A Whole New World: The Amazing Map Based On Population That Shows Britain Is Still A Big Player

(Click Image to Enlarge)
New world view: China and India are the big players in this population
based map as opposed to land mass

From The Daily Mail:

It is a world away from the world we know. But this is how the countries of the world look if maps are based on population size rather than land mass.

Academics came up with the startling images after throwing away 500 years of conventional cartography. The result was this very different global landscape.

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India's Thirst Is Making Us All Wet

From New Scientist:

ONE nation's thirst for groundwater is having an impact on global sea levels. Satellite measurements show that northern India is sucking some 54 trillion litres of water out of the ground every year. This is threatening a major water crisis and adding to global sea level rise.

Virendra Tiwari from the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India, and colleagues used gravity data from the GRACE satellite to monitor the loss of continental mass around the world since 2002. Regions where water is being removed from the ground have less mass and therefore exert a smaller gravitational pull on the satellite.

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Windows 7 To Usher In Crush Of Cheap Laptops

Image: HP ProBook 5310m starts at $699: this class of business laptop used to start at well over $1,000. (Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

From CNET:

Call it the Netbook halo effect: small and cheap is infectious. A quick peek at the lineups of new laptops slated for an October 22 roll-out from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba make it clear that the prices of mainstream and higher-end laptops are diving, even as the technology gets better.

"There's a new reality in laptop pricing," said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at market-researcher IDC. "It's getting harder and harder to sell anything over $800." O'Donnell cited a data point that showed the average selling price of notebooks falling below desktops briefly in retail. "That may have been an anomaly, but the fact that's it's even close is indicative of this phenomenon."

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'Mini-Colosseum' Excavated in Rome

Ulysses: A statue of Ulysses, also known as the famous Greek epic hero Odysseus. A 'mini-Colosseum' that lies beneath an airport may have hosted Roman emperors. With the help of ground penetrating radar, the archaeologists have uncovered luxuriously decorated rooms, a colonnaded garden, and this finely carved marble head, among other artifacts. University of Southampton

From Discovery News:

Beneath Rome's Fiumicino airport lies a "mini-Colosseum" that may have played host to Roman emperors, according to British archaeologists.

The foundations of the amphitheater, which are oval-shaped like the much larger arena in the heart of Rome, have been unearthed at the site of Portus, a 2nd century A.D. harbor near Ostia's port on the Tiber River.

A monumental seaport that saved imperial Rome from starvation, Portus is now reduced to a large hexagonal pond on a marshy land owned by a noble family, the Duke Sforza Cesarinis.

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US 'Red Tape' Dogged India Moon Mission

From The BBC:

The recent discovery of water on the Moon by India's inaugural lunar mission almost never happened because of a twin helping of good old-fashioned red tape and lingering Cold War suspicions, reports science writer Pallava Bagla.

Hidden behind the euphoria of the find is a less publicised tale of complex back room dealings between Indian and American space science teams.

Back in 2004, scientists from the two countries were eager to collaborate, but the Bureau of Export Control in the US did not share this enthusiasm. In fact it was seen by some on the Indian side as being singularly obstinate.

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10 Dirty Little Restaurant Secrets

Photo: travelbex, Flickr.

From Slashfood:

There's a reason most restaurants keep the kitchen doors closed -- and it's not just because it's so hot back there.

It can be tough for restaurateurs to turn a profit and Slashfood has uncovered some of the ultra-dirty deeds even the best restaurants commit in order to pinch pennies.

Read on for 10 true stories about the subtle, sneaky and sometimes downright disgusting ways restaurants cheat to save a buck -- and how you might be paying the price.

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Hat Tip: Geek Press

How A Biofuel 'Miracle' Ruined Kenyan Farmers

Kenyan market vendors selling maize in Kagemi
Simon Maina / AFP / Getty

From Time Magazine:

Everyone in Kibwezi, a village in southeastern Kenya parched by four years of drought, remembers the promises. It all started in 2000, when the government started preaching the word about a plant called jatropha curcas. That surprised people in Kibwezi because everyone already knew about Jatropha — it's a weed. Sometimes people planted it to fence off their farms, but usually they just ignored it.

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Fantastic Photos Of Our Solar System

The robotic Cassini spacecraft which is now orbiting Saturn looked back toward the eclipsed Sun and saw a view unlike any other. CICLOPS, JPL, ESA, NASA

From The Smithsonian:

In the past decade, extraordinary space missions have discovered new features of the Sun, the planets and their moons.

We've been looking at other planets through telescopes for four centuries. But if you really want to get to know a place, there's no substitute for being there. And in the past decade, more than 20 spacecraft have ventured into the deepest reaches of our solar system. These probes, unlike the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories that merely orbit Earth, have actually traveled to other planets and approached the Sun, sending back pictures that humble or awe, even as they advance astronomers' understanding of our corner of the universe.

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Using Synthetic Evolution To Study The Brain: Key Part Of Neurons Modeled On Computer

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 3, 2009) — The human brain has evolved over millions of years to become a vast network of billions of neurons and synaptic connections. Understanding it is one of humankind’s greatest pursuits.

But to understand how the brain processes information, researchers must first understand the very basics of neurons — even down to how proteins inside the neurons act to change the neuron’s voltage.

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Drink From The Fountain Of Youth With A Grain Of Salt

From Live Science:

Two studies announced today could make you downright giddy with youthful optimism, but you'd be wise to take them with a grain of salt.

One says half of babies born in rich nations today could live to be 100, Reuters reports. The speculation is based on the idea that the recent historic rise in life expectancy could continue. Don't bank on it.

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How Can a Pregnant Woman Get Pregnant Again?

Ian Hooton / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

An Indonesian woman gave birth to a 19-lb. 2-oz. baby behemoth on Sept. 24, but that was only the second weirdest pregnancy tale of the month. The strangest belongs to Julia Grovenburg, a 31-year-old Arkansas woman who has a double pregnancy. No, not twins — Grovenburg became pregnant twice, two weeks apart. Isn't that supposed to be impossible?

Almost. There have been only 10 recorded cases of the phenomenon, dubbed superfetation. In Grovenburg's case, she became pregnant first with a girl (whom she has decided to name Jillian) and then two weeks later with a boy (Hudson). The babies have separate due dates — Jillian on Dec. 24, Hudson on Jan. 10.

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Fine Line Between Genius And Madness, Scientists Find

Vincent Van Gogh Photo: AP

From The Telegraph:

There is a fine line between genius and madness because they share the same genes, scientists have found.

Psychologists have discovered that creative people have a gene in common which is also linked to psychosis and depression.

They believe that the findings could explain why "geniuses" like Vincent van Gogh and Sylvia Plath displayed such destructive behaviour.

The gene, which is called neuregulin 1, plays a role in brain development but a variant of it is also associated with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

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Bluehenge Unearthed: Prehistoric Site That Could Be Famous Stone Circle's Little Sister

The prehistoric circle has been named Bluehenge after the
colour of the 27 giant stones it once incorporated

From The Daily Mail:

Archaeologists have discovered Stonehenge's little sister - just a mile from the famous monument.

The prehistoric circle, unearthed in secret over the summer, is one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades.

Researchers have called it 'Bluehenge' after the colour of the 27 giant Welsh stones it once incorporated - but are now missing.

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Experts Call For Nobel Prizes To Be Revamped

Where's the prize for fighting climate change?
(Image: Science and Society Picture Library/Getty)

From New Scientist:

THE Nobel prize system needs an overhaul. That's the conclusion of a group of scientists brought together by New Scientist to debate the future of the prizes.

In a letter to the Nobel Foundation, published on newscientist.com on 30 September, the group suggests that the foundation should introduce prizes for the environment and public health, and reform the existing medicine prize. "These suggestions will enable the prizes to remain influential for another hundred years," the group says.

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Weird, Rare Clouds And The Physics Behind Them

From Wired Science:

In August, we posted a photograph of some odd, rare clouds known as Morning Glory clouds without providing an explanation for how they form. In response to reader interest, we followed up with meteorologist Roger Smith of the University of Munich, who has studied their formation.

“Over the years we’ve developed a good understanding of them,” Smith said. “It’s no longer a mystery, but still very spectacular.”

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'Hidden' Milky Way Caught On Camera

Herschel trains two eyes, Pacs and Spire, on our Galaxy's centre. European Space Agency

From The Independent:

New images of our galaxy today showed a small part of the milky way in a new light.

A British scientist involved in obtaining the pictures said they showed the galaxy in "a very turbulent process", constantly forging new generations of stars.

The images were produced by the Herschel Space Observatory using, for the first time, the UK-led Spire camera in tandem with the satellite's other camera, Pacs.

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The World's Growing Population Poses a Malthusian Dilemma

MALTHUSIAN DILEMMA: How to feed a human population expected to reach 9 billion by 2050 while also grappling with poverty as well as climate change, dead zones, biodiversity loss and other environmental ills? © iStockphoto.com / Tobias Helbig

From Scientific American:

Solving climate change, the Sixth Extinction and population growth... at the same time.

By 2050, the world will host nine billion people—and that's if population growth slows in much of the developing world. Today, at least one billion people are chronically malnourished or starving. Simply to maintain that sad state of affairs would require the clearing (read: deforestation) of 900 million additional hectares of land, according to Pedro Sanchez, director of the Tropical Agriculture and Rural Environment Program at The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

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Russia Extends Human Cloning Ban

From RIA Novosti:

MOSCOW, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has decided to extend a moratorium on human cloning that expired two years ago by five years, the health and social development minister said on Friday.

Tatyana Golikova said the moratorium, which ended on June 23, 2007, "only applies to human cloning."

It was not entirely clear why it was not prolonged at the time or whether any human cloning experiments had been carried out in Russia during the past two years.

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Quick Rebound From Marine Mass Extinction Event, New Findings Show

An artist's rendering of the asteroid impact that took place 65 million years ago and likely killed off nearly every large vertebrate species on the planet, including, many think, the dinosaurs. (Credit: Don Davis/NASA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2009) — In 1980, Luis Alvarez and his collaborators stunned the world with their discovery that an asteroid impact 65 million years ago probably killed off the dinosaurs and much of the the world's living organisms. But ever since, there has been an ongoing debate about how long it took for life to return to the devastated planet and for ecosystems to bounce back.

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Lamp Runs On Human Blood

A lamp that uses blood to create light is meant to make people rethink how they use energy. The lamp contains luminol, a chemical that reacts with the iron in blood and creates a bright blue glow. Credit: Mike Thompson, http://www.miket.co.uk/

From Live Science:

What if, every time you wanted to switch on a light, you had to bleed? Would you think twice before illuminating the room, and in turn, using up energy?

That's the idea behind the blood lamp, invented by Mike Thomspon, an English designer based in The Netherlands. The lamp contains luminol – the same chemical forensic scientists use to check for traces of blood at a crime scence. Luminol reacts with the iron in red blood cells and creates a bright blue glow.
To use the lamp, you first need to mix in an activating powder. Then, you break the glass, cut yourself, and drip blood into the opening.

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Viking 2 Came Close To Finding H2O

Photo: Just a little bit more: New evidence suggests Viking 2 just missed digging into Martian ice (Source: NASA)

From ABC News (Australia):

The NASA Viking 2 probe, which landed on Mars in 1976, may have come within centimetres of finding water three decades before it was eventually found.

The finding could result in scientists re-evaluating data collected by the spacecraft, which was sent to look for signs of life on the red planet.

"Oh my, oh my," says retired Viking scientist Dr Patricia Straat.

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World's Largest Wind Farm Churns in Texas

Photo: Wind turbines collectively offering a 781.5-megawatt capacity now dot the landscape around Roscoe, Texas. (E.ON Climate & Renewables)

From CBS News:

100,000-Acre Complex Holds 627 Turbines Capable of Generating Enough Juice To Power 230,000 Homes

(CBS/AP) The world's largest wind farm officially got up and running Thursday, with all 627 towering wind turbines churning out electricity across 100,000 acres of West Texas farmland.

The Roscoe Wind Complex, which began construction in 2007 and sprawls across four counties near Roscoe, is generating its full capacity of 781.5 megawatts, enough to power 230,000 homes, the German company E.ON Climate and Renewables North America said.

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Report: Rocky Month For Upstart Bing

From Christian Science Monitor:

A new report shows Microsoft Bing lost some of its momentum in September, while Google expanded its dominance over the US search market – a rare ding for the scrappy young Bing.

According to the Web analytics firm StatCounter, Bing slipped from 9.6 percent of the market in August to 8.5 percent in September. Meanwhile, Google inched from 77.8 percent in August to 80 percent of the domestic market in September.

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Polar Bear Cub Hitches A Ride

From The BBC:

Arctic waters are at best chilly and at worst close to freezing.

Which may explain why a polar bear cub has recently been seen riding on the back of its mother as the bears swim across parts of the Arctic Ocean.

The cub then briefly rode her back as she clambered out of the icy water, a unique event photographed by a tourist.

Experts have rarely seen the behaviour, and they say the latest find suggests it may be a more common practice than previously thought.

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What Does A Star Sound Like?

The Big Bang A supernova like this would sound like 10 octillion two-megaton nuclear bombs exploding. Nasa/CXC/M. Weiss

From Popular Science:

Observing a star up close (putting aside for a moment how you’d get there or withstand its heat) is probably like sitting beside an enormous silent fire. Sounds—which are simply pressure variations in a medium such as air or water—can’t propagate in the vacuum of space, so the roiling surface of a star would make an impression on the eyes, but not the ears.

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How The Spaceship Got Its Shape

“Little Joe” capsules were the precursors of Alan Shepard’s Mercury spacecraft.
(NASA Langley Research Center)

From Air & Space Smithsonian:

In the 1950s Harvey Allen solved the problem of atmospheric entry. But first he had to convince his colleagues.

The cover of the March 22, 1952 issue of Collier’s magazine made an audacious promise. “Man Will Conquer Space Soon,” blared the headline, above a painting of a multi-stage rocket with engines blazing, bound for orbit. Designed by German rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun, whose name was still unknown to most Americans, the Collier’s spaceship was a sleek, needle-nosed beauty; its winged third stage would be piloted to a runway landing. But it was all wrong.

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Today's Babies Could Live To 22nd Century

Babies born today have a good chance of making to 100 years of age, says a new study. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

PARIS: More than half of the babies born today in rich countries will live to 100 years if current trends of life expectancy continue, says a study in the medical journal The Lancet.

In the 20th century, most developed countries saw an increase of around 30 years in life expectancy, according to the paper led by Kaare Christensen, a professor at the Danish Ageing Research Centre at the University of Southern Denmark.

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Protein That Enhances Long-term Memory By Controlling Rest Intervals Identified

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2009) — As most good students realize, repeated studying produces good memory. Those who study a lot realize, further, that what they learn tends to be preserved longer in memory if they space out learning sessions between rest intervals. Neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have now discovered how this so-called "spacing effect" is controlled in the brain at the level of individual molecules.

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Only 3 Countries In The World Have More People Than Facebook

From Pingdom:

The Facebook phenomenon continues. Yesterday Facebook announced that it has a whopping 300 million active users.

Three. Hundred. Million. Users.

For some perspective on how huge that is:

* There are only THREE countries in the entire world that have a population of more than 300 million. Those are China (1.33 billion), India (1.17 billion) and USA (307 million).
* Russia has a population of 142 million. That’s not even half of Facebook’s user base.
* Facebook has almost five times as many users as the entire population of the UK (62 million).

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Scientists Discover What Makes The Same Type Of Cells Different

Cell-to-cell variability in clathrin-mediated endocytosis (green signal) is determined by local cell density. (Credit: Image courtesy of ETH Zurich)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2009) — A research team led by Lucas Pelkmans at ETH Zürich has managed to decipher a well-known phenomenon that had, until now, remained unexplained: why cells of the same type can react differently, and what the reason for this is.

The properties of a cell population determine the different cell activities observed in cells of the same type. This is the conclusion drawn by a research team lead by Lucas Pelkmans, professor at the Institute for Molecular Systems Biology at ETH Zürich.

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Paleo-Case Solved: Ancient Sharks Fed on Giant Reptile

This artist's rendering reveals what an ancient marine reptile called a plesiosaur discovered in Antarctica may have looked like. The plesiosaur described in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, though not the same species, also sported four fins and a long neck. Analyses of shark teeth embedded in the reptile's bones suggest a feeding frenzy of sorts once the reptile died. Credit: Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation.

From Live Science:

This artist's rendering reveals what an ancient marine reptile called a plesiosaur discovered in Antarctica may have looked like. The plesiosaur described in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, though not the same species, also sported four fins and a long neck. Analyses of shark teeth embedded in the reptile's bones suggest a feeding frenzy of sorts once the reptile died. Credit: Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation.

Read more ....

Twitter CEO On The Future Of Twitter

Photo: Twitter co-founder Evan Williams (Twitter)

From CBS:

Co-Founder Evan Williams on New Innovations For Popular Networking Site.

(CBS) The co-founder of Twitter unveiled new innovations on the horizon for the popular social networking site, including user-generated lists to follow tweets from many originators on a particular subject, and geographical location datelines to show where tweets are coming from.

Evan Williams, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who co-founded Twitter, also said Twitter is working on a reputation validating system to address isues of credibility for the site. Twitter became a major newsmaker this year when Iranians sent tweets about the brutal Iranian government crackdown on protesters.

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Amazon Agrees To Kindle Suit Settlement

Photo: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Amazon.com has agreed that it won't remove e-books from U.S. users' Kindle electronic readers without their permission, as part of a proposed settlement of a lawsuit over the online retailer's deletion of a George Orwell novel from a high school student's e-reader.

Justin D. Gawronski, a 17-year-old student in Shelby Township, Michigan, sued Amazon after it erased copies of the Orwell works "1984" and "Animal Farm" from customers' Kindles in July. Gawronski's suit claimed removing "1984" from his Kindle made electronic notes he had taken on the e-reader useless. He was reading the book for an advanced placement course in which he had to turn in "reflections" on each 100 pages of text.

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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.

Read more ....

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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