Deadly Second Wave Of Swine Flu 'On Its Way', Scientists Warn

Disruption: A woman walks through London with a surgical mask in an attempt to protect her from swine flu (file picture). Scientists fear the deadly second wave of swine flu is on its way.

From The Daily Mail:

A second wave of swine flu could be on its way, scientists warned last night after the number of new cases rose for the first time since July.

The jump, from an estimated 3,000 to 5,000, comes a fortnight after children - key spreaders of the disease - returned to school.

There have been outbreaks at six schools in England, but health chiefs repeated that there are no plans to close schools as it would do little to contain the disease.

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Wide Angle: Supplying The Space Station

The space station needs supplies, and now Japan is helping NASA, Roscosmos and ESA to feed the crew and ferry equipment to and from Earth orbit. However, concerns about the US space agency's funding issues could spell trouble in the future. Credit: JAXA

From Discovery Space:

Regardless of the trials and tribulations going on down here on Earth, the International Space Station continues to orbit the planet. Forget NASA's problems with funding for the moment and remember there are six permanent astronauts and cosmonauts manning this extreme outpost... and they need to eat and drink. How is the space station resupplied? Which nations are ferrying food and water into low-Earth orbit? What plans are there for the future?

In this Wide Angle, we will investigate these questions while learning about the implications the Augustine Commission and how the committee's findings may affect this expensive piece of real estate...

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Real-Time Hackers Foil Two-Factor Security

Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

One-time passwords are vulnerable to new hacking techniques.

In mid-July, an account manager at Ferma, a construction firm in Mountain View, CA, logged in to the company's bank account to pay bills, using a one-time password to make the transactions more secure.

Yet the manager's computer had a hitchhiker. A forensic analysis performed later would reveal that an earlier visit to another website had allowed a malicious program to invade his computer. While the manager issued legitimate payments, the program initiated 27 transactions to various bank accounts, siphoning off $447,000 in a matter of minutes. "They not only got into my system here, they were able to ascertain how much they could draw, so they drew the limit," says Roy Ferrari, Ferma's president.

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Planck Telescope's First Glimpse

Planck maps tiny temperature variations (the mottled colours in the strip) in nine frequency ranges overlaid here. These fluctuations correspond to the matter distribution in the early cosmos. Planck needs six months to complete a full sky map. Esa released more detailed data on the square regions.

From The BBC:

The European telescope sent far from Earth to study the oldest light in the Universe has returned its first images.

The Planck observatory, launched in May, is surveying radiation that first swept out across space just 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

The light holds details about the age, contents and evolution of the cosmos.

The new images show off Planck's capabilities now that it has been set up, although major science results are not expected for a couple of years.

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The 33 Most Deadly Substances On Earth

From The Toy Zone:

Keep well away from the following 33 substances unless you want to end up 6 feet under.

1. Amanitas – Destroying Angel

Location: Europe and in the United States.

In Europe, the blossoms vary in color from pale-green or yellow-olive and along both the east and west coasts in the United States. However, they range from white to light brown in the rest of the United States.

Amanitin can be detected in the blood almost immediately. The first physical symptoms are usually nausea, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea. After an early feeling of slight discomfort, there is a sudden onset of extreme stomach pain, violent vomiting, intense thirst, and cyanosis of the extremities. Jaundice of the eyes and skin can also occur if the liver is badly affected. The patient remains conscious almost to the end, with only brief intervals of unconsciousness occurring between long lucid periods before lapsing into a coma followed by death.

Antidotes and Treatments: There are no known antidotes for Amanita poisoning; however, victims have survived after receiving liver transplants.

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Brunel, Locke And Stephenson: The Engineering Giants Who Shaped Our World

Paddington station: designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened in 1847
Photo: PA

From The Telegraph:

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Joseph Locke and Robert Stephenson are past giants of engineering whose legacy remains one hundred and fifty years on, says Michael Bailey.

One hundred and fifty years ago today, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the greatest engineers in history, died at the age of just 53. His funeral in Kensal Green cemetery was attended by several hundred people, including Joseph Locke who, with Brunel, had opened up Britain to the railway. He was buried a year later, also in Kensal Green.

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Colour Blindness Breakthrough In Gene Therapy Experiment

Squirrel monkey Dalton, who was successfully treated for red-green colour blindness. The image on the left simulates what the scene would have looked like to a monkey or human before the treatment. Photograph: Neitz Laboratory

From The Guardian:

Two squirrel monkeys that were colour-blind from birth have had their vision restored after receiving gene therapy.

The experiment paves the way for the treatment of a range of genetic eye disorders in humans, including some that cause full or partial blindness in millions of people worldwide.

Sam and Dalton, two male squirrel monkeys, were able to see the world in full colour five months after being treated, doctors said. The animals were born without an ability to see the colour red.

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Patterns In Mars Crater Floors Give Picture Of Drying Lakes

Detailed image of large-scale crater floor polygons, caused by desiccation process, with smaller polygons caused by thermal contraction inside. The central polygon is 160 metres in diameter, smaller ones range 10 to 15 metres in width and the cracks are 5-10 metres across. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2009) — Networks of giant polygonal troughs etched across crater basins on Mars have been identified as desiccation cracks caused by evaporating lakes, providing further evidence of a warmer, wetter martian past.

The findings were presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by PhD student Mr M Ramy El Maarry of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

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What Are The Signs of Diabetes?

From Live Science:

This Week's Question: I've been very thirsty lately and someone mentioned to me that this
is a symptom for diabetes. Is that true?

An intense thirst is one diabetes symptom. Here are others: frequent urination, strong hunger, fatigue, unintended weight loss, slow-healing sores, dry and itchy skin, numbness or tingling in your feet, and blurred vision. However, some people with diabetes do not have symptoms.

Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases characterized by high levels of blood sugar. Diabetes can create serious health problems, but diabetics can control the disease.

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China Says Will Push Space Programme To Catch Up West

From Breitbart/AFP:

China said Thursday its rapidly growing space programme was the crowning achievement of the nation's high-tech transformation and pledged to continue to develop it to close the gap with Western countries.

"I believe a space programme represents a country's high technology and I believe China has already become a major country in high technology," Vice Minister of Science and Technology Li Xueyong told reporters.

"Our success shows not only the progress of the space programme but also our overall level of science and technology," he said at a press briefing.

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Fossil Find Challenges Theories on T. Rex

The bones of Raptorex were discovered in northern China. Mike Hettwer

From The New York Times:

Paleontologists said Thursday that they had discovered what amounted to a miniature prototype of Tyrannosaurus rex, complete with the oversize head, powerful jaws, long legs — and, as every schoolchild knows, puny arms — that were hallmarks of the king of the dinosaurs.

But this scaled-down version, which was about nine feet long and weighed only 150 pounds, lived 125 million years ago, about 35 million years before giant Tyrannosaurs roamed the earth. So the discovery calls into question theories about the evolution of T. rex, which was about five times longer and almost 100 times heavier.

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Pictured: Three Bald Eagles Lock Talons As They Plunge To The Ground In Mid-Air Battle

The three hungry bald eagles lock talons in a vicious mid-air battle for a fish supper

From The Daily Mail:

Locked in desperate mid-air battle, the three eagles plunge towards the ground in a contest to see who will let go last.

Between their claws lies a gasping fish freshly plucked from an Alaskan lake, now the target of fearsome talons as each eagle grapples for supper.

This is not so much a desperate bid for food - instead it's a macho show of strength between three birds who want to show who's who in the pecking order.

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Counting Money 'Makes People Feel Better About Themselves'

Research suggests that counting cash makes people feel better about themselves.

From The Telegraph:

Counting money can make you feel good about yourself – even if it isn't your own, according to a new study.

Just handling and thinking about money can actually lessen pain and even ease the social stigma of having no friends, researchers believe.

The psychological benefits increase feelings of internal strength, fearlessness and confidence.

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Pause In Arctic's Melting Trend

Photo: Walrus have been seen on Alaska's north coast in unusual numbers

From The BBC:

This summer's melt of Arctic sea ice has not been as profound as in the last two years, scientists said as the ice began its annual Autumn recovery.

At its smallest extent this summer, on 12 September, the ice covered 5.10 million sq km (1.97 million sq miles).

This was larger than the minima seen in the last two years, and leaves 2007's record low of 4.1 million sq km (1.6 million sq miles) intact.

But scientists note the long-term trend is still downwards.

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How Last.fm Inspired A Scientific Breakthrough

From The Guardian:

I first saw Mendeley pitch two weeks ago – now it is on the way to changing the face of science.

The music radio site Last.fm is one of the great ideas from the UK during the first dotcom boom. Users can listen to their own songs and other tracks recommended by Last.fm's algorithms based on their tastes, including iTunes, and those of friends. It could easily have been a one-trick pony. But now a few academics have applied its serendipity to scientific research. Why can't researchers, instead of waiting anywhere up to three years for their papers to jump all the hurdles, be part of a real-time market place – a fusion of iTunes and Last.fm for science?

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Women Really Can't Keep A Secret: Tongues Start Wagging After Just 47 Hours

Spilling the beans: Women cannot keep a secret for longer than 47 hours

From The Daily Mail:

Ever wondered how long a woman can keep a secret? Well the answer, it seems, is less than two days.

Researchers found that they will typically spill the beans to someone else in 47 hours and 15 minutes.

A study of 3,000 women aged between 18 and 65 also found that four in ten were unable to keep a secret, no matter how personal or confidential the news was.

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Brain Science To Help Teachers Get Into Kids' Heads

Neuroscience is set to bring fresh insight to teaching
(Image: Anne-Christine Poujoulat / Getty)

From The New Scientist:

NEUROSCIENCE could do for schools what biomedical research has done for healthcare. That's the conclusion of the Decade of the Mind (DOM) symposium last week in Berlin, Germany, to discuss how the latest findings could be used to improve education.

"In medicine, we have an excellent system in place to go from basic research to clinical practice, while in neuroscience we have the basic understanding of how the brain learns but still need to figure out how to translate this into the classroom," says Manfred Spitzer of the University of Ulm in Germany, one of the conference organisers.

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Scientists Cure Color Blindness In Monkeys

A test for color blindness showing a "6". Scientists used gene therapy to cure two squirrel monkeys of color blindness -- the most common genetic disorder in people. (Credit: iStockphoto/Thomas Pullicino)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2009) — Researchers from the University of Washington and the University of Florida used gene therapy to cure two squirrel monkeys of color blindness — the most common genetic disorder in people.

Writing online September 15 in the journal Nature, scientists cast a rosy light on the potential for gene therapy to treat adult vision disorders involving cone cells — the most important cells for vision in people.

Read more ....

Can Robots Make Ethical Decisions?

From Live Science:

Robots and computers are often designed to act autonomously, that is, without human intervention. Is it possible for an autonomous machine to make moral judgments that are in line with human judgment?

This question has given rise to the issue of machine ethics and morality. As a practical matter, can a robot or computer be programmed to act in an ethical manner? Can a machine be designed to act morally?

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Killer Whales Die Without King Salmon

King Salmon: It's What's for Dinner. A killer whale snags a king salmon. Some killer whale populations favor king salmon so much that the whales will actually die when numbers of this largest member of the salmon family drop. Brian Gisborne

From Discovery News:

Sept. 16, 2009 -- Some killer whale populations favor king salmon so much that the whales will actually die when numbers of this largest member of the salmon family drop, according to new research.

The study, published in the latest Royal Society Biology Letters, suggests that although killer whales may consume a variety of fish species and mammals, many are highly specialized hunters dependent on this single salmon species.

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Facebook Grows And Makes Money

From The BBC:

The world's largest social networking site just got bigger with the announcement it has 300 million active monthly users from around the globe.

Facebook also revealed that it had started making money ahead of schedule.

The company had not expected to start turning a profit until sometime in 2010.

"This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"We are succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. We are just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.

Read more ....

Advanced Solar Panels Coming to Market

Photo: Cheaper solar: Nanosolar’s thin-film panels.
Credit: Nanosolar

From Technology Review:

Nanosolar's new factory could help lower the price of solar power, if the market cooperates.

A promising type of solar-power technology has moved a step closer to mass production. Nanosolar, based in San Jose, CA, has opened an automated facility for manufacturing its solar panels, which are made by printing a semiconductor material called CIGS on aluminum foil. The manufacturing facility is located in Germany, where government incentives have created a large market for solar panels. Nanosolar has the potential to make 640 megawatts' worth of solar panels there every year.

Read more ....

New 'Drake Equation' For Alien Habitats

An illustration of an alien exoplanet orbiting a distant star.
Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: A mathematical equation that counts habitats suitable for alien life could complement the Drake equation, which estimates the probability of finding intelligent alien beings elsewhere in the galaxy.

That equation, developed in 1960 by U.S. astronomer Frank Drake, estimates the probability of intelligent life existing elsewhere in our galaxy by considering the number of stars with planets that could support life (see "Are we alone?").

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Near-Instant Book Printer Adds Google Books Titles

A morning's worth of output from the Espresso Book Machine, which used Google Books as the source of the data. (Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)

From CNET:

Google is hell-bent on digitizing the world's books, but it's also aware that sometimes you just want to turn the pages.

On Demand Books, makers of the Espresso Book Machine, are expected to announce Thursday that they have been granted access to Google's library of public domain digital books for use with their product. The Espresso Book Machine can print a 300-page book in four minutes, complete with a cover and a bound edge. It ranges in price from $75,000 to $97,000, depending on the configuration, and is found mostly at universities, libraries, and institutions around the globe.

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Too Much Radiation For Astronauts To Make It To Mars

A trip to Phobos comes with extras (Image: NASA/JPL)

From New Scientist:

FORGET the risk of exploding rockets or getting sideswiped by a wayward bit of space junk. Radiation may be the biggest hurdle to human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and could put a damper on a recently proposed mission to Mars orbit.

A panel tasked by the White House with reviewing NASA's human space flight activities (New Scientist, 22 August, p 8) suggests sending astronauts to one of Mars's moons, Phobos or Deimos, among other possibilities raised in its report released last week (http://tinyurl.com/mbajav).

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Firefox Use Reaches Critical Mass; Skype Reigns In IM

From Infoworld:

It finally happened. After years of building momentum -- and more than a few false starts -- Mozilla's Firefox Web browser has finally reached critical mass. There are now more users running some variant of Firefox (50.6 percent) than not running it, according to the latest statistics from the exo.performance.network, which tracks the actual usage and configurations of thousands of PCs globally, providing a real-world snapshot.

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Apollo Moon Rocks Lost In Space? No, Lost On Earth

This photo from the Boerhaave Museum in Leiden, Netherlands shows authentic Dutch moon rocks on display. The detection of a fake moon rock in the Netherlands' Rijksmueum should serve as a wake-up call for more than 130 countries who received gifts of lunar rubble from both the Apollo 11 flight in 1969 and Apollo 17 three years later. Experts say the whereabouts are unknown of hundreds of tiny rocks scooped up by U.S. astronauts and given by the Nixon administration to friendly nations. Photo from AP

From USA Today:

AMSTERDAM — Attention, countries of the world: Do you know where your moon rocks are?

The discovery of a fake moon rock in the Netherlands' national museum should be a wake-up call for more than 130 countries that received gifts of lunar rubble from both the Apollo 11 flight in 1969 and Apollo 17 three years later.

Nearly 270 rocks scooped up by U.S. astronauts were given to foreign countries by the Nixon administration. But according to experts and research by The Associated Press, the whereabouts of some of the small rocks are unknown.

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The Science of Hunger: What 1 Billion People Feel

From Live Science:

Despite a record level of people suffering from hunger, food aid is at a 20-year low due to the poor global economy, United Nations officials said today. The result: More than 1 billion people across the world will face hunger this year.

"For the world's most vulnerable, the perfect storm is hitting with a vengeance," said U.N. World Food Program (WFP) Executive Director Josette Sheeran. So far this year, the agency has received less than half of the $6.7 billion it needs to feed 108 million people in 74 countries, Sheeran said.

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A 360-Degree Virtual Reality Chamber Brings Researchers Face To Face With Their Data

MULTI-DIMENSIONAL: Researchers interact with their data, which can be streamed live, using 3-D glasses, special wireless controllers, and sensors embedded in the bridge's railings. (Gesture control and voice recognition are in the works.) © JOANN KUCHERA-MORIN

From Scientific American:

Scientists can climb inside the University of California, Santa Barbara's three-story-high AlloSphere for a life-size interaction with their research.

Scientists often become immersed in their data, and sometimes even lost. The AlloSphere, a unique virtual reality environment at the University of California, Santa Barbara, makes this easier by turning large data sets into immersive experiences of sight and sound. Inside its three-story metal sphere researchers can interpret and interact with their data in new and intriguing ways, including watching electrons spin from inside an atom or "flying" through an MRI scan of a patient's brain as blood density levels play as music.

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Top 10 Most Dangerous Plants In The World

Giant Pitcher Plant: Nepenthes attenboroughii

From Popular Mechanics:

Over millions of years, plants have developed some crafty ways to fend off hungry animals. Deadly neurotoxins, thorns capable of puncturing car tires, and powerful digestive enzymes are just a few. Following the recent discovery of Nepenthes attenboroughii, a giant pitcher plant large enough to digest rodents, PM tracked down poison-plant aficionado Amy Stewart to discuss some of the world's deadliest plants. Stewart, who is the author of Wicked Plants: A Book of Botanical Atrocities, lives in Eureka, Calif., where she tends a garden that contains more than 30 different species of poisonous plants.

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Space Shuttle Unleashes Magnificent Plume Of Pee

Pee Over Hungary, By the Ruins of Essegvar: Last Wednesday, several skygazers scratched their heads when they saw this mysterious glow in the sky. Tamas Ladanyi

From Popular Science:

To anyone who's ever pondered what urine looks like in space -- c'mon, don't be shy -- we say: wonder no more, because photos of the phenomenon have finally hit the internet.

Last Wednesday, a number of North American skygazers were lucky to sight a mysterious flare in the night sky, that, as it now turns out, was a 150-pound cocktail of astronaut urine and waste water released from the shuttle Discovery.

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Scientists Find Lifesaver For India – Rice That Doesn't Have To Be Cooked

The new strain of rice offers hope for malnourished children in India. Reuters

From The Independent:

It sounds too good to be true. But if Indian scientists are correct, hundreds of millions of people across the subcontinent could benefit from a specially-developed strain of rice that "cooks" simply by being soaked in water.

Experts at the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) in Orissa who have developed the grain were inspired by so-called soft rice, or komal saul, that grows in the north-east Indian state of Assam. Traditional recipes call for such rice to be soaked overnight in water, then eaten with mustard oil and onions.

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Working In A Team Increases Human Pain Threshold

Cooperating as a group is thought to boost the rush of endorphins,
a feel-good chemical that also acts as a painkiller.

From The Guardian:

Team players can tolerate twice as much pain as those who work alone, according to research that throws fresh light on some of the most wince-inducing feats in sporting history.

Researchers at Oxford University found that members of its rowing team had a greater pain threshold after training together than when they performed the same exercises individually.

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Smiling Helps Women Feel Better About Their Appearance

A smile can be all it takes to make a woman feel better about her
appearance, research suggests Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

A smile can be all it takes to make a woman feel good about her appearance, according to a new study.

Scientists found that women who are unhappy with the way they look feel significantly better about themselves after being greeted by a smiling face.

The boost in self esteem has led psychologists to think that for many, confidence in their appearance is all about social acceptance.

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At Last! First Real Evidence For A Rocky Exoplanet

From Wired Science:

There’s finally proof that Earth-like planets can exist outside our solar system: Scientists have managed to measure the mass of exoplanet COROT-7b, revealing that it’s the first exoplanet with a confirmed density similar to our own.

“This is a day we’ve been waiting for for a long time,” said exoplanet researcher Sara Seager of the Massachusettes Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the research. “It’s the first definitive rocky world beyond our solar system, and it’s opening a new gate for our research. We’re really, really excited about it.”

Read more ....

More News On The Discovery Of This Rocky Exoplanet

First rocky planet found outside solar system -- CNN
Scientists say "super-Earth" has rocky surface -- Reuters
Found: Firm place to stand outside solar system -- AP
Distant world 'has rocky surface' -- BBC
Solid evidence for Earthlike world -- Scientific America
COROT-7b: Earth-like planet discovered outside Solar System -- The Telegraph
Earth-like planet Corot-7b found outside solar system -- Times Online
Rock Solid Evidence of a Rocky, Earth-like Exoplanet -- Discover Magazine

Life Was In The Oceans 200m Years Before Oxygen Made Air Fit To Breathe

Life first appeared in our oceans during the Archean eon when the moon was far closer to Earth. The air was too toxic for life on land

From The Daily Mail:

Life existed in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years while the Earth's air was not fit to breathe, research suggested today.

Plant-like bacteria evolved at least 200 million years before oxygen began to build up in the atmosphere, a study has shown.

During this period in its history, known as the Archaean, the Earth was covered by a poisonous smog of methane, ammonia and other toxic gases.

Read more ....

Scary Music Is Scarier With Your Eyes Shut

The power of the imagination is well-known: it's no surprise that scary music is scarier with your eyes closed. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mirko Pernjakovic)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2009) — The power of the imagination is well-known: it's no surprise that scary music is scarier with your eyes closed. But now neuroscientist and psychiatrist Prof. Talma Hendler of Tel Aviv University's Functional Brain Center says that this phenomenon may open the door to a new way of treating people with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurological diseases.

Read more ....

Direct Evidence Of Role Of Sleep In Memory Formation Is Uncovered

For the first time, researchers have pinpointed the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mads Abildgaard)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2009) — A Rutgers University, Newark and Collége de France, Paris research team has pinpointed for the first time the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur.

It’s been known for more than a century that sleep somehow is important for learning and memory. Sigmund Freud further suspected that what we learned during the day was “rehearsed” by the brain during dreaming, allowing memories to form. And while much recent research has focused on the correlative links between the hippocampus and memory consolidation, what had not been identified was the specific processes that cause long-term memories to form.

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British Skeleton Suggests Ancient Murder Mystery

A skeleton from ancient Roman times, found in the buried town of Venta Icenorum in Norfolk, England is buried on its side. Romans laid bodies out properly, however, suggesting this man might have met a murderous end. Credit: University of Nottingham.

From Live Science:

A skeleton found at an ancient Roman site in Britain has researchers wondering if they've stumbled on a murder mystery.

Excavations at the buried town of Venta Icenorum at Caistor St. Edmund in Norfolk, England, found what, for now, archaeologists are terming a "highly unusual" setup.

"This is an abnormal burial," said archaeologist Will Bowden of the University of Nottingham. "The body, which is probably male, was placed in a shallow pit on its side, as opposed to being laid out properly. This is not the care Romans normally accorded to their dead. It could be that the person was murdered or executed, although this is still a matter of speculation."

The skeleton has been removed for further investigation.

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Dreams Of A Lunar Observatory

From Technology Review:

If you could build an observatory on the Moon, what would you look for?

Imagine you could build an observatory on the Moon. What would you look for?

That was essentially the brief given to the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research, or LUNAR consortium, when NASA asked it to speculate about the unique astrophysics that could be done on the Moon.

Read more ....

Ready Or Not, Time To Grapple With E-Memory

MyLifeBits can be used to catalog and search personal archives.
(Credit: Dutton Books)

From CNET:

Just because Gordon Bell and Jim Gemmell are way out there on the nerd spectrum, don't ignore what they have to say in their new book, "Total Recall."

The Microsoft researchers obsessively record e-mails, photos, videos, phone calls, health records, financial transactions, Web site visits, and everything else they can in an attempt to electronically compensate for the fallibility of their own biological memories. Before you recoil at the prospect of letting your own life become this digitally augmented, though, consider that it will be whether you want it or not.

Read more ....

Mobile App Sees Science Go Global

The interface collates information from many sources and presents statistics

From The BBC:

A mobile phone application will help professional and "citizen" scientists collect and analyse data from "in the field", anywhere in the world.

The EpiCollect software collates data from certain mobiles - on topics such as disease spread or the occurrence of rare species - in a web-based database.

The data is statistically analysed and plotted on maps that are instantly available to those same phones.

Read more ....

House Panel Resists Changes in NASA Space Program

From New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Members of a key House committee said Tuesday that they were reluctant to change NASA’s current plans for human spaceflight after the space shuttles are retired from service, beyond giving more money to the agency.

“I think that good public policy argues for setting the bar pretty high against making significant changes in direction at this point,” said Representative Bart Gordon, Democrat of Tennessee, who is chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology. “There would need to be a compelling reason to scrap what we’ve invested our time and money in over these past four years.”

Read more ....

Gorilla King Titus Dies In Rwanda

This photo, provided by the Rwanda Development Board of Tourism and Conservation, shows the silverback gorilla, called Titus, in National Volcano Park in April 2009. Titus the Gorilla King, who became the world's most famous mountain gorilla after starring in Dian Fossey's "Gorillas in the Mist" and a BBC documentary, has died in Rwanda at the ripe old age of 35. (AFP/HO)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

KIGALI (AFP) – Titus the Gorilla King, who became the world's most famous mountain gorilla after starring in Dian Fossey's "Gorillas in the Mist" and a BBC documentary, has died in Rwanda at the ripe old age of 35.

The Rwandan and national parks office said the giant old silverback "succumbed to old age" on Monday after falling ill in the past week.

"He has been sick. He's been weakening. It's in the last week that he started going down," Rosette Rugamba, head of the tourism and national parks office told AFP.

Read more ....

Argentina Site Of World's Biggest Crater Field

The Barringer Crater in Arizona, USA, is one of the largest
obvious craters known on Earth. Credit: Wikipedia

From Cosmos/AFP:

BUENOS AIRES: Argentina can lay claim to the world's largest crater field: a volcanic area in Patagonia known as the Devil's Slope, according to a new study.

Covering 400 square kilometres, the Bajada del Diablo field is peppered with at least 100 depressions left by the collisions of meteorites or comets from 130,000 to 780,000 years ago, the study found.

Read more ....

Bacterial Casualties: U.S. Soldiers In Iraq Continue To Battle Drug-Resistant Bacteria

From Scientific American:

Despite great strides made to help soldiers in Iraq survive their wounds, medical personnel in the U.S. military still struggle to treat drug-resistant bacterial infections. This was one the messages presented yesterday at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in San Francisco.

Among the most common bacteria to turn up, usually in soldiers' wounds, are methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and strains of the virulent Klebsiella

Read more ....

The Fastest (And Most Dangerous) Way To Light A Grill

From Popular Science:

Go from cold to cooking in 30 seconds with a big can of liquid oxygen.

About a year ago, when resident mad scientist Theo Gray pitched me a Gray Matter column on liquid oxygen, an extremely flammable form of the element, he first proposed showing how to use it to light a grill nearly instantaneously. The lawyers, however, suggested we go a more tame route, so instead we showed how you could make a few drops of the hooch yourself.

Read more ....

Widespread Occurrence Of Intersex Bass Found In U.S. Rivers

USGS researcher examining bass for abnormalities in the field. (Credit: Jo Ellen Hinck / U.S. Geological Survey)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 15, 2009) — Intersex in smallmouth and largemouth basses is widespread in numerous river basins throughout the United States is the major finding of the most comprehensive and large-scale evaluation of the condition, according to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research published online in Aquatic Toxicology.

Read more ....

Electricity Harvested From Trees

This custom circuit is able to store up enough voltage from trees to be able to run a low-power sensor. Credit: University of Washington.

From Live Science:

Researchers have figured out a way to plug into the power generated by trees.

Scientists have known for some time that plants can conduct electricity. In fact, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants can pack up to 200 millivolts of electrical power. A millivolt is one-thousandth of a volt.

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Video / The Evolution of Swine Flu

Congress Faces NASA’s Shaky Future

From Wired Science:

Congress took its first crack at coming up with a plan for NASA in the wake of an independent report that could mean big changes at the agency — or not.

The Augustine committee, as it’s known because of its head, Norm Augustine, sent over a summary of its findings to the Office for Science and Technology Policy last week. It contained five options for human spaceflight — four of them entailing major changes for the Bush-era Constellation program. All of the plans would require upping NASA’s annual budget by $3 billion a year.

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Why Does Music Make Us Feel?

Lukasz Laska

From Scientific American:

A new study demonstrates the power of music to alter our emotional perceptions of other people.

As a young man I enjoyed listening to a particular series of French instructional programs. I didn’t understand a word, but was nevertheless enthralled. Was it because the sounds of human speech are thrilling? Not really. Speech sounds alone, stripped of their meaning, don’t inspire. We don’t wake up to alarm clocks blaring German speech. We don’t drive to work listening to native spoken Eskimo, and then switch it to the Bushmen Click station during the commercials. Speech sounds don’t give us the chills, and they don’t make us cry – not even French.

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Google Explains Street View to Wary Japanese With--What Else?--Adorable Stop-Motion Animation

From Popular Science:

Google Japan's new video aims to alleviate privacy concerns among Japanese residents.

Fret no longer, citizens of Japan, about Google's camera vans exposing the awkward moments of your private lives to millions via Street View. Because here, see? All that's behind its scary secrets is an impossibly adorable anthropomorphic camera truck in a wonderland of children's toys. Dawww, its bobbing camera head just snapped a photo of your car! It's so cute!

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