Airborne Laser Ready For Flight Tests

The US military's missile-defence laser is taking to the air for its first full-power try-out (Image: Russ Underwood, Lockheed Martin)

From The New Scientist:

IT SHOULD be the moment of truth for the Airborne Laser (ABL). In the coming months, the multibillion-dollar laser built into a customised Boeing 747 will try to shoot a ballistic missile as it rises above the clouds.

Don't expect instant reports of success, though. Instead, if all goes to plan, we're likely to hear about a series of incremental improvements.

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Aging Muscles: 'Hard To Build, Easy To Lose'

New research may explain the ongoing loss of muscle in older people, whose arms and legs become thinner as they age. (Credit: iStockphoto/Özgür Donmaz)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 12, 2009) — Have you ever noticed that people have thinner arms and legs as they get older? As we age it becomes harder to keep our muscles healthy. They get smaller, which decreases strength and increases the likelihood of falls and fractures. New research is showing how this happens — and what to do about it.

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Ancient Chinese Remedy May Work for Flu

From Live Science:

Scientists at the Kaohsiung Medial University in Taiwan have discovered that the roots of a plant used in 1918 to fight the Spanish influenza pandemic produces natural antiviral compounds that kill the swine flu virus, H1N1.

Ferula asafetida is commonly known as Dung of the Devil because of its foul-smelling sap and grows primarily in Iran, Afghanistan and mainland China. In their tests of a group of chemical compounds contained in extracts from the plant, scientists Fang-Rong Chang and Yang-Chan Wu discovered that some of them where more potent in killing the H1N1 virus than a prescription antiviral drug.

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Why NASA Should Bomb the Moon to Find Water: Analysis

From Popular Mechanics:

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) is now traveling to the moon at 5592 mph and will crash-land on Oct. 9 in order to gather data from the 6-mile-high impact cloud it will create. Today, as NASA announced the crater where LCROSS will land (Cabeus-A), the mission continues to drum up controversy. Is crash-landing on the moon really necessary for science? Will it be worth the damage done to the moon? To both these questions, PM answers a resounding, Yes. Here's why we're rooting for NASA's October mission to bombard the moon.

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Robotics Rodeo: A Week In Review

The Howe & Howe 'Ripsaw' MS1 (front) is ready for its demo during the Robotics Rodeo at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas on Sept. 3.

Robotic Rodeo Displays Future Help for Soldiers -- Army.com

WASHINGTON (American Forces Press Service) – Two seemingly different U.S. Army organizations gathered robotics experts, technologists, academecs, soldiers and companies from across the country in search of solutions to help save soldiers’ lives.

The 3rd Corps and U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, or TARDEC, based on Fort Hood, Texas, hosted the first Robotics Rodeo to showcase what’s new in the world of automation.

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More News On This Weeks Robotic Rodeo

Robotics Rodeo demos technology to save Soldiers' lives -- Army.mil
Robotic Rodeo Displays Future Help for Soldiers -- U.S. Department of Defense
Army's "Robotics Rodeo" Helps Find Next Generation of Unmanned Vehicles -- Daily Tech
Robots gear up for military duty in 'rodeo' -- Taiwan news
‘Robotics Rodeo' aims to save lives -- Houston Chronicle
Fort Hood shows off its robot army -- Temple Daily Telegram
Photos: Robots on the road to safer convoys -- CNET
Hood hosts ‘Robotics Rodeo’ -- ARMY Times
John Deere goes olive-drab at Robotics Rodeo -- CNET

UCSB Scientists Create Cancer-Stopping Nanoparticle-and-Laser Treatment

This Laser Cures Cancer, Brah: Gary Braun stands by the drug-activating laser courtesy of University of California, Santa Barbara

From Popular Science:

Nanotechnology, lasers, genetics, and cancer? If there was also something about space, this story might have been a PopSci full house. Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), have figured out a way to deliver cancer-stopping RNA directly into the nucleus of a diseased cell. To get into the nucleus, the RNA is wrapped in special gold nanoshells which are then selectively opened by a laser.

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How Soldiers Will See In The Dark Without Night Vision Goggles

Image: Dreamstime/Brightqube

Forget the Goggles: Chlorophyll Eye Drops Give Night Vision -- Discover Magazine

What the dragonfish discovered through evolution, the U.S. military wants to apply to the battlefield.

Seeing in the dark could soon be as easy as popping a pill or squeezing some drops into your eyes, thanks to some new science, an unusual deep-sea fish, and a plant pigment.

Read more ....

My Comment: If this becomes possible .... how war is conducted will certainly change.

Keeping Google Out Of libraries

From The BBC:

The proposed settlement between Google and US publishers must be resisted, argues Bill Thompson

Google is in the middle of a massive project to scan and digitise every book it can get its hands on, whether old or new, and if it gets its way then the US courts will soon endorse an agreement between the search engine giant and the US book industry that will allow it to do this without fear of prosecution for copyright infringement.

Authors and publishers will get some money in return, and we will all benefit from the improved access to digitised books that Google will provide.

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The Hugh Hefner Syndrome – How A Good-looking Partner Makes You More Attractive

Hugh Hefner with bunnies Holly Madison, left, and Bridget Marquardt Photo: AP

From The Telegraph:

Having an attractive mate on your arm makes you look more attractive in the eyes of the opposite sex, claim scientists in research that could explain the continuing appeal of Hugh Hefner.

However going out with a better looking friend of the same sex can have the opposite effect.

Researchers have found that we bask in the reflective glory of our more attractive partners because others assume we must have hidden talents away from our looks.

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Amazing Pictures: Space Shuttle Discovery Soars Through The Clouds Before Landing Safely (After A 2,000 Mile Diversion)

The space shuttle Discovery, lands on runway 22 at
Edwards Air Force Base near Rosamond, California.

From the Daily Mail:

The space shuttle Discovery landed safely in California early today after bad weather forced a switch of its touchdown site at the end of a two-week mission to the International Space Station.

NASA diverted the spaceship to Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert after waiting in vain for two days for rain and clouds to clear over the shuttle's home port in Florida, the originally scheduled landing location.

Under partly cloudy desert skies, the shuttle landed at 0053 GMT.

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White Dwarf "Close" To Exploding As Supernova

From Universe Today:

ESA’s XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered the first close-up of a white dwarf star that could explode into a type Ia supernova within a few million years. That's relatively soon in cosmic time frames, and although this white dwarf that is orbiting its companion star HD 49798, is far enough away to pose no danger to Earth, it is close enough to become an extraordinarily spectacular celestial sight. Calculations suggest that it will blaze initially with the intensity of the full Moon and be so bright that it will be seen in the daytime sky with the naked eye. But don't worry, it will be awhile!

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Evolution Coup: Study Reveals How Plants Protect Their Genes

Researchers have discovered a new pathway that plants use to protect their genes against dangerous alterations that could also allow some useful mutations to occur. (Credit: iStockphoto/Duncan Walker)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — Unlike animals and humans, plants can't run and hide when exposed to stressful environmental conditions. So how do plants survive? A new Université de Montréal study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found a key mechanism that enables plants to keep dangerous gene alterations in check to ensure their continued existence.

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Predicting Extraterrestrial Weather

Two Hubble Space Telescope storm watch images from late June and early September offer dramatically contrasting views of the martian surface. At left, the onset of smaller "seed" storms can be seen near the Hellas basin (lower right edge of Mars) and the northern polar cap. A similar surface view at right, taken over two months later, shows the fully developed extent of the obscuring global dust storm. Credit: J. Bell (Cornell), M. Wolff (Space Science Inst.), Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA), NASA

From Live Science:

Maybe even more than average citizens, the world's space agencies rely on daily and seasonal reports to better understand weather on Earth and other planets. Space-mission success ties directly to effective anticipation and navigation of inclement surface and atmospheric conditions.

Mission-design engineers at NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and similar organizations need to know what environmental issues a Mars Lander or Rover might face to ensure that heat shields, parachutes and other on-board mechanisms survive the trip through the atmosphere to the surface.

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The Coming Battle Over Fresh Water

Hustle and Flow -- Audubon Magazine

As water becomes increasingly scarce, we may have to charge for every drop.

In a now-famous interview with The New York Times in 1995, Ismail Serageldin, the World Bank’s vice president for environmentally sustainable development, said, “Many of the wars in this century were about oil, but wars of the next century will be over water.” While the situation is currently considerably less dire in the United States than in many other places around the world, an escalating fight over water in the coming years is in the making. We are “entering an era of water reallocation, when water for new uses will come from existing users who have incentives to use less,” says Robert Glennon, the Morris K. Udall professor of law and public policy at the University of Arizona, in his new book Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What to Do About It. Those reallocations can take place through contentious politicking and in the courts, or, Glennon argues, more peaceably, through market forces.

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Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug Dies At 95

From CNN:

(CNN) -- Nobel laureate Norman E. Borlaug, an agricultural scientist who helped develop disease-resistant wheat used to fight famine in poor countries, died Saturday. He was 95.

Borlaug died from cancer complications in Dallas, Texas, a spokeswoman for Texas A&M University said.

A 1970 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Borlaug was a distinguished professor of international agriculture at the university.

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More News On The Passing Of Norman Borlaug

'Green Revolution' pioneer Borlaug dies: report -- AFP
Nobel-winning agricultural scientist Borlaug dies -- Reuters
Agriculture pioneer Borlaug dies -- BBC
Dr. Norman E. Borlaug Passes Away -- Ag Wired
Norman Borlaug -- The Examiner
Norman Borlaug, RIP -- Power Line
Norman Borlaug: The Man Who Saved More Human Lives Than Any Other Has Died -- Reason
A look at honors bestowed on Norman Borlaug -- AP

Why The DOJ Wants More On Yahoo Search Deal

From CNET:

The long road toward Microsoft and Yahoo's search deal could be set to get a little longer, or fall off a cliff.

Both companies have long expected the U.S. Department of Justice to scrutinize the deal to install Microsoft as the exclusive search provider for Yahoo's Web pages, which would also see Yahoo end its time as a search company. Microsoft and Yahoo confirmed Friday that the Justice Department has asked the two companies for more information about their deal, which is a step beyond taking a mere interest in the proceedings.

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NASA Names Target For Water Hunt At Moon's South Pole

Scientists have suggested that water ice millions of years old might be found in the shadowed craters of the moon's north and south poles, where the sun never shines. (AP)

From L.A. Times:

The LCROSS satellite and rocket are to plunge into the surface Oct. 9, stirring up a dust cloud that may contain ice. The find would have major scientific implications and aid future space plans.

NASA scientists announced Friday that they had picked a 60-mile-wide crater near the moon's south pole as the place where they will send a rocket to punch a hole in the lunar surface next month in search of water.

Instruments aboard other satellites and on Earth have detected a significant amount of hydrogen, a telltale marker for water, on the northwest rim of the crater known as Cabeus A.

Read more ....

On the Scene: NASA's Huge Rocket Test

Ares First Stage Rocket Test: NASA, Walt Lindblom

From Space.com:

PROMONTORY, UTAH – After two previous cancellations of debut engine tests of NASA's new Ares I rocket, there was a bit of trepidation among the spectators near the ATK Space Systems test facility in Promontory Point, Utah.

On Thursday afternoon, ATK successfully test fired the Ares I rocket's first stage, a giant solid-fueled booster, that will be used to launch astronauts on NASA's Orion spacecraft no earlier than 2015. We were on location to witness the high tech fireworks show [SEE VIDEO], $75 million in the making. And while the price tag might be a bit daunting, the spectacle of the test-firing and the magnitude of the Ares project were truly breathtaking

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Aage Bohr

At the nobel Prize ceremony Photo: Bettmann Archive/Corbis

From The Telegraph:

Aage Bohr, who died on September 8 aged 87, was a pioneering nuclear physicist and Nobel Prize winner; in his youth he escaped from Nazi-occupied Denmark with his father, Niels Bohr, a central figure in the Manhattan Project, to whom Aage was a valuable assistant.

The Bohr family fled from Denmark to neutral Sweden in 1943 after Hitler had ordered the deportation of Danish Jews. From Sweden the Bohrs headed for London where Niels became involved in what Aage was later to call, somewhat euphemistically, "the atomic energy project".

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Nanotubes Could Enable Self-Repairing Electronic Circuits

Nanotube Self-Healing Power: Capsules holding carbon nanotubes can put the zazz back in broken circuits J. Mat. Chem./RSC Publishing

From Popular Science:

Researchers develop nanotubes that can help circuits repair critical breaks.

Many people know the familiar wince when a cell phone or laptop hits the floor. But electronic devices of the future may self-repair tiny cracks or breaks in their circuitry with the help of nanotubes.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created capsules that hold conductive nanotubes and can sit on circuit boards. Mechanical stress that causes a crack in the circuit would also split open some capsules and release the nanotubes to help bridge the gap.

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Potato Blight Has The Genome Of Death

From New Scientist:

THE blight that triggered the great famine in Ireland in 1845 is still the biggest disease threat to spuds worldwide - and it's no wonder.

Researchers have sequenced the genome of the mould that causes blight and found it keeps a huge arsenal of potato-destroying genes, ready to evolve around whatever defences taters can muster. On the plus side, the sequence also suggests ways to fight back.

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Carbon Nanotubes Could Make Efficient Solar Cells

In a carbon nanotube-based photodiode, electrons (blue) and holes (red) - the positively charged areas where electrons used to be before becoming excited - release their excess energy to efficiently create more electron-hole pairs when light is shined on the device. (Credit: Nathan Gabor)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than now used in calculators and on rooftops.

Read more ....

Life in the Dark: How Organisms Survived Asteroid Impacts

One of the phototrophs used in the experiment was Chlorella vulgaris.
Credit: Charles University in Prague.

From Live Science:

A dinosaur-killing asteroid may have wiped out much of life on Earth 65 million years ago, but now scientists have discovered how smaller organisms might have survived in the darkness following such a catastrophic impact.

Survival may have depended upon jack-of-all-trades organisms called mixotrophs that can consume organic matter in the absence of sunlight. That would have proved crucial during the long months of dust and debris blotting out the sun, when plenty of dead or dying organic matter filled the Earth's oceans and lakes.

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Killer Whales Strain to "Talk" Over Ship Noise?

A baby killer whale surfaces near adults in Puget Sound. The calf was born in March 2009 to a pod that lives near the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State.
The San Juan killer whales "talk" more during foraging than traveling, researchers said in September 2009. But since the whales also have to raise their voices to be heard above boat noise, scientists worry that the animals may be using up too much energy during hunts, even as their preferred prey, chinook salmon, are on the decline. Photograph courtesy Center for Whale Research via AP

From National Geographic:

Killer whales raise their voices to be heard over boat noise, and the effort may be wearing the whales out as they try to find food amid dwindling numbers of salmon, new research says.

The killer whales of Puget Sound make more calls and clicks while foraging than while traveling, suggesting that such mealtime conservations are key to coordinating hunts, the work reveals.

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Junk Cost Estimates Supplied to Augustine Committee Threaten to Sink NASA's Human Spaceflight Program

From The Mars Society:

The Mars Society has examined copies of the cost projections being used by the Augustine Committee in currently considering the future of NASA's human spaceflight program. These estimates, generated by the Aerospace Corporation, a US Air Force funded policy oracle, have no scientific basis and have clearly been composed to make the case that human space exploration is unaffordable.

A copy of the Aerospace Corporation's bizarre cost estimates being used by the Augustine Committee is available here.

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Earlier Model of Human Brain's Energy Usage Underestimated Its Efficiency

A MODEL OF EFFICIENCY?: That mammals' brains appear to conserve energy on the front end of synapse communication leads researchers to believe the advance helped allow bigger brains to develop. ISTOCKPHOTO/KTSIMAGE

From Scientific American:

A long-held model of the brain's efficiency crumbles as researchers find that one function of mammals' brains consumes a lot less energy than previously assumed. Now, basic measurements of neural activity--from brain energy budgets to fMRI results--may have to be reassessed.

The human brain is an incredible energy drain. Taking up only about 2 percent of the body's mass, the organ uses more than a fifth of bodily energy. Ever more accurate calculations of its energy budget at the level of the neuron (nerve cell) are important to researchers ranging from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysts to evolutionary biologists.

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Wide Angle: Swine Flu Outbreak

The last flu pandemic -- the Hong Kong flu of 1968 -- killed about 1 million people. The Hong Kong government has ordered all kindergartens and primary schools closed after a dozen students tested positive for the swine flu. Credit: AP

From Discovery News:

The H1N1 swine flu is a vicious flu strain that's on the rise across the globe. Discovery News tracks its progress from a minor outbreak in Mexico to a full-blown, world-wide pandemic in this Wide Angle.

As the World Health Organization officially declares the H1N1 swine flu has reached Level 6 -- pandemic status -- the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is tracking cases of swine flu in the United States. The CDC is preparing local and state clinics to treat the virus, and some cities have issued face masks and personal contact guidelines to combat the spread of germs. Discovery News looks at how the swine flu outbreak became the next pandemic, how microbes behave and more.

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DNA Fingerprinting 25 Years Old

From BBC:

The scientist behind DNA fingerprinting has called for a change to the law governing DNA databases on the 25th anniversary of his discovery.

Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys uncovered the process by chance in his laboratory at Leicester University.

The technique has since been used to solve crimes and identity cases.

But it has also led to controversy over profiles kept on the national DNA database. "Innocent people do not belong on that database," he said.

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E-book Readers Still Owned By Small Niche

From CNET:

The tech industry buzzes a lot about e-book readers. But how widely are they actually used?

Among 1,529 consumers who responded to a July 2009 questionnaire from research firm In-Stat, only 5.8 percent currently own an e-book reader. And only 11 percent of those questioned said they planned to buy one in the next 12 months, according to the In-Stat report released this week.

Those low results may be even more significant given that In-Stat's survey audience consisted of high-end consumers who typically adopt new technology earlier than the general public.

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NASA & Its Discontents: Frustrated Engineers Battle With NASA Over The Future Of Spaceflight

From Popular Mechanics:

A group of renegade space vehicle designers, including NASA engineers bucking their bosses, are publicly crying out against the current Shuttle retirement plan. Their proposed plan, called Jupiter Direct, is an affront to NASA's current plans for the Ares I rocket, which they say is more costly and time-consuming than it needs to be. This is their story.

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Take An Orbital Vacation On A Surplus Soviet Military Spacecraft

Almaz Spacecraft: Turning guns into space tourism, courtesy of a retrofitted Soviet-era military spacecraft. Excalibur Almaz

From Popular Science:

Space tourists with deep pockets and dreams of recapturing Cold War nostalgia need look no further than Excalibur Almaz. The new company is asking $35 million for a weeklong stay aboard a Soviet-era military spacecraft.

Excalibur's purchase of the Russian military-surplus "Almaz" reentry capsules turned heads in August. But the latest announcement firmly sets Excalibur up as a competitor with Space Adventures, the only private outfit that currently offers rides into orbit aboard the three-man Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

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Surprise In Earth's Upper Atmosphere: Mode Of Energy Transfer From The Solar Wind

In addition to emitting electromagnetic radiation, the sun emits a stream of ionized particles called the solar wind that affects Earth and other planets in the solar system. (Credit: SOHO image composite by Steele Hill (NASA))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 11, 2009) — UCLA atmospheric scientists have discovered a previously unknown basic mode of energy transfer from the solar wind to the Earth's magnetosphere. The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, could improve the safety and reliability of spacecraft that operate in the upper atmosphere.

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New Glass Resists Small Explosions

From Live Science:

Scientists have created a new type of blast-resistant glass that is thinner, lighter and less vulnerable to small-scale explosions than existing glass.

In tests, the improved glass design has been shown to withstand a hand grenade-strength bomb explosion originating close to the window panel. The blast caused the glass panel to crack, but didn’t puncture the composite layer.

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Brain Cells Slicker Than We Thought

From New Scientist:

Rat brain cells waste little energy when talking to one another. That finding might not sound unusual, but it challenges the long-standing view that brain cells are extremely inefficient at sending signals.

In 1939, Alan Hodgkin of the University of Cambridge and Andrew Huxley of University College London experimented on nerve cells from the giant squid. They concluded that the energy of electrical signals sent along axons – the cells' "cables", each 1 millimetre in diameter in the giant squid – was four times the theoretical minimum.

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Where Did All the Flowers Come From?

RARE PLANT Amborella trichopoda, a small shrub found only on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific, represents the oldest living lineage of flowering plants. Sangtae Kim/University of Florida

From The New York Times:

Throughout his life, Charles Darwin surrounded himself with flowers. When he was 10, he wrote down each time a peony bloomed in his father’s garden. When he bought a house to raise his own family, he turned the grounds into a botanical field station where he experimented on flowers until his death. But despite his intimate familiarity with flowers, Darwin once wrote that their evolution was “an abominable mystery.”

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Stone Man Joins Carved Animals In Neolithic Farmyard

Stone figurine of a reclining man found at Çatalhöyük in Turkey. Photograph: Jason Quinlan/Çatalhöyük Research Project

From The Guardian:

The figurine was dug up at the ancient site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey, which is thought to have been home for some of the world's first farmers.

A reclining man with a bushy beard and big nose is the latest to join a haul of stone figurines unearthed at the ancient site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. The sculpture, which measures around six inches high, was uncovered at the neolithic site last week.

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Twitter Paves Way For Advertising By Changing Terms Of Use

From Times Online:

Social networking site could start making money after amending terms of use so advertising can reach its users.

Twitter, the popular micro-blogging website, took another step towards making money yesterday by amending its terms of use to allow advertisers to reach its 45 million regular visitors.

The company, founded two years ago, has exploded in popularity but has held back from introducing ways to monetise its internet traffic. Its founders have said they wanted to concentrate on growth and not alienate account holders.

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Wolves Aren’t Making It Easy for Idaho Hunters

Marv Hagedorn, an Idaho state representative and hunter, hunting for wolves in the Boise Mountains with his son, John, ahead. Paul Hosefros for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

BOISE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho — Hunting and killing are not the same thing. Even as Idaho has sold more than 14,000 wolf-hunting permits, the first 10 days of the first legal wolf hunt here in decades have yielded only three reported legal kills.

Such modest early results might seem surprising in a state that has tried for years to persuade the federal government to let it reduce the wolf population through hunting.

Idahoans, among the nation’s most passionate hunters, are learning that the wolf’s small numbers — about 850 were counted in the state at the end of last year — make it at once more vulnerable and more elusive.

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Frankfurt Motor Show: Mercedes SLS AMG Is The New 'Gullwing'

From The Telegraph:

A dashing new interpretation of Mercedes-Benz's fabled "Gullwing" model, called the SLS AMG, will be one of the stars of the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Gone are the familiar rounded nose, circular headlights and triangular rear quarter-lights of the 1950s model.

In their place, the German firm will unveil a chiselled, aerodynamic new model with vertically slanted headlights, a steeply-raked windscreen and taut, muscular, ground-hugging lines.

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Discovery Glides To Smooth California Landing

The shuttle Discovery banks to line up on runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base in California's Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles. (Credit: NASA TV)

From CNET:

Detoured by bad weather in Florida, the shuttle Discovery dropped out of orbit and swooped to a flawless California landing Friday to close out a successful space station resupply mission.

Shuttle commander Frederick "C.J." Sturckow and pilot Kevin Ford fired the shuttle's twin braking rockets at 4:47 p.m. PDT to drop the ship out of orbit for an hour-long descent to Edwards Air Force Base.

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You Can Believe Your Eyes: New Insights Into Memory Without Conscious Awareness

New findings may shed light on the role of the hippocampus in memory and awareness, as they suggest that even when people fail to recollect a past event, the hippocampus might still support an expression of memory through eye movements. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2009) — Scientists may have discovered a way to glean information about stored memories by tracking patterns of eye movements, even when an individual is unable (or perhaps even unwilling) to report what they remember. The research, published by Cell Press in the September 10th issue of the journal Neuron, provides compelling insight into the relationship between activity in the hippocampus, eye movements, and both conscious and unconscious memory.

Read more ....

7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You

From Live Science:

Our personalities do more for us than determine our social circles. Temperament can impact a person's physical health.

"The idea that behavior or personality traits can influence health is one that's been around for a long time. We're just now getting a handle on to what extent they do," said Stephen Boyle of Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

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NASA's Plans Lack The Cash

Photo: Fly me to the moon? Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Credit: NASA

From Technology News:

On Tuesday, after months of deliberation, the independent committee charged with reviewing the future of the U.S. human space program released a summary report of its findings, a document that will guide key decisions that lie ahead for the Obama administration.

According to the report, the current crisis facing NASA lies with its budget, and not with technical or programmatic issues. "The report clearly stated that the current program is not executable or sustainable with the budget that we have," says Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, in DC.

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Our Stone Age Ancestors Wore Bright And Garish Clothes

Our stone age ancestors may have worn brightly coloured threads rather than drab skins as portrayed in films like One Million Years BC

From The Daily Mail:

They are normally pictured wearing drab furs and skins. But an astonishing new discovery suggests that our Stone Age ancestors had a taste for garish, colourful clothes.

Archaeologists have uncovered an extraordinary haul of pink, turquoise and black fibres that were used to make thread more than 34,000 years ago.

The flax fibres, which were buried in a cave in the hills of the Republic of Georgia, were discovered by an international team of fossil hunters.

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The iPod Is Dead

From Slate:

One sign that Steve Jobs is back to his old self: He's already sniping at rivals. After Apple's iPod launch event on Wednesday, the New York Times' David Pogue asked the CEO whether he has doubts—as he's expressed in the past—about the market for e-readers, especially Amazon's Kindle. Jobs said he was still skeptical. Amazon, he pointed out, has never released sales numbers for the Kindle, and "usually, if they sell a lot of something, you want to tell everybody." More importantly, Jobs doesn't think people want to buy a device just to read books. "I'm sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing," Jobs said. "But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day."

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Memories Exist Even When Forgotten, Study Suggests

Jeff Johnson of the UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning & Memory and colleagues discovered that a person's brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can't be recalled. Johnson says brain imaging shines a "searchlight" into the brain. (Credit: Daniel A. Anderson / University Communications)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2009) — A woman looks familiar, but you can't remember her name or where you met her. New research by UC Irvine neuroscientists suggests the memory exists – you simply can't retrieve it.

Using advanced brain imaging techniques, the scientists discovered that a person's brain activity while remembering an event is very similar to when it was first experienced, even if specifics can't be recalled.

Read more ....

Computer Could Call Football Plays

New York Jets place kicker Jay Feely (3) kicks an overtime, game-winning field goal against the New England Patriots in their NFL football game in Foxborough, Massachusetts November 13, 2008. Brian Snyder / Reuters

From Live Science:

WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- Football coaches are famous for their dedication to winning. Video studies of upcoming opponents begin so early in the morning that most people are still dreaming about their first cup of coffee; strategy sessions run past the time insomniacs fall asleep.

But a new computer model may be able to take the play calling load off of the coach and, through fast, real-time analysis of all the offensive and defensive possibilities, dictate the best play to call in any game situation. The program takes the human element out of play calling and instead uses mathematical and statistical techniques.

Read more ....

Diamonds Are For Softies – Boron Is Harder

Diamonds are famously the hardest natural substance, but they may be about to lose their crown (Image: Salexmccoy, Wikimedia Commons)

From New Scientist:

You don't often break a diamond. So when in 2003 Dave Mao cracked a tooth of his diamond anvil, he knew something extraordinary must have happened. Together with his daughter Wendy and other colleagues at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, he was using the device to test materials at pressures many millions of times higher than those at the Earth's surface - higher even than in our planet's core - by squeezing them between two tiny diamond jaws.

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The Working Person's Diet: Too Busy to Eat Right

From Time Magazine:

If you've ever gotten so busy at work that you skipped lunch and ended up staring at your hungry reflection in the vending-machine glass in the late afternoon, then you're familiar with this gastro-economic catch-22: losing your job may mean cutting back on food bills, but gainful employment could result in poor eating habits overall.

That's the conclusion of a new nutritional study by researchers at Cornell University. They conducted a survey of 25 working mothers and 25 working fathers in low-to-moderate-income communities and found that more than half of the participants routinely resorted to unhealthy eating options because of their work circumstances.

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Why Washing May Hamper Your Attractiveness

Chris Rout/Alamy

From The Independent:

A natural chemical found in the sweat of men has been shown to act as a primitive love potion that increases their attractiveness in the eyes of women, a study has found.

The substance, which is derived from the male sex hormone testosterone, has a small but significant effect on judgements made by women in a speed-dating situation of a male stranger's attractiveness.

Tamsin Saxton of the University of St Andrews studied the influence of androstadienone by dabbling a drop of it on the upper lip of 50 women who took part in the evening trial before they "dated" a series of men.

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