In Search Of Dark Asteroids (And Other Sneaky Things)

Artist's concept of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.
Image credit: (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2009) — Ninjas knew how to be stealthy: Be dark. Emit very little light. Move in the shadows between bright places.

In modern warfare, though, ninjas would be sitting ducks. Their black clothes may be hard to see at night with the naked eye, but their warm bodies would be clearly visible to a soldier wearing infrared goggles.

Read more ....

Why Autumn Begins Tuesday

From Live Science:

The first day of autumn — Sept. 22 this year — is no guarantee of fall-like weather, but officially the season's start comes around at the same time each year nonetheless.

Well, sort of.

The first day of autumn arrives on varying dates in different years for two reasons: Our year is not exactly an even number of days; and Earth's slightly noncircular orbit, plus the gravitational tug of the other planets, constantly changes our planet's orientation to the sun from year to year.

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Discovery Threads Tricky Path Home

From Florida Today:

Navigating a web of clouds and showers, space shuttle Discovery returned home to Kennedy Space Center just after noon Monday atop a 747 jumbo jet, ending a two-day ferry flight from California.

"If it was any greater of a challenge, we wouldn't have landed here," said Charles Justiz, a pilot on the NASA C-9 aircraft that scouted safe routes ahead of the shuttle.

Up to the last minute, more than two hours after departing Barksdale Air Force Base near Shreveport, La., it was uncertain if Discovery might be diverted to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa or Orlando International Airport to await calmer skies.

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Naked Mole Rats May Help Cure Cancer

Cancer-free mole rats could help humans in the fight against cancer
(Image: Neil Bromhall/Naturepl)

From New Scientist:

THEY might be bald and ugly, but naked mole rats never get cancer. If their trick can be copied it could help humans resist cancer too.

It's almost impossible to culture naked mole rat cells in the lab, which made Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova from Rochester University, New York, wonder if this might be linked to their ability to resist cancer.

They found that a dilute solution of naked mole rat skin cells did start to proliferate, but stopped once the cells reached a certain, relatively low density. Such "contact inhibition" is also used by human cells to inhibit growth, but cancer bypasses this mechanism so cells keep growing.

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Exposure To Sun 'May Help People With Cancer Survive'

Experts say protection from the sun is vital but that some
exposure is necessary for good health. Reuters

From the Independent:

Sunbathing warnings may have been too simplistic, say scientists.

Sunbathing is known to cause skin cancer – but it may also help people survive when they get it, scientists are reporting.

Two studies published yesterday showed that vitamin D produced by the action of the sun on the skin may help improve survival for patients with skin and bowel cancer.

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Where Will The E-Reader Revolution Take Publishing?

A commuter uses a Kindle while riding the subway in New York June 1, 2009. The publishing industry is trying to deal with the growing demand for online content and is looking at the music industry for lessons. Lucas Jackson / Reuters

From The Globe And Mail:

Some experts believe the devices will change our reading habits and throw several industries into turmoil -- that is, just as soon as Apple gets into the game.

Will it or won't it?

The Internet is burning up with speculation about Apple Inc.'s plans for an “iPad,” a potential new entrant in the e-reader market of low-power digital devices whose displays approach paper quality.

Amazon's Kindle and the Sony Reader together cracked the million-unit mark last year, but everyone – especially those in troubled publishing industries – is looking to the iPod maker to potentially bring digital reading into the mainstream, and transform their businesses forever.

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Solar System's Coldest Spot May Be On Moon

The coldest spot in our solar system may be on the moon, astronomers claim.

From The Telegraph:

The coldest spot in our solar system may be on the moon, astronomers claim.

In course of producing the first ever temperature map of the moon, Nasa discovered that at its south pole temperatures are lower than on Pluto, despite being far nearer to the sun.

The moon is about 93 million miles from the sun, while Pluto orbits at an average of around 6 billion miles from the centre of the solar system

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3D TV: Now Leaping Out Of The Cinema And Into A Living Room Near You

SPY KIDS 3-D: GAME OVER

From The Daily Mail:

We've only just got used to high-definition TV and now the technology industry is moving the goalposts again - 3D is being trialled by a number of TV makers and the BBC has said it may even broadcast part of the London 2012 Olympics in the format.

Here, Rob Waugh explains the competing home 3D technologies and answers your burning 3D questions.

Read more ....

New Space Station Tech Maps Earth's Coasts

A satellite view of a coastline on Earth. An extensive imaging project aboard the International Space Station may give scientists their first look at Earth's coasts on a global scale. Getty Image

From Discovery News:

For 20 years, researchers have used light-splitting devices mounted in aircraft to study coastal regions on Earth. This week, the effort expands into space with an instrument arriving at the International Space Station.

From a vantage point 225 miles above the planet and full-time operations for at least a year, the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean (HICO) is expected to give scientists their first detailed look Earth's coasts on a global scale.

"HICO gives us access to repeat imagery worldwide," said lead researcher Mike Corson with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

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Bold Rwanda Takes Broadband Leap

From The BBC:

Landlocked Rwanda is weeks away from completing a link to a new fibre-optic network promising high-speed internet for East Africa, officials say.

Engineers expect the capital, Kigali, to be connected to newly-arrived undersea cables in Kenya by November.

A national fibre-optic ring is due to go online early in 2010.

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New Transient Radiation Belt Discovered Around Saturn

Radiation belt map of the ions with energies between 25-60 MeV, in Saturn's magnetosphere, based on several years of Cassini MIMI/LEMMS data. The structure of this radiation belt is almost perfectly stable for more than 5 years of Cassini observations, despite the intense variability of the radiation belts, outside the location of Tethys. (Credit: Image courtesy of Europlanet Media Centre)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2009) — Scientists using the Cassini spacecraft's Magnetospheric Imaging instrument (MIMI) have detected a new, temporary radiation belt at Saturn, located around the orbit of its moon Dione at about 377,000 km from the center of the planet.

The discovery will be presented at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam by Dr Elias Roussos on Monday 14 September.

Read more ....

Sinking River Deltas Threaten Millions

Nile River delta, Red Sea and Sinai Peninsula.
(Photo from Wallpaper Free Review)

From Live Science:

Most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking due to human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk, a new study finds.

Researchers have long warned that the mass human migration to coastal areas in recent decades puts more and more people at risk of death from major storms. About 500 million people in the world live on river deltas.

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Probe Gets Clearest Glimpse Yet Of Cosmic Dawn

From New Scientist:

The Planck spacecraft has obtained its first peek at the afterglow of the big bang, revealing it in unprecedented detail. Its first map of the entire sky is set to be complete in about six months.

The European Space Agency spacecraft was launched into space on 14 May. It is observing the glow of hot gas from just 380,000 years after the big bang – about 13.73 billion years ago – called the cosmic microwave background.

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A Robot That Juggles Blind

Pendulum Juggler from Philipp Reist on Vimeo.

From Popular Science:

This machine uses no sensors, no feedback -- just the power of math -- to do its tricks.

In theory, designing a robot that continuously juggles a single ball should not be difficult. Calibrating the machine would be a pain but once you got the thing running, it should continue to juggle the ball until some variable intervenes. In a perfect world, this would occur elegantly, but here on Earth things just don't come off so beautifully. However, through some smart design and precise math, researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have created the Blind Juggler, so named because it juggles a ball continuously, even when variables are introduced, without the use of sensors.

Read more ....

Smoking Bans May Reduce Heart Attacks By More Than A Third

Smoking bans were introduced in pubs and other public places in England and Wales in 2007. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

From The Guardian

The number of heart attacks has fallen steeply in countries where bans on smoking in public places have been introduced, according to two independent reviews.

The ban on smoking in public places could reduce heart attacks by more than a third in some parts of the world, say researchers.

Two independent health reviews have found that heart attack rates dropped steeply in areas where bans have been introduced, with one reporting 36% fewer cases three years after smoke-free legislation came in.

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3D Rome Created From 150,000 Flickr Photos

From The Telegraph:

Hundreds of thousands of holiday photos posted on Flickr have been used to create 3D models of European cities - including the major sites of Rome.

Scientists from the University of Washington have used advanced photo analysis and modelling techniques to generate fly-though representations of the Colosseum, the Trevi fountain and the Croatian city of Dubrovnik.

The models are created entirely from data taken from images uploaded by members of the public on to the photo-sharing website.

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Think Flying Economy Is Bad Now? New Aircraft Design Puts Passengers Face-To-Face In Rows For Budget Travel

The future of air travel: The new design could see more passengers
on each plane and ticket prices lowered

From The Daily Mail:

Air travel is being overhauled with a new aircraft design which plans to seat passengers facing each other in rows.

The controversial design is intended to save space and money and could see 50 per cent more passengers packed on to each plane.

Howard Guy, director of the UK company Design Q, acknowledges that some people will not be happy with the plan, but says they will be able to pay less for any inconvenience.

Read more ....

Private Firms Preparing for Moon Flights

Testing, Testing .... Armadillo Aerospace's Super Mod rocket makes the first free-flight landing on a surface designed to mimic a lunar surface. Armadillo Aerospace

From Discovery Magazine:

Sept. 21, 2009 -- Lured by millions of dollars in prize money, teams of private firms aren't waiting for NASA to figure out if, when and how to get back to the moon. They're preparing to go themselves.

The first $1 million prize for demonstrating a lunar landing system is due to be awarded at the end of October. The front-runner is Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace, which this month made back-to-back flights of a vehicle named Scorpius.

Two other contenders plan to enter the NASA-backed competition before this year's cutoff on Oct. 31.

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Russian Billionaire Installs Anti-Photo Shield on Giant Yacht

From Gadget Lab/Wired:

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has a rather curious new addition built in to his latest oversized yacht. The 557-foot boat Eclipse, the price tag of which has almost doubled since original plans were drawn to almost $1.2 billion, set sail this week with a slew of show-off features, from two helipads, two swimming pools and six-foot movie screens in all guest cabins, to a mini-submarine and missile-proof windows to combat piracy.

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Recession And Policies Cut Carbon

Photo: Climate protestors in New York are demanding further cuts.

From The BBC:

The global recession and a range of government policies are likely to bring the biggest annual fall in the world's carbon dioxide emissions in 40 years.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global CO2 emissions will fall by more than 2% during 2009.

Measures such as emissions trading have complemented the drop in emissions as economic activity has declined.

The news comes as leaders gather at the UN for a day of climate talks convened by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The anticipated fall in emissions is larger than that seen during the recession of the early 1980s.

Read more ....

Google Releases Martian Invasion Doodle To Mark Birthday Of HG Wells

From the Telegraph:

Google has released a new doodle showing a scene from War of the Worlds, after confirming that its recent UFO logos were intended to mark the birthday of HG Wells.

The latest sketch shows the long-legged Martian fighting machines that feature in Wells's alien invasion novel trampling over the Surrey countryside.

Clicking on the image takes users through to search results for the English author, who is considered one of the fathers of science fiction.

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Scientists Make Paralyzed Rats Walk Again After Spinal-cord Injury

A combination of drugs, electrical stimulation and regular exercise can enable paralyzed rats to walk and even run again, researchers have discovered. (Credit: iStockphoto/Dmitry Maslov)

From Science Daily:

UCLA researchers have discovered that a combination of drugs, electrical stimulation and regular exercise can enable paralyzed rats to walk and even run again while supporting their full weight on a treadmill.

Published Nov. 20 in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience, the findings suggest that the regeneration of severed nerve fibers is not required for paraplegic rats to learn to walk again. The finding may hold implications for human rehabilitation after spinal cord injuries.

Read more ....

When You Could Fling A Frisbee From Canada To Zimbabwe

Ancient basalt vein, Greenland Credit: Michael A. Hamilton

From Live Science:

Imagine flipping a Frisbee in Quebec, Canada, and seeing it land in Zimbabwe. That’s a distance of 8,000 miles now, but 2.6 billion years ago, with good wrist action, it would have been no feat at all (if only there had been Frisbees and, of course, people).

Present-day Quebec and Zimbabwe were adjacent way back then, say geologists who are using new techniques to map Earth’s early continents.

Read more ....

Quantum Computers Are Coming – Just Don't Ask When

Will quantum computers do for the 21st century what digital computers did for the 20th? (Image: Everett Collection/Rex Features)

From The New Scientist:

WHATEVER happened to quantum computers? A few years ago, it seemed, it was just a case of a tweak here, a fiddle there, and some kind of number-crunching Godzilla would be unleashed upon us. Just as digital processors changed our lives in ways hard to imagine a few decades ago, the monstrous information processing power of individual atoms and electrons would mean that computing - and the world - would never be the same again.

Read more ....

The Guide to Home Geothermal Energy

Drill and Fill: Installers thread pipe into a hole a few inches wide and over 100 feet deep. As wind and solar hog the alt-energy spotlight, this technology has remained underground.

From Popular Mechanics:

Efficient and economical, geothermal heats, cools and cuts fossil fuel use at home. Whether you're in sunny Florida, or snowy New Hampshire, a ground-fed climate system can free a consumer from fluctuating energy prices and save money on power bills immediately. Here's how it works.

Read more ....

Fungus-Infected Violin Beats Stradivarius in Listening Test

Biotech-Enhanced Violins via Science Daily

From Popular Science:

Violins made by the Italian master craftsman Antonio Stradivarius are worth millions of dollars for their unparalleled sound. And that's great, for the handful of musicians who can afford these centuries-old instruments. This month, a new violin made from wood treated with a fungus actually trumped a Stradivarius in a blind listening test, offering hope for violinists who want high tonal quality at an affordable price.

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Earth Approaching Sunspot Records

Charlie Perry, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Lawrence, sifts through graphs of data in explaining why he believes solar activity may have greater impacts on global temperatures than previously thought. COREY JONES/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

From CJ Online:

The average person may not associate coolness with the sun.

The sun releases energy through deep nuclear fusion reactions in its core and has surface temperatures as hot as 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA's Web site.

Not cool at all.

But the sun's recent activity, or lack thereof, may be linked to the pleasant summer temperatures the midwest has enjoyed this year, said Charlie Perry, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Lawrence.

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We Trust People More If They Resemble Us

There are people we trust instinctively and those we do not, says the research. More often than not, this decision is based on physical appearance. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

GUILDFORD, U.K.: A new study has found that subconsciously we are more likely to trust people with similar facial features to our own, but less likely to be physically attracted to them.

There are people we trust instinctively and those we do not, says the research. More often than not, this decision is based on physical appearance.

Using computer graphics, a team led by Lisa DeBruine from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, manipulated faces so they looked more or less similar to participants in their study. Effectively, the faces either resembled siblings or not, said DeBruine.

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Hunting Hidden Dimensions

From U.S. News And World Report:

Black holes, giant and tiny, may reveal new realms of space.

In many ways, black holes are science's answer to science fiction. As strange as anything from a novelist's imagination, black holes warp the fabric of spacetime and imprison light and matter in a gravitational death grip. Their bizarre properties make black holes ideal candidates for fictional villainy. But now black holes are up for a different role: heroes helping physicists assess the real-world existence of another science fiction favorite—hidden extra dimensions of space.

Read more ....

How Cooking Helped Us To Evolve

From Times Online:

The success of the human species is all down to our mastery of fire and cooking, a scientist claims. And hot food not sex was the basis for our relationships.

It is the ultimate domestic cliché: a woman, pinafored and dutiful, tending a stove all day in preparation for her husband’s homecoming. As soon as he walks in, the ritual can begin: family members take their seats around the table (he sits at the head, of course) and dinner is served. Our couple are reliving a scene that has played out billions of times in our history because gender roles — husband at work all day, woman as homebody — have been forged not by relatively recent social conventions but by our distant evolutionary past.

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WHO: H1N1 Vaccine Production To Fall Short

From Time Magazine:

(GENEVA) — Global production of swine flu vaccines will be "substantially less" than the previous maximum forecast of 94 million doses a week, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The number of doses produced in a year will therefore fall short of the 4.9 billion doses the global health body previously hoped could be available for the pandemic, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told reporters in Geneva.

Production will be lower because some manufacturers are still turning out vaccines for seasonal flu — an illness that can be serious in sick and elderly people, Hartl said.

Read more ....

Magnetism Observed In Gas For The First Time

Graduate student Gyu-boong Jo optimizes the laser beam position on the mirror of the optical setup that produced an ultracold gas of lithium atoms. (Credit: Photo by Patrick Gillooly)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2009) — For the first time, MIT scientists have observed ferromagnetic behavior in an atomic gas, addressing a decades-old question of whether it is possible for a gas to show properties similar to a magnet made of iron or nickel.

Read more ....

Urinating On Your Tomato Plants Could Give You Fruit Four Times Larger

Photo: Human urine mixed with wood ash was the ultimate eco-friendly fertiliser, according to researchers

From The Daily Mail:

Gardeners keen to boost their crop of tomatoes may be surprised to learn they can turn to an unusual and free source of fertiliser.

Allotment growers can enrich the soil and therefore their plants using their own wee, according to a new study.

Scientists discovered the unusual addition made crops up to four times larger.

A team of Finnish researchers found that sprinkling tomatoes with human urine mixed with wood ash was the ultimate eco-friendly fertiliser.

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 ....

Oil Rig Of The Future: A Solar Panel That Produces Oil

OIL FROM THE SUN Researchers propose creating a biological solar panel, which will contain diatoms instead of photovoltaic cells. Diatoms, microalgae that are found in all aquatic and moist environments, first appeared more than 180 million years ago. © KATIV, COURTESY OF ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

From Scientific American:

Researchers propose a novel approach to producing biofuel using diatoms.

BANGALORE, India—In the ongoing hunt for alternative fuel sources that are also cost-effective, researchers are looking into making biofuel from genetically engineered diatoms, a type of single-celled algae with shells made of glasslike silica.

Read more ....

Jupiter Auroras Fed By Largest Moon's Magnetic "Bubble"

From The National Geographic:

A mini-magnetosphere around the largest moon in the solar system leaves a mighty footprint on Jupiter's atmosphere—helping to drive the "hyperauroras" that dance across the planet's poles.

That's one finding in new research that offers unprecedented details on interactions between Jupiter and two of its moons, the giant Ganymede and the volcanically active Io.

Read more ....

Why Are We The Naked Ape?

No one is sure why Homo sapiens is the only primate to have lost its body hair
(Image: Laurent Gillieron / EPA / Corbis)

From New Scientist:

RIGHT from the start of modern evolutionary science, why humans are hairless has been controversial. "No one supposes," wrote Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man, "that the nakedness of the skin is any direct advantage to man: his body, therefore, cannot have been divested of hair through natural selection."

Read more ....

Diamonds Are A Laser's Best Friend

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2009) — Tomorrow's lasers may come with a bit of bling, thanks to a new technology that uses man-made diamonds to enhance the power and capabilities of lasers. Researchers in Australia have now demonstrated the first laser built with diamonds that has comparable efficiency to lasers built with other materials.

Read more ....

How You Write 'Shows If You're A Liar', Scientists Discover

Psychologists have suggested that handwriting changes when someone is lying because the brain has to work harder to invent facts Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

How you write can indicate whether you’re a liar, scientists in Haifa, Israel, have discovered.

Instead of analysing body language or eye movement, to catch out people telling fibs, people’s handwriting can instead give them away.

While stressing the research was in the early stages, scientists say it could one day help validate loan application or even insurance claims.

Read more ....

Genetics May Explain Why Some Children Have Sex Earlier Than Others

From The Independent:

Genetics may explain why children who live in homes without fathers have sex at a younger age than others, according to a report published today.

The study, published in the American journal Child Development, found a genetic theory to challenge "environmental" theories which previously explained the link.

Researchers looked at more than 1,000 cousins aged 14 and older, testing for genetic influences as well as factors such as poverty, education opportunities and religion.

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Can A Daily Pill Really Boost Your Brain Power?

In recent years Adderall and Ritalin, another stimulant, have been adopted as cognitive enhancers.

From The Guardian:

In America, university students are taking illegally obtained prescription drugs to make them more intelligent. But would you pop a smart pill to improve your performance? Margaret Talbot investigates the brave new world of neuro enhancement

A young man I'll call Alex recently graduated from Harvard. As a history major, Alex wrote about a dozen papers a term. He also ran a student organisation, for which he often worked more than 40 hours a week; when he wasn't working, he had classes. Weeknights were devoted to all the schoolwork he couldn't finish during the day, and weekend nights were spent drinking with friends and going to parties. "Trite as it sounds," he told me, it seemed important to "maybe appreciate my own youth". Since, in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible.

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U.S. Media Ignoring About Face by Leading Global Warming Proponent

From News Busters:

Imagine if the Pope suddenly announced that the Catholic Church had been wrong for centuries about prohibiting priests from marrying. Would that be considered big news?

Of course.

And yet something like that has happened in the field of global warming in which a major scientist has announced that the world, in contrast to his previous belief, is actually cooling.

This was the analogy made by columnist Lorne Gunter in the Calgary Herald:

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Impact Of Renewable Energy On Our Oceans Must Be Investigated, Say Scientists

Photo: Dolphin. Scientists are calling for urgent research to understand the impact of renewable energy developments on marine life. (Credit: Dr Matthew Witt, University of Exeter.)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2009) — Scientists from the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth are calling for urgent research to understand the impact of renewable energy developments on marine life. The study, now published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, highlights potential environmental benefits and threats resulting from marine renewable energy, such as off-shore wind farms and wave and tidal energy conversion devices.

Read more ....

Reminder: Dan Brown's 'Lost Symbol' Is Fiction

From Live Science:

WASHINGTON — Dan Brown's latest book, "The Lost Symbol," is woven with a maze of secretive plots, conspiracies, symbols and codes. "Symbol" is another thriller by Brown that draws inspiration from a mixture of science and mysticism.

One of the main characters is a researcher at the Smithsonian Institution's vast support center, a location that is off-limits to the public. The real science in "Symbol" takes a turn toward fiction when Brown suggests that noetics — a metaphysical discipline that attempts to examine the connection between human and supernatural intelligence — will revolutionize human knowledge. The "research" is based on the work of institutions that were formed in the late 1970s, during the height of New Age mysticism.

Read more ....

The 'GI' Helmet That Will Help Our Troops To Shoot Straighter

Safer: The new-style Army helmet will allow troops to fire more accurately in the prone position than the older version

From The Daily Mail:

New helmets designed to help British troops to target the enemy are being rushed out to Afghanistan this weekend.

The Ministry of Defence is issuing the lighter headgear following soldiers’ complaints that the current helmet is unsuitable for firefights with the Taliban.

Five thousand Mark 7 helmets, along with new Osprey Assault body armour, are being sent to Afghanistan for the troops of 11 Brigade who are starting a six-month operational tour.

Read more ....

Can You Trust Crowd Wisdom?

Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

Researchers say online recommendation systems can be distorted by a minority of users.

When searching online for a new gadget to buy or a movie to rent, many people pay close attention to the number of stars awarded by customer-reviewers on popular websites. But new research confirms what some may already suspect: those ratings can easily be swayed by a small group of highly active users.

Vassilis Kostakos, an assistant professor at the University of Madeira in Portugal and an adjunct assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), says that rating systems can tap into the "wisdom of the crowd" to offer useful insights, but they can also paint a distorted picture of a product if a small number of users do most of the voting. "It turns out people have very different voting patterns," he says, varying both among individuals and among communities of users.

Read more ....

Solar System Dwarf Planet "Haumea" Has A Mystery Spot

SEE SPOT SPIN: An impression of what the dwarf planet Haumea's dark,
red spot might look like. P. LACERDA

From Scientific American:

A blotch on the distant, football-shaped body could help reveal what the dwarf planet is made of.

Haumea, the mini planet whose detection set off an international and as yet unresolved war of words in 2005 between the two teams claiming its discovery, is back on the astronomy scene with more intrigue.

Read more ....

Robot Arm To Grab Robotic Ship -- A Space Station First

The International Space Station's robotic arm reaches out to capture the Japanese HTV cargo ship in an artist's rendering. The tricky cosmic catch, slated to happen on September 17, 2009, might affect the orbiting outpost's ultimate lifespan by offering a cheaper way of delivering supplies to space, experts say. Due to budget concerns, the space station is currently slated to be deorbited in 2015. Picture courtesy Canadian Space Agency

From National Geographic:

For the first time, a robotic arm attached to the International Space Station (ISS) will capture an unmanned spaceship for docking on Thursday.

The bus-size Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle, or HTV, was launched on its maiden flight September 10. The remote-control ship is carrying more than four tons of equipment, food, clothes, and other essentials for the six astronauts currently aboard the space station.

Read more ....

Wind, Not Water, May Explain Red Planet's Hue

Mars is red now (left), but it may have looked charcoal (right) in the past
(Image: NASA/ESA/Hubble Team)

From New Scientist:

Mars's distinctive red hue may be the result of thousands of years of wind-borne sand particles colliding with one another – and not rust, a new study argues.

Scientists generally agree that Mars's red colour is caused when a dark form of iron called magnetite oxidises into a reddish-orange form called haematite.

Just how the transformation came about is a matter of debate. Many researchers say water caused the oxidation. But some argue that hydrogen peroxide and ozone, which might be created when ultraviolet light breaks down carbon dioxide and oxygen in the Martian atmosphere, could be to blame.

Read more ....

Disputed Solar Project In Calif. Desert Dropped

From CNET:

A proposed solar-energy project in the California desert that caused intense friction between environmentalists and the developers of renewable energy has been shelved.

BrightSource Energy had planned a 5,130-acre solar power farm in a remote part of the Mojave Desert, on land previously intended for conservation. The company, based in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday said it was instead seeking an alternative site for the project.

Read more ....

Whatever Happened to Acid Rain?

From Slate:

Why do we never hear about acid rain anymore? Did it just go away?

Back in the 1980s, when the Lantern herself was just a little penlight, acid rain was the environmental scourge of the day. Canada's environmental minister proclaimed it an "insidious malaria of the biosphere"; it menaced the Transformers; it turned Kimberly's hair bright green in an episode of Diff'rent Strokes. Toxic precipitation fell off the radar in 1990, when Congress passed an amendment to the Clean Air Act calling for major reductions in the types of emissions that lead to acid rain. Emissions have dropped significantly since then, but the problem is far from gone.

Read more ....

When ‘Back To Basics’ Leads To Breakthroughs In Science

(James Kelleher/The Orange County Register)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Two examples of researchers finding amazing things by reconsidering the fundamentals.

Sometimes scientists need to take a fresh look at fundamentals to improve familiar materials. That means getting down to the basic molecular and atomic structures.

When a research group that calls itself “Liquid Stone” recently did that with cement, it found that what scientists thought they knew about the fundamental structure of that ubiquitous material just isn’t so. One team member likens the implications of their new understanding of that structure to the boost biologists got when they discovered the basic structure of the DNA molecule.

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Secrets Of Insect Flight Revealed: Modeling The Aerodynamic Secrets Of One Of Nature's Most Efficient Flyers

Smoke visualization in Oxford University's wind tunnel showing the airflow over a flying locust's wings. (Credit: Animal Flight Group, Dept. of Zoology, Oxford University and Dr John Young, UNSW@ADFA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2009) — Researchers are one step closer to creating a micro-aircraft that flies with the manoeuvrability and energy efficiency of an insect after decoding the aerodynamic secrets of insect flight.

Dr John Young, from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia, and a team of animal flight researchers from Oxford University's Department of Zoology, used high-speed digital video cameras to film locusts in action in a wind tunnel, capturing how the shape of a locust's wing changes in flight. They used that information to create a computer model which recreates the airflow and thrust generated by the complex flapping movement.

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Online Labs Aim to Revolutionize High School Science

Julia Barnathan (standing), curriculum developer for Northwestern's Office of STEM Education Partnerships, assists a student with a lesson in radiation that uses iLabs to access a geiger counter at the University of Queensland, Australia. Credit: Amanda Morris, Office for Research, Northwestern University

From Live Science:

Fifty years ago, a typical high school science fair featured several exploding volcanoes. Today, one would expect a science fair to look far more advanced. The sad truth, however, is that standard high school science has changed very little.

"There is a growing gap between the practice of science the way researchers at Northwestern and other institutions are conducting it and what science looks like in high school," said Kemi Jona, research associate professor and director of the Office of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education Partnerships (OSEP) at Northwestern University. "And that gap keeps getting bigger and bigger."

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