Pirate Bay Suffers Outage, Site Back Up

The Pirate Bay founders: Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm
(Credit: The Pirate Bay)

From CNET:

The Pirate Bay was down across the U.S. for at least three hours on Friday, an outage that comes as the site's latest bandwidth provider comes under pressure from entertainment companies.

CNET noted that the site was down at 1:22 p.m. PDT but appeared to come back up at 4:50 p.m. PDT. The cause for the blackout was unclear. Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of The Pirate Bay's co-founders did not respond to interview requests.

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Update: Google: Pirate Bay booted off search by mistake -- CNET

Why Don’t Pregnant Women Tip Over? Ask An Ig Noble Winner.

Photo: Fumiaki Taguchi, professor emeritus at the graduate school of medical sciences in Kitasato University, makes a speech during the Ig Noble awards ceremony at Harvard University's historic Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Oct. 1. Taguchi is among this year's winners of the Ig Nobel Prize for developing a method to cut kitchen refuse using bacteria derived from giant panda feces.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

At Harvard University, a select group of researchers receive their Ig Noble awards.

It’s October again, which means it’s time for the Ig Nobles – a set of prizes awarded to discoveries “that cannot, or should not, be reproduced.” The Ig Nobels were dished out last night at Sanders Theater, on the campus of Harvard University, and the awards, which cover categories ranging from physics to physiology, appear to have gone to the appropriate “innovators.”

Here’s the full list of winners, courtesy of the Associated Press:

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Herschel Scans Hidden Milky Way

Herschel trains two eyes, Pacs and Spire, on our Galaxy's centre

From The BBC:

A remarkable view of our Galaxy has been obtained by Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Observatory.

The telescope was put in a special scanning mode to map a patch of sky.

The images reveal in exquisite detail the dense, contorted clouds of cold gas that are collapsing in on themselves to form new stars.

Herschel, which has the largest mirror ever put on an orbiting telescope, was launched in May as a flagship mission of the European Space Agency.

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GOCE Harnesses Ion Propulsion To Capture First 'Gravity Map' Of Earth

Ion-Propelled Gradiometer GOCE must remain in stable free fall at low orbit, so an electric ion propulsion engine constantly provides small bursts of thrusts to counteract any air resistance the craft encounters. ESA - AOES Medialab

From Popular Science:

After six months of testing and very careful calibration, the European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite is sending back its first data sets as it now begins precisely mapping tiny variations in Earth’s magnetic field. How does one go about mapping the Earth’s fundamental force? As it turns out, very, very carefully.

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The Shining: What We Still Have To Learn About The Northern Lights.

A typical Alaskan sky, photographed from Eielson Air Force Base, 25 miles southeast of Fairbanks, displays auroral structures and motions that scientists still find mystifying. (USAF/ Senior Airman Joshua Strang)

From Air & Space Smithsonian:

What first appeared almost an hour ago as a strange green cloud in the northeast has now spread across most of the sky near Alaska’s Poker Flat Research Range. Sheets of green light shimmer in front of the stars, waxing and waning, as electrons from the solar wind rain down through Earth’s atmosphere, colliding with atoms and creating the aurora. Here, watching the light show under a zillion stars, I get a strong, almost physical awareness of being on a planet—a planet orbiting a star and connected to it, despite the 93 million miles of space separating them.

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e-Wolf's e2 Next-Gen EV Supercar a Handsome Powerhouse

e-Wolf's e2 Electric Vehicle: With a top speed of 155 mph and 0-60 acceleration in under four seconds, the e2's performance is nothing to scoff at (for an EV especially). e-Wolf

From Popular Science:

No sooner does Tesla announce that it's expanding its vision to include minivans and crossovers, e-Wolf unveils an EV supercar that’s so sporty we’ve forgotten what Tesla’s Roadster even looks like. With a top speed of 155 miles per hour and a 0-60 acceleration that clocks in under four seconds, it has the performance to (somewhat) match its Italian playboy good looks, and its all-wheel drive (each wheel is powered by an independent electric motor) should be able to keep all 2,000 pounds of it on the road.

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Scientists Develop Nasal Spray That Improves Memory

Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night's sleep follows. (Credit: iStockphoto/Ana Blazic)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2009) — Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night's sleep follows. In a research report featured as the cover story of the October 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, these scientists show that a molecule from the body's immune system (interleukin-6) when administered through the nose helps the brain retain emotional and procedural memories during REM sleep.

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Dinosaur-killing Space Rock Barely Rattled Algae

A close-up view of the 40-centimeter-wide Fish Clay boundary layer. Credit: J. Sepúlveda.

From Live Science:

The asteroid impact that many researchers claim was the cause of the dinosaur die-off was bad news for marine life at the time as well. But new research shows that microalgae – one of the primary producers in the ocean – bounced back from the global extinction in about 100 years or less.

Most of the research on the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-P) extinction event, previously called the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) event, has involved charting the loss of organisms that had bones or shells.

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Sedatives May Slow Recovery From Trauma

Benzodiazepines may not be the answer for soldiers suffering stress from the horrors of war (Image: Sipa Press/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

GIVING sleeping pills to soldiers and earthquake victims is common practice, yet it could be doing more harm than good. That's the suggestion from a study of traumatised rats, which seemed to show that the drugs suppressed the rodent's natural mechanisms for coping with trauma.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs says it will consider this and other studies when preparing new guidelines on treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If their results are strong enough, it may recommend withholding sedatives in the aftermath of traumatic events. The findings are also throwing up new possibilities for preventing PTSD (see "Fight stress with stress").

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Nature's Clones: What Twins Have Taught Us

Studies on twins have revealed the genetic nature of many medical conditions, including autism and ADHD. Now they're giving us unnerving insights into many behavioural traits too.Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

Is it our experiences or our genes that make us who we are? Studying twins has revealed unexpected, and often unnerving, insights into the nature versus nurture debate.

Imagine receiving a phone call out of the blue. You find the voice on the other end eerily familiar as it tells you some life-changing news: you are, in fact, a twin. And when it comes time to meet face-to-face, you find it’s like gazing into a mirror. You share a similar dress sense, hairstyle and even idiosyncratic gestures and expressions you thought were uniquely yours.

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Meeting Pretty Women Makes Men Feel Good

Psychologists found that just a five minute talk with an attractive women raised the levels of testosterone by 14 per cent Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Flirting with an attractive woman really does make men feel good, scientists find, as they discover it causes a surge in health-giving hormones.

Researchers found that just being in the presence of a pretty member of the opposite sex causes a temporary boost in levels of testosterone and cortisol – both hormones associated with alertness and wellbeing.

However hanging around with other men has the opposite affect – reducing the levels of both substances in the body.

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The Secrets Of Ancient Rome

Rose Ferraby from the University of Southampton works on a three-seat communal toilet discovered at the site of the ancient port of the Roman Empire Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

From The Guardian:

The discovery of a major new archaeological site in Italy is a reminder that the world is still stuffed with secrets.

Look down from a height at any landscape in this slanting autumn light, and you'll see that the ground is only a thin blanket thrown over the remains of the past. The faint marks of fields and walls, houses and roads, show up even in the heart of cities – in relics as humble as the outline of a lost Edwardian rose bed, marring the bland green perfection of a suburban lawn.

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Video: The Robot That Can Turn Into A Car

From The Daily Mail:

A Japanese inventor has designed a robot that can change from robot to vehicle in seconds - and can even offer 'piggy-backs' on its shoulders.

Looking a bit like Optimus Prime, the lead character of the Transformers films, the robot is even prepared to battle, especially when it takes exception to sharing the stage with a smaller robot.

The three-foot high creation took part in the Robo-One competition, which aims to drive the creation of humanoid-shaped robots.

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How Aviation Can Come Clean

Image: Flying wing: The Boeing X-48B, an unmanned prototype with a 6.4-meter wingspan, has a blended-wing design that could one day replace that of today's commercial planes. Credit: NASA

From Technology Review:

Advanced technology won't be enough for the industry to meet its own greenhouse-gas targets.

Last week the global aviation industry called on the United Nations to establish a single, worldwide policy for reducing aviation greenhouse-gas emissions, in an attempt to avoid a costly network of regional regulations. The industry proposed two primary goals--that by 2020 it should stop increasing its greenhouse emissions, and that by 2050 it should cut its emissions by 50 percent compared to 2005 levels.

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Students Build The Solar Homes Of The Future

From Popular Mechanics:

For the Solar Decathlon, 20 teams of college students strive to build the most technologically savvy sun-powered house. For two weeks in October their homes go head to head in a contest to consume the least energy.

On a hot and bright California day, the red steel frame of a half-built house, its footprint a jagged stamp on the landscape, glints in the sunshine beaming down on Santa Clara University. Crawling around the crescent-shaped structure, workers holler measurements, fasten sheathing and snap chalk lines. They’re wearing hard hats and tool belts, and the noise of steel swatting plywood sounds unmistakably like a job site. But this is hardly a construction crew out of central casting.

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With Drone Shortage, Air Force Pilots Train With Cessnas Dressed Up Like Predators

Surrogate Predator: A Cessna 182 wears the sensor ball
of a Predator Lon Carlson, L-3 Communications.

From Popular Science:

Converted manned aircraft with mounted sensor balls will imitate Predators and Reapers during military exercises.

A high demand for Predators and Reapers on the front lines has led the U.S. Air Force to take an unusual step: asking human pilots to mimic the drones for training purposes back in the States.

Cessna 182 aircraft have become converted "Surrogate Predators" with the installation of a "Predator ball" that typically serves as the surveillance and tracking eyes for drone operators. Such Predator balls give the manned Cessnas the ability to lock onto targets and track them.

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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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