Michael Faraday Voted Britain's Greatest Inventor

Faraday finished ahead of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and William Caxton

From The Telegraph:

Michael Faraday, the scientist whose discoveries led to the development of the electric motor, has been hailed as the greatest inventor in British history, a survey revealed today.

Faraday, who is credited with the harnessing of electric power, won a quarter of the vote in the poll of more than 1,200 people.

He was followed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel (13%), who designed the first propeller-driven steamship, and William Caxton (9%) who introduced the printing press to England.

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India’s Lunar Mission Finds Evidence Of Water On The Moon

From The Independent:

Dreams of establishing a manned Moon base could become reality within two decades after India’s first lunar mission found evidence of large quantities of water on its surface.

Data from Chandrayaan-1 also suggests that water is still being formed on the Moon. Scientists said the breakthrough — to be announced by Nasa at a press conference today — would change the face of lunar exploration.

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Satellite To Begin Gravity Quest

From The BBC:

A European spacecraft will begin its quest this week to make the most detailed global map of the Earth's gravity field.

The arrow-shaped Goce satellite can sense tiny variations in the planet's tug as it sweeps around the world at the very low altitude of just 255km.

The map will help scientists understand better how the oceans move.

It should also give them a universal reference to compare heights anywhere across the globe.

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Wasted Space: U.S. Military Looking For Ideas On How To Curb The Threat Of Orbiting Junk

CLOUD OF CLUTTER: A visualization of the population of tracked objects, primarily debris, in low Earth orbit. The objects are not scaled with respect to Earth. NASA

From Scientific American:

DARPA is soliciting pitches on how best to remove orbital debris.

Gazing up into the sky on a clear night, the heavens can appear as pristine as a mountain stream. But in truth, at least in Earth's vicinity, the trash factor in space may be more akin to what is found in New York City's East River. The region known as low Earth orbit (extending from 160 to 2,000 kilometers above Earth's surface), which is where many satellites spend their lives and "afterlives," has a litter problem caused by decades of neglect, and it's one that currently lacks an expedient solution.

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Drinking Alcohol May Make Head Injuries Less Harmful

Alcohol: Having a little alcohol in your blood could be a life-saver

From Popular Science:

Patients with alcohol in their blood are less likely to die from head injuries, according to a new study in Archives of Surgery, a JAMA/Archives journal.

The researchers found that the patients who tested positive for alcohol were less likely to die than patients who had no alcohol in their bloodstream. They were also generally younger and had less severe injuries. But patients who had drunk alcohol did suffer more medical complications during their stay in the hospital.

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Asteroid Attack: Putting Earth's Defences To The Test

Are we prepared for an asteroid strike? (Image: Don Davis/NASA)

From The New Scientist:

IT LOOKS inconsequential enough, the faint little spot moving leisurely across the sky. The mountain-top telescope that just detected it is taking it very seriously, though. It is an asteroid, one never seen before. Rapid-survey telescopes discover thousands of asteroids every year, but there's something very particular about this one. The telescope's software decides to wake several human astronomers with a text message they hoped they would never receive. The asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. It is the size of a skyscraper and it's big enough to raze a city to the ground. Oh, and it will be here in three days.

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Mathematicians Solve 'Trillion Triangle' Problem

The 3-4-5 triangle has area 6.
(Credit: Image courtesy of American Institute of Mathematics)

From Science Daily:

Mathematicians from North America, Europe, Australia, and South America have resolved the first one trillion cases of an ancient mathematics problem. The advance was made possible by a clever technique for multiplying large numbers. The numbers involved are so enormous that if their digits were written out by hand they would stretch to the moon and back. The biggest challenge was that these numbers could not even fit into the main memory of the available computers, so the researchers had to make extensive use of the computers' hard drives.

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Powerful Ideas: River Turbines Could Electrify New York City

An NJIT architecture professor with an architecture student has designed a network of modular floating docks to harness clean energy for New York City. The proposal was featured this week in Metropolis magazine. Credit: Sarah Parsons

From Live Science:

A network of floating docks could harness clean energy for New York City and provide new space for parks, researchers now propose.

Each dock could generate power off the city's river currents. Three vertical turbines fastened out of sight to the underside of each station would harness the 4 mph currents, with each module generating up to 24 kilowatts of constant energy from the Hudson and East Rivers.

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Baidu CEO Touts Growth Of China's Search Engine

Photo: Baidu CEO Robin Li advised Stanford students to make sure they understand the Chinese market if they want to do business there. (Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET)

From CNET:

PALO ALTO, Calif.--Baidu CEO Robin Li, on a rare visit to Silicon Valley Wednesday, explained the rise of his company's search engine in China before a group of students more interested in entrepreneurial tips than censorship.

Li ended a trip to the U.S. Wednesday at Stanford University, speaking to a crowd of several hundred students about the lessons he learned shepherding Baidu through the first dot-com bust and growing it into the Google of China. Baidu has 76 percent of the Chinese search market, he said, which consists of 338 million Internet users: larger than the entire population of the U.S.

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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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Pictured: Giant Squid Accidentally Caught In Gulf of Mexico

Researchers pose with the 19.5-foot creature after netting it in July

From The Daily Mail:

This group of American scientists were studying the diet of sperm whales.

But even so they were taken off guard when this astonishing haul appeared in their net.

Researchers from America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) were shocked discover they had inadvertently caught a rare giant squid as they were trawling through the Gulf of Mexico.

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Seismic Bangs 'Block' Whale Calls

From The BBC:

Scientists have turned up new evidence showing that ocean noise can affect the communication of whales.

Studying blue whales off the eastern Canadian coast, they found the animals changed their vocalisations in response to an underwater seismic survey.

The survey was conducted using gear considered to have a low impact.

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Swine Flu Vaccine--Too Little, Too Late

Matt Collins

From Scientific American:

Long-standing liability issues leave us unprepared for a pandemic.

As health care workers in the U.S. gear up for the flu season, they facea paradox: on the one hand, they will have too little vaccine against the novel influenza A (H1N1) strain to protect the entire population; on the other, some people will resist the shots that are offered to them. Sadly, both problems can be traced, at least in part, to the last time “swine flu” loomed. The 1976 national vaccination campaign against a pandemic that never materialized left the public with lingering doubts about whether the inoculations harmed some recipients and spawned lawsuits that cost the federal government nearly $100 million.

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Fresh From Skunkworks, Hints of Microsoft's Own Secret Tablet

Microsoft's Courier

From Popular Science:

While drool over Apple's tablet is starting to accumulate in unsightly lakes and ponds across the web, little old Microsoft has been hard at work on Courier--an as-yet conceptual tablet of its own that our friends at Gizmodo unearthed last night. It's a totally different approach from what most are expecting from Apple, and in this concept video, it certainly looks pretty hot.

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Google's Sidewiki Lets People Post Comments About Web Pages

From PC World:

Google has launched a new feature in its Toolbar product that opens up a browser sidebar in Firefox and Internet Explorer to let people post and read comments about Web pages they visit.

Called Sidewiki, the product can be used to express opinions about a Web page's content, suggest links to other online resources or provide additional background information.

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7 Billion And Counting

From New Scientist:

Overpopulation is often singled out as the planet's root problem. If only it were that simple.

Leading thinkers on population can't agree on what the answers – or even the questions – are. In this special feature, New Scientist brings you the best of expert opinion.

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Arctic Ice To Last Decades Longer Than Thought?

A polar bear navigates ice floes in Baffin Bay in the Canadian Arctic on July 10, 2008. This year's cooler summer means that the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, September 2009 research shows—but experts warn the cooling could be just a one-year reprieve. Photograph by Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press/AP Photo

From The National Geographic:

This year's cooler-than-expected summer means the Arctic probably won't experience ice-free summers until 2030 or 2040, scientists say.

Some models had previously predicted that the Arctic could be ice free in summer by as soon as 2013, due to rising temperatures from global warming.

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Explaining Why Pruning Encourages Plants To Thrive

New research helps explain why pruning encourages plants to thrive.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Matthew Scherf)

From Science Daily:

Scientists have shown that the main shoot dominates a plant’s growth principally because it was there first, rather than due to its position at the top of the plant.

Collaborating teams from the University of York in the UK and the University of Calgary in Canada combined their expertise in molecular genetics and computational modelling to make a significant discovery that helps explain why pruning encourages plants to thrive.

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Why It's So Hard To Make Nuclear Weapons

The first nuclear bomb explosion at the Trinity Test Site New Mexico, July 16, 1945, taken from 6 miles away. As Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer watched the demonstration, he recalled a line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita, "Now I am become Death, the Destroyer of worlds." Credit: Library of Congress

From Live Science:

It took only a matter of hours last week for the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog agency to shoot down a news report that its experts had drafted a secret document warning that Iran has the expertise to build a nuclear bomb.

"With respect to a recent media report, the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] reiterates that it has no concrete proof that there is or has been a nuclear weapon program in Iran," the European-based agency said in statement.

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You Really Can Die Of A Broken Heart

Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: People mourning the loss of a loved one are six times more likely to suffer cardiac arrest, potential proof that you can die of a broken heart, say Australian researchers.

According to an Australian Heart Foundation study of the physical changes suffered immediately after a profound loss, grieving people are at significantly higher risk of heart problems.

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Researchers Unravel Brain's Wiring To Understand Memory

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Using a powerful microscope, Karel Svoboda, a brain scientist at the Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Va., peers through a plastic window in the top of a mouse's head to watch its brain's neurons sprout new connections — a vivid display of a living brain in action.

Ryan LaLumiere, a neurologist at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, trains cocaine-addicted rats to suppress their craving — a technique he says may help human addicts.

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Report: NASA To Confirm Presence Of Water On The Moon

From 3News:

According to reports, NASA is set to reveal evidence of water has been discovered on the moon.

Space news website SpaceRef.com says the topic of a press conference to be held on Thursday is a paper appearing in the next issue of Science magazine, which contains results from NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

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Intel Plans Even Tinier Circuits In 2011

From Gadget Lab:

SAN FRANCISCO — Moore’s Law coming to an end? Not if you ask Intel, which announced Tuesday that it plans to offer chips based on a 22 nanometer process technology in the second half of 2011.

The 22nm chip packs in more than 2.9 billion transistors into an area the size of a fingernail. That’s double the density of the 32nm chips that are currently the cutting edge; most of Intel’s CPUs today are still based on a 45nm process.

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Left-Handers Are More Likely To Enjoy School And Be Teachers' Pets

A new study suggests left-handed children have a warmer relationship with teachers

From The Daily Mail:

Left-handed children are more likely to enjoy school and get on with their teachers than those who write with their right hand, a study revealed today.

Researchers found a larger percentage of 'lefties' look forward to getting up for school and heading off to their lessons every morning.

Read more ....

New Images Show That Rings Around Saturn Are Not Flat

Shadows of Saturn during the Equinox Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

The rings around Saturn were once thought to be almost completely flat but new images show that ruffles on their surface rise as high as the Alps.

NASA scientists managed to capture the images revealing the undulations and dust clouds due to unusual lighting effects created during the planet’s equinox last month.

They believe that the breakthrough could allow researchers to better understand how old Saturn’s distinctive rings are and how they are evolving.

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Toward A Universal Flu Vaccine

Image Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

A company is preparing human trials of a DNA-based, universal influenza vaccine.

The first doses of H1N1 flu (swine flu) vaccine are due to be shipped to hospitals around the country in the next few weeks--seven months after the virus strain was first identified. These vaccine doses will use either inactivated or weakened live viruses to prompt immunity--an approach that can fail if any of the live viruses is strong enough to replicate, or if the inactivated viruses have been killed beyond all immune recognition.

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Are Men Or Women More Likely To Be Hit By Lightning?

Lightning Golf iStock

From Popular Science:

The numbers tell the story: Of the 648 people killed by lightning in the U.S. from 1995 to 2008, 82 percent were male. And as much as we were hoping to uncover a biological cause—extra iron in the male cranium, perhaps, or the conductive properties of testosterone—it turns out men are... just kind of stupid. “Men take more risks in lightning storms,” says John Jensenius, a lightning safety expert with the National Weather Service.

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You Can't Trust A Tortured Brain: Neuroscience Discredits Coercive Interrogation

Coercive interrogation techniques used to extract information from terrorist suspects are likely to have been unsuccessful, new research shows. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 22, 2009) — According to a new review of neuroscientific research, coercive interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration to extract information from terrorist suspects are likely to have been unsuccessful and may have had many unintended negative effects on the suspect's memory and brain functions.

A new article, published in the journal, Trends in Cognitive Science, reviews scientific evidence demonstrating that repeated and extreme stress and anxiety have a detrimental influence on brain functions related to memory.

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Why Fall Colors Are Different In U.S. And Europe

While leaves in the United States turn yellow, orange and red in the autumn, those in Europe only turn yellow. Credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

The riot of color that erupts in forests every autumn looks different depending on which side of the ocean you're on.

While the fall foliage in North America and East Asia takes on a fiery red hue, perplexingly, autumn leaves in Europe are mostly yellow in color.

A team of researchers has a new idea as to why the autumnal colors differ between the continents, one that involved taking a step back 35 million years in time.

Read more ....

Artificial Cloud Created At The Edge Of Space

A NASA Black Brant XII rocket launches on Saturday evening
carrying the CARE experiment (Image: NASA)

From The New Scientist:

The study of Earth's mysterious noctilucent clouds got a boost on Saturday, when a rocket was launched to create an artificial cloud at the edge of space.

"Noctilucent", or night-shining, clouds float dozens of kilometres higher than other clouds, at an altitude of about 80 kilometres. Because of their height, they can be seen glowing before sunrise or after sunset as the sun illuminates them from below the horizon.

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The Hunt for Extraterrestrial Life Gets Weird

From Wired:

In the search for extraterrestrial life, some scientists say we’re focusing too much on finding signs of existence as we know it, and in the process, we may be missing more strange forms of life that don’t rely on water or carbon metabolism.

Now researchers from Austria have started a systematic study of solvents other than water that might be able to support life outside our planet. They’re hoping their research will lead to a shift in what they call the “geocentric mindset” of our attempts to detect extraterrestrial life.

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‘Non-Discovery’ Of Space-Time Ripples Opens Door To Birth Of The Universe

From Times Online:

Scientists have peered further back in time than ever before using instruments designed to search for a phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein almost a century ago but not yet proven to exist.

An American observatory hunting for ripples in space and time called gravitational waves has produced its most significant results yet, despite not having directly detected any.

The “non-discovery” offers insights into the state of the Universe just 60 seconds into its existence. Previous research has been unable to look back in time further than about 380,000 years after the big bang.

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Stunning Pictures Of Glaciers From Space Reveal Worrying Signs Earth's Ice Is Melting Away

Grey Glacier in Chile: The ice field covered 104 square miles in 1996. This 2007 picture from the International Space Station revealed it had dramatically receded. Scientists think increased regional temperatures has reduced the amount of ice being replenished each year

From The Daily Mail:

These awe-inspiring images of glaciers are helping scientists to determine just how quickly our planet is heating up. The huge ice fields are thought to be one of the most reliable indicators of climate change and are best studied from space.

The features form when snow accumulates on an area of land over tens to hundreds of years. It eventually becomes so thick and heavy that it forms dense glacial ice. When enough ice is compacted it beings to flow downhill or spread across flat land.

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Immortality Only 20 Years Away Says Scientist

Ray Kurzweil claims we could all be cyborgs in 20 years.

From The Telegraph:

Scientist Ray Kurzweil claims humans could become immortal in as little as 20 years' time through nanotechnology and an increased understanding of how the body works.

The 61-year-old American, who has predicted new technologies arriving before, says our understanding of genes and computer technology is accelerating at an incredible rate.

He says theoretically, at the rate our understanding is increasing, nanotechnologies capable of replacing many of our vital organs could be available in 20 years time.

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How Facebook Copes With 300 Million Users

Photo: Credit: (portrait) Mozilla (background) facebook

From Technology Review:

VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer reveals the tricks that keep the world's biggest social network going.

Last week, the world's biggest social network, Facebook, announced that it had reached 300 million users and is making enough money to cover its costs.

The challenge of dealing with such a huge number of users has been highlighted by hiccups suffered by some other social-networking sites. Twitter was beleaguered with scaling problems for some time and became infamous for its "Fail Whale"--the image that appears when the microblogging site's services are unavailable.

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Weird Stories of Objects Falling From the Sky—Explained

Hodges Meteorite Strike (Photograph by Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

The annals of history are full of tales of strange objects falling from the sky. During biblical and medieval times, people typically perceived events such as rains of rats, dead bats, fish and frogs as signs of plague, ill portents or even manna from the benevolent above. Science eventually won out, bringing explanations for many of these seemingly inexplicable episodes. Still others remain unsolved, leaving the affected locals to theorize, and look expectantly to the clouds, for the next meat shower or golf ball storm. In honor of the release of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs we present a list of the 10 craziest things to rain down on humanity from the heavens.

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Panasonic's Robotic Bed Transforms into a Mobile Chair, Makes Standing Up Obsolete

Robo-Bed: It will do everything but fix your bed hair. Panasonic

From Popular Science:

Mobility-impaired patients and layabouts alike can rejoice at the debut of Panasonic's robotic bed that transforms into a wheelchair. Human nurses and hospitals may also breathe a tiny sigh of relief.

The bed-shaped bot morphs upon command to sidestep the usual trouble of moving a bedridden person from bed to wheelchair, or vice versa. Yet unlike the Japanese bear bot nurse that carries patients, a self-controlled bed bot allows humans to regain some independence and dignity.

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2009 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Exceeds 2005 For This Date

From Watts Up With That?:

While 2009 minimum on 09/13 of 5,249, 844 was just 65, 312 sq km below 2005 in minimum extent, which occurred on 9/22/2005 with 5,315,156 sq km, it has now rebounded quickly and is higher by 38,438 sq km, just 2 days before the 9/22/05 minimum. On 9/22/2009 it may very well be close to 60-80,000 sq km higher than the minimum on the same date in 2005.

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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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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.

Read more ....

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 ....