientists at NASA who have their hands full trying to figure out what astronauts will eat when they blast off on a three-year mission to Mars sometime after the year 2030. For a variety of reasons, the food served on the space shuttle and International Space Station won’t cut it – it’s too heavy, too bulky, and its chemistry makes it prone to spoilage after only a couple of years.

And now the NASA scientists have identified another problem: many of the essential vitamins, amino acids and fatty acids in the foods will degrade over the course of such a long mission.

Read more ....

Pictured: Stunning New Image Of Mars Show Half-Mile Wide Crater Complete With Sand Dunes

This image of the Victoria Crater in the Meridiani Planum region of Mars was taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

From The Daily Mail:

It is one of the most dramatic images to ever emerge from Mars.

In fact, this extraordinary photograph is so clear that even the sand dunes at the base of the half-mile wide canyon are visible.

Experts even believe that they can see the tracks of a Mars lander on the left-hand corner of the Victoria Crater.

Read more ....

Scientists Reveal Why World's Highest Mountains Are At The Equator

Top: Aerial photograph of the Khumbu Glacier and the Everest Himalayan range
Bottom: Glacially eroded mountains in Jotunheimen in Norway. Photograph: David Lundbek Egholm (bottom) and Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

From The Guardian:

Ice and glacier coverage at lower altitudes in cold climates more important than collision of tectonic plates, researchers find.

Scientists have solved the mystery of why the world's highest mountains sit near the equator - colder climates are better at eroding peaks than had previously been realised.

Mountains are built by the collisions between continental plates that force land upwards. The fastest mountain growth is around 10mm a year in places such as New Zealand and parts of the Himalayas, but more commonly peaks grow at around 2-3mm per year.

Read more ....

Netscape Founder Backs New Browser

Photo: Marc Andreessen, Co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz, in July. Phil McCarten/Reuters

From The New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — It has been 15 years since Marc Andreessen developed the Netscape Internet browser that introduced millions of people to the Internet.

After its early success, Netscape was roundly defeated by Microsoft in the so-called browser wars of the 1990s that dominated the Web’s first chapter.

Mr. Andreessen appears to want a rematch. Now a prominent Silicon Valley financier, Mr. Andreessen is backing a start-up called RockMelt, staffed with some of his close associates, that is building a new Internet browser, according to people with knowledge of his investment.

Read more ....

Options Narrow For Future Of Human Spaceflight

Photo: US human spaceflight panel chairman Norman Augustine listens to public comments at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center on July 29 in in Huntsville, Ala. Bob Gathany/AP

From Christian Science Monitor:

A panel moves closer to recommending where NASA should fly next, and how.

If the US simply maintains spending for human spaceflight at current levels, NASA will have enough money to build one new rocket to carry crews into space by 2020. But it will literally be a rocket to nowhere: The space agency will have no place to send it for at least another decade.

That stark message underlies options for the US human spaceflight program, which a 10-member panel will present to the Obama administration when it wraps up its work at the end of August. The panel's assignment: Present the president with choices that are sustainable, fit within current budget constraints, yet represent bold steps beyond low-Earth orbit.

Read more ....

Top 10 Overlooked Buildings

The Golden Pavilion of Rokuonji Temple in Kyoto, Japan.
Photograph by: Koichi Kamoshida, Getty Images

From The Montreal Gazette:

SYDNEY -- Lists of beautiful buildings laud the Taj Mahal, the Eiffel Tower, and at least one token Frank Gehry building, but there are dozens of other equally beautiful choices that somehow always seem to remain unnoticed.

Members and editors of VirtualTourist.com (www.virtualtourist.com) have compiled a list of what they think are the "World's Top 10 Most Overlooked Beautiful Buildings and Structures." Reuters has not endorsed this list.

Read more ....

BMW ActiveHybrid X6: The Most PowerfulHhybrid In History

BMW ActiveHybrid X6

Officially Official: 2010 BMW ActiveHybrid X6 -- Autoblog

The BMW X6 ActiveHybrid has arrived, and as previously covered, the new gas-electric X6 will be the most powerful hybrid in history, with 480 peak horsepower and diesel-like plateau of 575 lb-ft of torque.

That impressive powertrain consists of twin electric motors (delivering 91 hp and 86 hp, respectively) and a twin-turbo 4.4-liter V8 engine. All those horses will be corralled through a seven-speed dual-mode transmission and BMW's xDrive all-wheel-drive system. The run to sixty will take just 5.4 seconds and the top speed will be limited to 130 miles per hour.

Read more ....

Multiple Sclerosis Successfully Reversed In Mice: New Immune-suppressing Treatment Forces The Disease Into Remission

Dr. Jacques Galipeau of the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University. (Credit: Claudio Calligaris/McGill University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 12, 2009) — A new experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) completely reverses the devastating autoimmune disorder in mice, and might work exactly the same way in humans, say researchers at the Jewish General Hospital Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research and McGill University in Montreal.

MS is an autoimmune disease in which the body's own immune response attacks the central nervous system, almost as if the body had become allergic to itself, leading to progressive physical and cognitive disability.

Read more ....