Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto

From New Statesman:

We have, it seems, led the planet into the age of ecocide. Can civilisation survive the unavoidable environmental catastrophe? To stand a chance we will need cool heads, not fiery dreams.

During the past century empires crashed, new states foundered, utopian projects failed and entire civilisations melted down. Revolutionary change was the norm, as it has been throughout modern times. Yet today many of us assume our present way of life will last for ever, and any suggestion that it may be facing intractable difficulties is dismissed as doom-mongering. The result is that the precariousness of modern civilisation is underestimated and the impression that things can go on indefinitely, much as they do now is touted as hard-headed realism.

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New Ancient Fungus Finding Suggests World's Forests Were Wiped Out In Global Catastrophe

An enlarged image of Reduviasporonites. Scientists believe extinct fungus species capitalised on a world-wide disaster and thrived on early Earth. (Credit: Image courtesy of Imperial College London)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2009) — Tiny organisms that covered the planet more than 250 million years ago appear to be a species of ancient fungus that thrived in dead wood, according to new research published October 1 in the journal Geology.

The researchers behind the study, from Imperial College London and other universities in the UK, USA and The Netherlands, believe that the organisms were able to thrive during this period because the world's forests had been wiped out. This would explain how the organisms, which are known as Reduviasporonites, were able to proliferate across the planet.

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Exploring The Mysteries Of The Ocean Floor

The submersible Alvin which Emily Beale and her colleagues used to collect sediment from methane seeps in the Eel River Basin in California. Credit: Emily Beal, Penn State University

From Live Science:

About three years ago, Emily Beal — a graduate student in geosciences at Penn State —eagerly boarded the deep-diving research submersible called Alvin, bound for the bottom of the ocean.

After squeezing into Alvin’s titanium sphere, Beal began her plunge to the ocean floor with more than a tad of claustrophobia. Alvin was just big enough to hold her, the submersible’s pilot, and Penn State colleague Chris House. Fortunately, as Beal peered out of Alvin’s plate-sized portholes during her descent, her claustrophobia quickly gave way to pure, unalloyed exhilaration.

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Health Claim Of Probiotics Not Accepted

From The Independent:

£220m-a-year 'dairy shots' industry in disarray following EU scientists' ruling.

Drink this yogurt for a healthier stomach. Thirty million shoppers have swallowed the claims for probiotics as enthusiastically as the sweet fermented milk in the belief that "good bacteria" will defeat "bad bacteria" in epic microscopic battles inside our bodies.

But claims that probiotic ingredients improve health can not be supported, according to an extensive review of scientific research by a team of experts from the European Union.

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Best Of The Ig Nobel Prizes 2009

Surely there is more than one use for a bra?
(Image: Jessica Peterson/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Why don't pregnant women topple over? Do cows notice kindness? Does cracking your knuckles bring on arthritis? And is there more than one use for a bra? These questions and more inspired the research rewarded at the Ig Nobels, which were handed out on Thursday at Harvard University in a ceremony organised by the Annals of Improbable Research.

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Word Has It That eReaders Will Open The Next Chapter

From Times Online:

Microsoft and Apple are about to follow the tablet trend.

TRAVELLING between airports has given analyst Jon Peddie lots of time to study tech trends. There was the rise of the mobile, laptops, the iPod, the BlackBerry and the iPhone.

Now Peddie, who runs California-based Jon Peddie Research, sees another change coming: the rise of the eReader.

Laptops are becoming less popular, he reckons, and even netbooks are fading. The new must-have is an eReader.

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Siberian Volcano 'Wiped Out World's Forests' 250m Years Ago

According to scientists a huge Siberian volcano destroyed the
world's forests 250 million years ago Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

A huge Siberian volcano destroyed the world's forests 250 million years ago in what scientists say was the worst extinction event the planet has ever witnessed, new research has disclosed.

It rained fire and acid rain for hundreds of thousands of years and killed 90 percent of all life, including plants and vegetation.

An analysis of ancient fungus that thrives in dead wood has given scientists a window into the event.

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The U.S. Has Decided To Relinquish It's Dominant Control Of The Internet

Customers surf the web at an internet cafe in Beijing. Icann, the body that oversees web addresses, has ended its agreement with the US. Photograph: Greg Baker/AP

US Relinquishes Control Of The Internet -- The Guardian

• Icann ends agreement with the US government
• Move will give other countries a prominent internet role

After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.

Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement with the US government.

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With A Wave, Google Aims To Conquer The Network

Among suggested uses for Google Wave are organising trips,
laboratory record-keeping and journalism

From The Daily Mail:

Google last night invited 100,000 people to become the first users of its latest internet tool which aims to rival email, Twitter and Facebook.

Google Wave allows a limitless number of internet users anywhere in the world to have instant conversations and share files.

The service combines aspects of email, instant messaging, social networking and web chat and is aimed at friends catching up with one another and business partners sharing documents.

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A Genetic Fountain Of Youth

Aging machines: Mice lacking a functional version of the protein S6 kinase 1, an important regulator of the body's response to nutrient availability, live longer and healthier lives than their normal counterparts. The mouse on the left lacks the protein. Credit: George Thomas, University of Cincinnati

From Technology Review:

Researchers have identified a genetic tweak that can slow aging in mice.

By disabling a gene involved in an important biochemical signaling pathway, scientists have discovered a way to mimic the well-known anti-aging benefits of caloric restriction, allowing mice to live longer and healthier lives. This finding, published online today in Science, offers a promising drug target for combating the many health problems associated with aging.

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US Relaxes Grip On The Internet

From The BBC:

The US government has relaxed its control over how the internet is run.

It has signed a four-page "affirmation of commitments" with the net regulator Icann, giving the body autonomy for the first time.

Previous agreements gave the US close oversight of Icann - drawing criticism from other countries and groups.

The new agreement comes into effect on 1 October, exactly 40 years since the first two computers were connected on the prototype of the net.

"It's a beautifully historic day," Rod Beckstrom, Icann's head, told BBC News.

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Elderly Women Sleep Better Than They Think, Men Sleep Worse

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2009) — A study in the Oct.1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that elderly women sleep better than elderly men even though women consistently report that their sleep is shorter and poorer.

Women reported less and poorer sleep than men on all of the subjective measures, including a 13.2 minute shorter total sleep time (TST), 10.1 minute longer sleep onset latency (SOL), and a 4.2 percent lower sleep efficiency. When sleep was measured objectively, however, women slept 16 minutes lon¬ger than men, had a 1.2 percent higher sleep efficiency, and had less fragmented sleep.

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Scary Film 'Paranormal Activity' Is Disappointingly Normal

A scene from the low-budget, limited-release film "Paranormal Activity," which aims to scare the pants off moviegoers with scenes that have that documentary feel. Credit: Paramount Pictures

From Live Science:

“Paranormal Activity,” a horror film now in limited release across the country, tells the story of a young couple who move into a typical suburban house but are soon disturbed by a supernatural entity that delights in scaring them in the middle of the night. The pair (one a skeptic and one a believer, in true “X-Files” fashion) use a video camera aimed at their bed to document the strange forces that disturb them when they are trying to sleep.

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The Desperate Need For New Antibiotics

The number of different antibiotics available to treat infections is dwindling.
Najlah Feanny / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

In recent years, efforts to combat drug-resistant bacteria have focused on the immediate goal of reducing rates of hospital-acquired infections. But now global health officials face an approaching crisis: the number of different antibiotics available to treat such infections when they do occur is dwindling because pharmaceutical companies have neglected to invest in the development of new types of drugs.

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Apple’s Tablet Could Be Print Industry’s Lifeboat

From Gadget Lab:

The more you think about it, the more obvious it is that an Apple tablet would specialize in reviving dead-tree media (i.e., newspapers, magazines and books). All the rumors suggest the device would be a larger iPod Touch/iPhone with a 10-inch screen. Previously Wired.com argued that redefining print would would be a logical purpose for a gadget this size, and Gizmodo today has even more details to prove that this is Apple’s goal with the tablet.

Gizmodo’s Brian Lam cites two people related to The New York Times, who claim Apple approached them to talk about repurposing the newspaper onto a “new device.” Lam notes that Jobs has called the Times the “best newspaper in the world” in past keynotes. (I recall him saying that when introducing the iPhone’s web browser at Macworld Expo 2007.)

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Disarmingly Cute: 8 Military Robots That Spy, Fly, And Do Yoga

From Discover Magazine:

A new generation of military robots are coming soon to a battlefield near you. These new battle bots are more WALL*E than ED-209—cute, small, and innocent-looking, rather than giant and murderous.

But while they may appear adorable, the latest generation of robotic warriors can do a lot more than box up trash. Here are a few examples of these cute but deadly robots in action—leaping walls, flipping trucks and…doing yoga?

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Campaign Asks For International Treaty To Limit War Robots

Robots are synonymous with modern warfare, but what are the ethical implications? (Image: Ethan Miller/Getty)

From New Scientist:

A robotics expert, a physicist, a bioethicist and a philosopher have founded the International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) to campaign for limits on robotic military hardware.

Roboticist Noel Sharkey at the University of Sheffield, UK, and his colleagues set up ICRAC after a two-day meeting in Sheffield earlier this month. Sharkey has spoken before of ethical concerns about military systems that make their own decisions.

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Real or Fake? The World's Longest Basketball Shot

From Popular Science:

If we time the flight, we can then apply some ballpark approximations to determine whether the trajectory we see in the video conforms to that flight time. Using our stopwatch we observe that the ball is in the air for 3.8 seconds before passing through the basket. The horizontal distance to the basket from the launch point is approximately 50 meters, and the launch angle θ is about 20 degrees.

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New Filters In Google Search For Speed, News

The new options on the left side of a regular Google search results page emphasize how important presentation has become in search results. (Credit: Google)

From CNET:

Google has added a few new filters to the search options panel it introduced last May, emphasizing speed and continuity on its search results pages.

The "show options" link at the top of a Google search results page brings up a number of filters on the left side of the search results page that allow searchers to refine their queries, allowing them to search just for content types like videos or search results from a certain timeline. Google is gradually rolling out some new options in that panel, allowing searchers to find results from the last hour or results posted in Google Books or Google News, said Nundu Janakiram, product manager in search.

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The End Of Skype?

Mario Tama / Getty

The Skype Founders' Revenge Against eBay -- Time Magazine

Just when eBay thought it had figured out a way to unload a majority interest in Skype, along came the Scandinavian founders of the world's biggest provider of Internet telephony to sink the $1.9 billion deal — and perhaps Skype itself.

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are suing eBay, based in San Jose, Calif., and a consortium of investors that includes private-equity firms Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz (co-owned by Netscape's Marc Andreessen) and the Canada Pension Plan over the breach of a software-licensing agreement.

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New Nobel Prizes Are 'Unlikely'

From The BBC:

Calls from a group of eminent scientists for new Nobel prizes look unlikely to prove successful.

The group had argued that the current range of prizes was too narrow to reflect the breadth of modern science.

The Nobel prizes are considered to be the most prestigious awards in science, and are limited to a few categories.

But a senior official from the Nobel Foundation has told BBC News that the categories were outlined in Alfred Nobel's will and would not change.

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'Smart Drugs' Set To Cause Trouble

More powerful performance-enhancing drugs are in the pipeline, and may cause serious problems for universities in the future. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

PARIS: Students who use performance-enhancing drugs to stay alert and learn faster could pose a major dilemma for universities, and they may even face future urine tests, warns an Australian expert.

Writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, psychologist Vince Cakic of the University of Sydney, says that ‘nootropics’ – drugs designed to help people with cognitive problems – are already being used off-label to boost academic performances.

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Raining Pebbles: Rocky Exoplanet Has Bizarre Atmosphere, Simulation Suggests

The exoplanet COROT-7b is close enough to its star that its "day-face" is hot enough to melt rock. Theoretical models suggest the planet has an atmosphere of the components of rock in gaseous form and lava or boiling oceans on its surface. (Credit: Image by ESO/L. Calcada)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2009) — So accustomed are we to the sunshine, rain, fog and snow of our home planet that we find it next to impossible to imagine a different atmosphere and other forms of precipitation.

To be sure, Dr. Seuss came up with a green gluey substance called oobleck that fell from the skies and gummed up the Kingdom of Didd, but it had to be conjured up by wizards and was clearly a thing of magic.

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Loss Of Top Predators Causing Ecosystems To Collapse

From Live Science:

The catastrophic decline around the world of "apex" predators such as wolves, cougars, lions or sharks has led to a huge increase in smaller "mesopredators" that are causing major economic and ecological disruptions, a new study concludes.

The findings, published today in the journal Bioscience, found that in North America all of the largest terrestrial predators have been in decline during the past 200 years while the ranges of 60 percent of mesopredators have expanded. The problem is global, growing and severe, scientists say, with few solutions in sight.

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Farmed Out: How Will Climate Change Impact World Food Supplies?

BLEAK FUTURE?: A new report estimates that climate change will result in 25 million more malnourished children by 2050. © iStockphoto.com / Clint Spencer

From Scientific American:

A new study attempts to estimate the effects of climate change on global agriculture--and outline ways to mitigate its most dire consequences.

The people of East Africa once again face a devastating drought this year: Crops wither and fail from Kenya to Ethiopia, livestock drop dead and famine spreads. Although, historically, such droughts are not uncommon in this region, their frequency seems to have increased in recent years, raising prices for staple foods, such as maize.

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Excavating Ardi: A New Piece For The Puzzle Of Human Evolution

Image: A artist's rendering of the probable life appearance and skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, aka "Ardi" (c) 2009, J.H. Matternes

From Time Magazine:

Figuring out the story of human origins is like assembling a huge, complicated jigsaw puzzle that has lost most of its pieces. Many will never be found, and those that do turn up are sometimes hard to place. Every so often, though, fossil hunters stumble upon a discovery that fills in a big chunk of the puzzle all at once — and simultaneously reshapes the very picture they thought they were building.

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High-Res Images of New Territory on Mercury

From Wired Science:

Flying within 228 kilometers of the surface of Mercury on Sept. 29, the Messenger spacecraft snapped portraits of a portion of the planet that had never before been imaged close up.

Messenger also examined in greater detail Mercury’s western hemisphere, which had been imaged during a previous passage in October 2008 (SN Online: 10/29/08).

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Will Computer Programs Replace Mozart?

From Discover Magazine:

Meet Emily Howell. She’s a composer who is about to have a CD released of sonatas she composed. So what makes her unique? She’s also a computer program.

Emily was created by University of California-Santa Cruz professor David Cope, who claims to be more of a music teacher than a computer scientist (he’s both). Cope has been working on combining artificial intelligence with music for 30 years—thereby challenging the idea that creating music should be limited to the human mind.

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Asian Quake Could Trigger California's Big One

Influencing the San Andreas fault line at Parkfield. (Image: David Paul Morris/Getty)

From New Scientist:

IT'S a kind of geological butterfly effect. Fenglin Niu of Rice University in Houston, Texas, and colleagues believe they have found two clear cases where remote events weakened the San Andreas fault near Parkfield, California. The finding suggests powerful earthquakes - like the one that has just hit Sumatra - may trigger further quakes worldwide.

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Plutonium Shortage Threatens Future Deep Space Missions

Fuel Shortage Dwindling supplies of plutonium-238, the fuel NASA uses to launch probes into deep space and to power Mars rovers, threaten to set back some missions for a decade. Los Alamos National Laboratory

From Popular Science:

Imagine you’re driving across the Mojave Desert, and somewhere in the middle of absolutely nowhere you realize that the next gas station is further away than your car can travel on its current supply of gasoline. What next? That’s the problem NASA mission planners are facing as the agency's supply of plutonium-238, the fuel used to power deep space probes like Cassini and surface scouts like the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory, are dwindling. Unfortunately, that leaves NASA in a pretty tight spot: we’ve depleted our reserves of plutonium-238, and there isn’t anywhere to refuel ahead on the horizon either.

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How to Make Biodiesel With a Commercial Kit

Senior editor Mike Allen (who used to teach organic chemistry in a previous career) gloves up to pump methanol into the processor.

From Popular Mechanics:

“Make your own diesel for 70 cents a gallon,” the Internet ad claimed. I was tired of paying for 30 gallons of regular diesel each week to fill my pickup, so I downloaded the instructions. It wasn’t long before I was sucking used fry oil out of tanks behind a restaurant, and mixing it with lye and methanol in a 5-gallon bottle before pouring it into an old water heater.

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Microsoft Researcher Converts His Brain Into 'E-Memory'

Photo: Gordon Bell wearing a SenseCam, which automatically records photos throughout the day.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- For the past decade, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been moving the data from his brain onto computers -- where he knows it will be safe.

Sure, you could say all of us do this to some extent. We save digital pictures from family events and keep tons of e-mail.

But Bell, who is 75 years old, takes the idea of digital memory to a sci-fi-esque extreme. He carries around video equipment, cameras and audio recorders to capture his conversations, commutes, trips and experiences.

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First Intelligent Financial Search Engine Developed

Financial search engine image.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2009) — Researchers from the Carlos III University of Madrid (UCM3) have completed the development of the first search engine designed to search for information from the financial and stock market sector based on semantic technology, which enables one to make more accurate thematic searches adapted to the needs of each user.

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Spiritual Women Have More Sex

From Live Science:

Is it sexy to be spiritual? New research has found that spirituality has a greater effect on the sex lives of young adults — especially women — than religion, impulsivity, or alcohol.

“I think people have been well aware of the role that religious and spiritual matters play in everyday life for a very long time,” said Jessica Burris, one of the study’s researchers at the University of Kentucky. “But in the research literature, the unique qualities of spirituality — apart from religiousness — are not usually considered.”

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Cleaning Up On Dirty Coal

Photo: Cheap coal: This demonstration plant in Wilsonville, AL, uses a transport gasifier to turn two tons of cheap, low-quality coal per hour into a clean-burning gas. A plant based on similar technology is scheduled for China. Credit: KBR

From Technology Review:

A novel gasification process for low-quality coal heads to China.

The industrial boomtown of Dongguan in southeast China's Pearl River Delta could soon host one of the country's most sophisticated power plants, one that uses an unconventional coal-gasification technology to make the dirtiest coal behave like clean-burning natural gas. Its developers, Atlanta-based utility Southern Company and Houston-based engineering firm KBR, announced the licensing deal with Dongguan Power and Chemical Company this month.

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World Biofuel Use Expected To Double By 2015

From CNET:

Global biofuel use is expected to increase twofold by 2015 and Brazil will remain the world's top exporter of biofuel, according to a report released Wednesday by Hart Energy Consulting.

The U.S. is expected to see the largest increase in biofuel use per country, increasing its current consumption by more than 30 percent, according to data from the "Global Biofuels Outlook: 2009-2015" report.

The overall increased use of biofuel in many countries around the world will make a dent in the world's consumption of traditional gasoline, according to Hart.

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America's 'Most Dangerous Fault'

From The BBC:

It's a big white building on Mission Boulevard. You can't miss it; the Art Deco style is really striking. The grass is trimmed and it all looks perfectly inviting, except this is a lock-out.

The first Hayward City Hall in California has long been off-limits to occupants because its foundations sit right atop an earthquake fault and it's gradually splitting in two.

"Look up at the stairwell," says geologist Russ Graymer, as we peer through a window.

"There are huge cracks, several centimetres broad and many metres long - basically showing the evidence that this building is being torn in half."

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Being Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking

From Discovery:

Sir John Maddox, twice the editor of the journal Nature, was one of the most thoughtful voices in science journalism of the past five decades. He died on April 12 of this year, but his spirit lives on in this unique appreciation of Stephen Hawking, appearing in publication for the first time. Also see the related look at Hawking's recent work, "Stephen Hawking Is Making His Comeback."

On November 30 of 2006, in the august premises of the Royal Society of London, I had dinner with professor Stephen Hawking. To boast of having had dinner with Hawking creates a false impression. The circumstances were these. Since the summer I had been badgering the “graduate assistant to Professor Hawking” for an interview. Early in November, word came that Hawking was to receive the Copley Medal, the most venerable of the Royal Society’s gifts. I was invited; the date was plainly a license to join the scrum around the wheelchair after the group photographs had been taken.

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Why The Mafia Study Gangster Movies

From The Guardian:

Life imitates art as mob members avidly watch The Godfather to find out how to do their jobs.

Bada-bing. For some people, The Godfather is no mere movie but a manual – a guide to living the gangster's life. They lap up all that stuff about going to the mattresses and sleeping with the fishes. The famous scene in which a mafia refusenik wakes up next to a horse's head may be macabre make-believe, but in some quarters it's treated like a tutorial.

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Dementia Risk Seen in Players in N.F.L. Study

New England Patriots' linebacker Ted Johnson, left, listens to coach Pepper Johnson during an afternoon training camp in 2001. Charles Krupa/Associated Press

From New York Times:

A study commissioned by the National Football League reports that Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s former players vastly more often than in the national population — including a rate of 19 times the normal rate for men ages 30 through 49.

The N.F.L. has long denied the existence of reliable data about cognitive decline among its players. These numbers would become the league’s first public affirmation of any connection, though the league pointed to limitations of this study.

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The Next Generation Of Stealth

A cloaking device is made of copper rings, each surrounded by 10 layers of meta-material. (© Duke Photography www.dukephoto.duke.edu)

Now You See It, Now You Don’t -- Air & Space Smithsonian

Blinding us with science: the next generation of stealth.

Look down a long stretch of highway on a summer afternoon and in the distance a pool of water seems to wait for you, glistening under the hot sun. It’s only an illusion—Mother Nature’s version of a practical joke. The difference in density between the asphalt-heated air near the surface and the cooler air above acts like a lens, bending light waves as they pass from one layer to the next to reflect the blue sky and hide both the blacktop and any vehicles at the far end of the road behind a shimmering curtain.

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My Comment: The technical geek inside of me loves stories like this one .... makes you wonder what the ultimate limits to stealth are.

Clown Blastes Into Space

Rocket Carrying Cirque Du Soleil Founder Guy Laliberté Blasts Off -- Montreal Gazette

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan — The billionaire founder of Cirque du Soleil Wednesday blasted off on a Russian rocket to bring his trademark humour and acrobatic energy into the ultra-serious world of space flight.

Guy Laliberté, 50, a Canadian citizen, had spent millions from a personal fortune on his two week visit to the International Space Station (ISS) but he could be the last such "space tourist" for several years.

Read more ....

Canadian space tourist and founder of Cirque du Soleil Guy Laliberte jokes during space suit testing prior to his blast off from a Russian leased Kazakh Baikonur cosmodrome on September 30, 2009 in a Russian Soyuz TMA-16 rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) together with Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev and a U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams. Photograph by: Alexander Nemenov, AFP/Getty Images

More News On Today's Space Launch

Cirque de Soleil owner Guy Laliberte becomes first clown in space -- Times Online
Canadian circus billionaire heads to space station -- AP
Clown takes giant leap into space -- AFP
A Billionaire Clowns Around In Space -- Forbes
Cirque de Soleil boss in space -- The Sun
Canadian circus tycoon is 7th pay-for-play space traveler -- USA Today
'Clown' space tourist blasts off -- BBC
Circus tycoon Guy Laliberté becomes first clown in space -- The Guardian

Samoan Tsunami Caused By 'Shallow Quake'

(Click to Enlarge)
A map showing the effects of an 8.3-magnitude earthquake and its resultant tsunami
on Samoa and American Samoa.(Source: Google)

From ABC News (Australia):

Scientists say the tsunami that devastated the islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga was the result of a shallow rupture in the earth's crust.

The earthquake, which was measured as high as 8.3 on the Richter scale, occurred 190 kilometres southwest of American Samoa.

Gary Gibson, a senior seismologist at Environmental Systems and Services in Melbourne, says the region experiences several magnitude 7 earthquakes each year, but a magnitude 8 is quite rare.

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Air Pollutants From Abroad A Growing Concern, Says New Report

The MODIS sensor aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite observed a heavy pall of pollution (gray pixels) over much of eastern China in this image from 2003. Plumes of harmful air pollutants can be transported across oceans and continents -- from Asia to the United States and from the United States to Europe -- and have a negative impact on air quality far from their original sources. (Credit: Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 30, 2009) — Plumes of harmful air pollutants can be transported across oceans and continents -- from Asia to the United States and from the United States to Europe -- and have a negative impact on air quality far from their original sources, says a new report by the National Research Council. Although degraded air quality is nearly always dominated by local emissions, the influence of non-domestic pollution sources may grow as emissions from developing countries increase and become relatively more important as a result of tightening environmental protection standards in industrialized countries.

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Clock Turned Back On Aging Muscles, Researchers Claim

Young, healthy muscle (left column) appears pink and red. In contrast, the old muscle is marked by scarring and inflammation, as evidenced by the yellow and blue areas. This difference between old and young tissue occurs both in the muscle's normal state and after two weeks of immobilization in a cast. Exercise after cast removal did not significantly improve old muscle regeneration; scarring and inflammation persisted, or worsened in many cases. Credit: Morgan E. Carlson and Irina M. Conboy, UC Berkeley

From Live Science:

Scientists have found and manipulated body chemistry linked to the aging of muscles and were able to turn back the clock on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself, they said today.

The study involved a small number of participants, however. And the news is not all rosy.

Importantly, the research also found evidence that aging muscles need to be kept in shape, because long periods of atrophy are more challenging to overcome. Older muscles do not respond as well to sudden bouts of exercise, the scientists discovered, and rather than building muscle a person can generate scar tissue upon, say, lifting weights after long periods of inactivity.

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Environmentalists Battle Over Toilet Paper

Photo: (iStockphoto)

From CBS News:

Washington Post: Groups Say Soft Toilet Paper May be Hard on the Earth, But Consumers May Not Buy the Alternative.

There is a battle for America's behinds.

It is a fight over toilet paper: the kind that is blanket-fluffy and getting fluffier so fast that manufacturers are running out of synonyms for "soft" (Quilted Northern Ultra Plush is the first big brand to go three-ply and three-adjective).

It's a menace, environmental groups say -- and a dark-comedy example of American excess.

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Everything We Know About Apple’s Touchscreen Tablet

From Gadget Lab:

It’s looking more and more likely that Apple will release a 10-inch tablet computer in early 2010.

Even if you’re sick of Apple tablet rumors, we promise you’ll like this one. The latest update comes from a tipster with a solid track record, which reinforces previous reports that Apple will deliver a tablet in early 2010. The tipster also shares details on the rumored product’s specifications.

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SETI At 50: 10 Key Moments In The Search For Extraterrestrial Life

In 2015, Voyager 1 will become the first man-made object to leave the solar system
Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, or SETI, is 50 years old this month. We look at 10 memorable events in the search for life on other planets.

SETI was founded in response to a September 1959 Nature journal article, “Searching for Interstellar Communication”, which suggested that a systematic search for alien life was worthwhile.

Since then, it has spent 50 years listening to the stars with radio telescopes, and at times trying to send messages of its own to other planets.

Here are 10 of the most significant events in mankind’s search for other life.

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The Speech Safire Wrote For Nixon If Apollo 11 Astronauts Were Stranded On The Moon.

From Boing Boing:

Columnist and conservative speechwriter William Safire died yesterday at age 79. Here is the speech he drafted for President Nixon to read in the event that Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong found themselves stranded to die on the moon. I am happy to note that Messrs. Aldrin and Armstrong are all still alive (as is Michael Collins, who orbited the moon while his colleagues walked on her surface). William Safire's Finest Speech. (Gawker, via Scott Beale)

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Huge 507-Carat Diamond Found In South African Mine

Petra Diamonds chief executive Johan Dippenaar holds a white diamond weighing 507.55 carats.

From New York Daily News:

JOHANNESBURG - Petra Diamonds Ltd. says a diamond the size of a chicken egg has been found at South Africa's Cullinan mine.

The diamond may be among the world's top 20 high-quality gems.

It was discovered Thursday at the mine northeast of Pretoria, South Africa.

Johan Dippenaar, the company's chief executive said in a statement Tuesday that the 507.55-carat gem was of "exceptional color and clarity."

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Number Of Earth's Species Known To Scientists Rises To 1.9 Million

A twisted nudibranch, (Chromodoris Elizabethina), on the reef face off Heron Island, discovered by researchers last year. Photograph: Gary Cranitch/Queensland Museum

From The Guardian:

The world's most comprehensive catalogue of plants and animals has been boosted by 114,000 new species in the past three years.

The number of species on the planet that have been documented by scientists has risen to 1.9 million, according to the world's most comprehensive catalogue of plants and animals.

The new figure has been boosted by 114,000 new species discovered since the catalogue was last compiled by Australian researchers three years ago – a 6.3% increase.

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Moon Could Become The World's 'Service Station' Thanks To Abundance Of Oxygen And Hydrogen

With hydrogen and oxygen both abundant on the moon's surface, man may be able to have all the water and rocket fuel needed for space exploration

From The Daily Mail:

The discovery of water on the moon could pave the way for us to build a rocket refueling station up there.

For man to be able to make sustainable, affordable voyages in the solar system, we need a way to re-fuel off the planet.

Now, with the discovery of hydrogen and oxygen molecules - the components of water - on our neighbouring body, we may now have a staging post to explore the other planets.

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