Full Moon Does Not Affect Surgery Outcomes

From Live Science:

While a full moon can tug on ocean tides and make for a romantic setting, scientists have found no reliable evidence that it triggers suicides or hospital admissions, or facilitates conception, the transformation of werewolves or any of a host of other phenomena often blamed on it.

Evidence is mounting, however, for things on which the moon has no impact.

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Roaches Hold Their Breath To Stay Alive

Cockroaches hold their breath when they need to stop water loss more than they need oxygen
(Source: Philip Matthews )

From ABC News (Australia):

Australian scientists have discovered another reason why cockroaches might well inherit the earth after humans are long gone.

Animal physiologist Dr Craig White of the University of Queensland in Brisbane and colleagues report their findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

"Several decades ago, scientists discovered that some insects hold their breath," says White.

"But it's not been clear why they do this."

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NASA Finds Water Ice In Mars Craters

An image by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on the NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows Sawtooth Pattern in Carbon Dioxide Ice on Mars recorded during the month of April through early August 2009. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been studying Mars with an advanced set of instruments since 2006. (University of Arizona/JPL/NASA/Reuters)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

NASA's Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter spotted ice just below the surface that was exposed by fresh meteor crashes, not far from where the Viking 2 Lander looked in 1976.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has found water ice much closer to the planet’s equator than scientists believed possible.

And it’s far purer than they expected, suggesting that in the recent past, the planet’s climate was far more humid than models of Mars’s climate history suggested.

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The Australian Dust Storm As Seen From Space – Dry lake Eyre Not Global Warming?

From Watts Up With That?

There’s been quite a bit of buzz about the dust storm in Australia that hit Queensland, New South Wales, and NSW city Sydney on September 23rd. Pictures like the ones below have been all over the web.

But it is the photos taken from space that are the most interesting I think. NASA’s Earth Observatory captured a truly amazing photo that shows the dust storm front as it swept across the continent and headed out to sea over eastern Australia where the borders of Queensland and NSW meet.

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Quantum Chip Helps Crack Code

Photo: Jonathan Matthews/University of Bristol

From IEEE Spectrum:

Experimental chip does part of code-cracking quantum algorithm.

3 September 2009—Modern cryptography relies on the extreme difficulty computers have in factoring huge numbers, but an algorithm that works only on a quantum computer finds factors easily. Today in Science, researchers at the University of Bristol, in England, report the first factoring using this method—called Shor’s algorithm—on a chip-scale quantum computer, bringing the field a tiny step closer to realizing practical quantum computation and code cracking.

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Update: Quantum Computer Factors the Number 15 -- Scheneider Security

Guinness Facts: In Black And White

A pint of Guinness settling

From The Telegraph:

As millions of people toast the birth of the world's most famous stout, members of the Guinness family will remember how a blessed inheritance to their forefather Arthur changed their fortunes.

– Arthur Guinness set up his first brewery in Leixlip, Co Kildare, in 1756 after he was left a £100 inheritance by his godfather, Archbishop Arthur Price.

– He later handed the business to his brother and, in 1759, signed a 9,000 year lease on the St James's Gate Brewery for an annual fee of £45.

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iRex Announces e-Reader with Barnes & Noble Catalog, Verizon 3G

iRex Reader

From Popular Science:

With a larger screen and 400,000 more titles, iRex's DR800SG forces a standoff against the Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Barnes and Noble first tipped their hand in July, when they announed their new e-book store and its 700,000 titles would be made available on the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms. Then in August, the bookseller announced a partnership with e-reader maker iRex, in addition to love for Plastic Logic and their devices. And today (drumroll, please) the company officially announced the iRex DR800SG reader, the first e-book reader with access to the Barnes and Noble catalog.

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US Dirty Bomb Attack Would Bring Clean-Up Chaos

From New Scientist:

A dirty bomb attack on the US would find the country ill-prepared to clean up the resulting radioactive mess, a government watchdog has warned – and hasty attempts at cleaning up could make things worse.

Building a true nuclear bomb requires expert knowledge and possession of plutonium or enriched uranium, which governments keep under tight security. But more widely available radioactive materials, intended for applications such as medical imaging, could be used to construct a "dirty bomb" detonated a conventional explosives such as dynamite.

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Mysterious Ruins May Help Explain Mayan Collapse

This is one of the exceptionally well preserved buildings discovered at Kiuic. This building dates to the Late/Terminal Classic (A.D. 800-1000) and is part of the later major royal Palace discovered at the site.By Bolonchen Regional Archaeological Project.

From USA Today:

Ringing two abandoned pyramids are nine palaces "frozen in time" that may help unravel the mystery of the ancient Maya, reports an archaeological team.

Hidden in the hilly jungle, the ancient site of Kiuic (KIE-yuk) was one of dozens of ancient Maya centers abandoned in the Puuc region of Mexico's Yucatan about 10 centuries ago. The latest discoveries from the site may capture the moment of departure.

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Voters choose 'Embracing The Hope' Setting For Famed Diamond

From The L.A. Times:

Last month we mentioned that, as a PR stunt for a Smithsonian Channel documentary, you had a chance to vote on which of three Harry Winston settings the famous Hope Diamond should temporarily reside. And, based on the number of comments All The Rage received (and we weren't even the ones tallying the votes), folks had some pretty strong opinions on the topic -- though most of you said you would prefer it remain in its traditional setting (to which it will return by the end of next year).

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Genetic Discovery Could Break Wine Industry Bottleneck, Accelerate Grapevine Breeding

From Science Daily:

One of the best known episodes in the 8000-year history of grapevine cultivation led to biological changes that have not been well understood – until now. Through biomolecular detective work, German researchers have uncovered new details about the heredity of Vitis varieties in cultivation today. In the process, they have opened the way to more meaningful classification, accelerated breeding, and more accurate evaluation of the results, potentially breaking a bottleneck in the progress of the wine industry.

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What Seniors Need To Know About The Flu

From Live Science:

Flu season in the northern hemisphere can range from as early as November to as late as May. The peak month usually is February.

However, this coming season is expected to be unpredictable because of the emergence of the H1N1 influenza virus or swine flu. The H1N1 has caused the first global outbreak — pandemic — of influenza in more than four decades.

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Water Found On The Moon

How So Much Water? Some Ideas...
A stream of charged hydrogen ions carried from the sun by the solar wind. One possible scenario to explain the new finding of water on the lunar surface is that during the daytime, when the moon is exposed to the solar wind, hydrogen ions liberate oxygen from lunar minerals to form OH and H2O, which are then weakly held to the surface. At high temperatures (red-yellow) more molecules are released than adsorbed. University of Maryland/F. Merlin/McREL

From Discovery News:

Shattering a long-held belief that Earth's moon is a dead and dry world, a trio of spacecraft uncovered clear evidence of water and hydrogen-oxygen molecules throughout the lunar surface.

"There's no question that there is OH [hydroxyl, which is made up of one hydrogen atom and one oxygen atom] and H2O on the moon," University of Maryland senior research scientist Jessica Sunshine told Discovery News.

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The Coming Ebook Reader Flood

The Microsoft Courier leads the way in the coming onslaught of ebook readers.
(Screen shot from YouTube)

From Christian Science Monitor:

The Amazon Kindle ignited an ebook reader industry and created many rivals for itself.

“Kindle” indeed.

Amazon’s popular Kindle ebook reader has sparked some fiery competition. Several companies recently announced plans to produce their own ereader-like device, and signs point to more on the horizon.

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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.

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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.

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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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