Australian Plate: Cause Of Indonesian And Pacific Earthquakes?

This graphic provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows tsunami travel times following an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 rocked the island nation of Samoa, causing a tsunami. Credit: NOAA/AFP

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: Following seismic activity in Vanuatu, researchers have suggested that the motion of the Australian tectonic plate may be responsible for recent earthquakes in both Indonesia and and the South Pacific.

They argue that the earthquake and tsunami, that took place in Samoa just over a week ago, may have a common cause to a quake in Sumatra and the three quakes near Vanuatu.

This is despite the fact that Samoa and Sumatra are more than 6,000 km apart.

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Microsoft Security Holes Hit Record High

From CBS:

Software Maker Patches 34 Holes, Designating Most as "Critical".

(AP) Microsoft Corp. issued a record number of security patches for its software Tuesday as part of its regular monthly update.

The software maker plugged 34 holes and designated most of them "critical," Microsoft's most severe rating. Among them are fixes for Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows 2000 and even Windows 7, which doesn't go on sale to consumers until Oct. 22 but has been in use by early testers and software developers.

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Australia Fails To Plug Oil Leak

From BBC:

A second attempt to stop oil pouring into Australian waters after a rig accident in the Timor Sea has failed.

It is almost two months since oil began flowing from the West Atlas drilling platform that lies about 200km (125 miles) off the West Australian coast.

The rig's operators have said that plugging the leak is an "extraordinarily complex" task.

Environmental groups have warned that the slick is threatening wildlife, including endangered turtles.

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Fundamental Quantum Limit on Computing Speed of Any Information Processing System

The Next Big Future:

Physicists Lev Levitin and Tommaso Toffoli at Boston University in Massachusetts, have calculated a quantum speed limit on computing.

In a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Levitin and Toffoli present an equation for the minimum sliver of time it takes for an elementary quantum operation to occur. This establishes the speed limit for all possible computers. Using their equation, Levitin and Toffoli calculated that, for every unit of energy, a perfect quantum computer spits out ten quadrillion more operations each second than today's fastest processors.

(A quadrillion is 10^15 or 1000 trillions)

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People Are Still The Weakest Link In Computer And Internet Security, Study Finds

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 14, 2009) — Two decades ago, studies showed that computer users were violating best practices for setting up hack-proof passwords, and not much has changed since then. What's clear, say researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and IT University in Copenhagen, is that until human factors/ergonomics methods are applied to the problem, it isn't likely to go away.

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Powerful Ideas: Navy Plans Robotic Barnacle Buster

The US Office of Naval Research recently conducted tests with a developmental ship hull grooming robot, called the Robotic Hull Bio-inspired Underwater Grooming (HULL BUG) tool. The HULL BUG is similar in concept to a autonomous robotic home vacuum cleaner or lawn mower and incorporates the use of a biofilm detector that utilizes modified fluorometer technology to enable the robot to detect the difference between the clean and unclean surfaces on the hull of a ship. Credit: U.S. Navy

From Live Science:

To help save energy on warships, the navy might one day deploy underwater robots that help vessels conserve fuel by scrubbing their hulls clean to make them cut through the water better.

As harmless as barnacles on hulls might seem to landlubbers, these crustaceans generate "increased drag as these ships move from port to port across the world's oceans," explained Office of Naval Research program officer Steve McElvany.

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Astronomers Seek To Explore The Cosmic Dark Ages

This illustration shows how astronomers believe the universe developed from the "Big Bang" 13.7 billion years ago to today. NASA/WMAP Science Team/MCT

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON -- No place seems safe from the prying eyes of inquisitive astronomers.

They've traced the evolution of the universe back to the "Big Bang," the theoretical birth of the cosmos 13.7 billion years ago, but there's still a long stretch of time -- about 800 million years -- that's been hidden from view.

Astronomers call it the Dark Ages, and now they're building huge new radio telescopes with thousands of detectors that they hope will let them peer back into the period, when the first stars and galaxies began turning on their lights.

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Growth Of Facebook Leaves MySpace In Dust

From CNET:

Social networking is definitely seeing a reshuffling of its top players.

Facebook and Twitter are in, MySpace is out, according to Experian Hitwise.

The Internet monitoring company reported last week that Facebook, the No. 1 social network in the U.S., grew its share of all the visits to social-networking sites from 19 percent in September 2008 year to 58.6 a year later. That's a more than 190 percent increase.

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In 1918 Pandemic, Another Possible Killer: Aspirin

A nurse took a patient's pulse in the influenza ward at Walter Reed Hospital in 1918. Corbis

From The New York Times:

The 1918 flu epidemic was probably the deadliest plague in human history, killing more than 50 million people worldwide. Now it appears that a small number of the deaths may have been caused not by the virus, but by a drug used to treat it: aspirin.

Dr. Karen M. Starko, author of one of the earliest papers connecting aspirin use with Reye’s syndrome, has published an article suggesting that overdoses of the relatively new “wonder drug” could have been deadly.

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Dyson’s Blade-Free Wonder Fan

From Gadget Lab:

James Dyson has a fetish for making unusual products: everything from vacuums that suck (in a good way) to hand dryers that blow (also in a good way), each use a clever combo of eye-catching design along with innovative methods of compressing and dispensing air. But even we in the Lab weren’t prepared for the WTF moment when we pulled Dyson’s blade-less Air Multiplier fan from its packaging.

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The US Lets Go Of The Internet – Will Anyone Notice?

ICANN relax control over the internet (Image: Stone/Getty)

From The New Scientist:

POLITICAL power is rarely ceded without good reason. So eyebrows were raised last week when the US Department of Commerce decided to relax its grip on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the body responsible for the naming system that ensures that when you type a web address, your browser knows where to go.

In future, governments and other international organisations will be able to nominate staff to sit on one of ICANN's three newly created steering committees, something the DoC had resisted for years. "What it really means," says ICANN's chief executive Rod Beckstrom, "is that we're going global."

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Side Effects Of 1918 Flu Seen Decades Later

Parker / Fox Photos / Getty

From Time Magazine:

Runny nose, persistent chill, fever, fatigue — these symptoms are all familiar evidence of influenza. But what about a heart attack, suffered 60 years later?

Researchers suggest that such distant health problems may be linked to early exposure to the flu — as early as in the womb — according to a new study that analyzed federal survey data collected from 1982 to 1996. Researchers found, for instance, that people who were born in the U.S. just after the 1918 flu pandemic (that is, people who were still in utero when the disease was at its peak) had a higher risk of a heart attack in their adulthood than those born before or long after the pandemic.

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FBI Facial Recognition Software To Automatically Check Driver's License Applicants Against Criminal Database

Have You Seen This Man? via Imperial College London

From Popular Science:

Bringing the "wanted poster in the post office" concept into the 21st century, the FBI has begun using facial recognition software to identify fugitives on North Carolina highways. The software measures the biometric features of thousands of motorists' DMV photos, matching them against mugshots. When the face matches that of a known criminal, the authorities jump into action.

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Biofuel From Sewage

Image: On Q: The Q microbe (pictured), a lollipop-shaped organism that naturally breaks down and converts plant matter into ethanol, is now being used to make biofuel from sewage. Credit: Qteros

From Technology Review:

Qteros forms a partnership to use sewage as a feedstock for making ethanol.

These days, more and more companies are finding that sewage is a veritable "black gold." In recent years, sewage sludge has been mined for electricity, fertilizer, fish food, and gasoline. Now two companies have partnered up to turn sewage into ethanol. While others have worked to produce ethanol from municipal solid waste, sewage from wastewater has been a relatively unmined ethanol source.

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Researchers Probe Computer 'Commonsense Knowledge'

Few can challenge a simple pocket calculator at arithmetic. But even the most sophisticated computer cannot match the reasoning of a youngster. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 11, 2009) — Challenge a simple pocket calculator at arithmetic and you may be left in the dust. But even the most sophisticated computer cannot match the reasoning of a youngster who looks outside, sees a fresh snowfall, and knows how to bundle up for the frosty outdoors.

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Surprising Ship 'Contrails' Seen From Space

A NASA satellite has captured an image of ship "tracks" forming off North America’s west coast. Credit: NASA image by Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center.

From Live Science:

Although ships sail on the ocean, they can leave tracks in the sky. On Oct. 5, a NASA satellite snapped a shot of this phenomenon forming in a bank of clouds off North America’s west coast.

The white trails look vaguely like the condensation trails, or contrails, left behind by airplanes, but they actually result from ship exhaust.

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The Coming E-Reader Wars

Investing In The e-Reader Battle? Bet On Barnes & Noble -- Wall Street Journal

Crazy? That's what Wall Street thinks—analysts love Amazon, but have little to say about its competitor. But that's why buying Barnes & Noble may be a smart move. Some of the best profits come from going against the crowd.

Everybody loves Amazon's booming stock, which has doubled so far this year. But that run-up in value has made it dangerously expensive. By contrast, few adore Barnes & Noble shares, so they've been left for dead. When you run the numbers, the stock looks remarkably cheap.

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Building A Bridge Of (And To) The Future

HOLDING UP The Neal Bridge is taking the daily onslaught of traffic in Maine.
Craig Dilger for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

PITTSFIELD, Me. — The Neal Bridge is barely a bump in the road for motorists roaring down Route 100 south of this central Maine town. It’s a modest bit of the nation’s infrastructure — two lanes wide and 34 feet long, enough to span a small stream.

The bridge is newer than most, as suggested by the still-black asphalt and the fresh galvanized gleam of the guardrails. But it’s what is underneath that really makes the bridge stand out.

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Peer-to-Peer Passé, Report Finds

From Epicenter/Wired:

Peer-to-peer file sharing has been the bogeyman of the internet, but a new report suggests it’s destined become a fear of the past — replaced by cheap streaming video.

Rising from the ashes in the early 2000s of banned services like Napster, P2P soon became demonized as an imminent threat to software industry, Hollywood and the internet’s backbone, prompting high-profile piracy trials, federal government hearings on traffic management and hand-wringing from ISPs who said torrents of illicit traffic would overwhelm the net.

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Out Of Your Head: Leaving The Body Behind

Peculiar experiences (Image: Christian Lichtenberg/Getty)

From New Scientist:

THE young man woke feeling dizzy. He got up and turned around, only to see himself still lying in bed. He shouted at his sleeping body, shook it, and jumped on it. The next thing he knew he was lying down again, but now seeing himself standing by the bed and shaking his sleeping body. Stricken with fear, he jumped out of the window. His room was on the third floor. He was found later, badly injured.

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"Spider Pill" Camera Bots Could Crawl Your Colon

Spider Bot Cam Spider bot, spider bot, doing whatever a spider ought BBC

From Popular Science:

A tiny camera will be swallowed by patients and inspect their intestines.

People who dislike having medical cameras snake through their body on the ends of long tubing now have a fun alternative. A new remote-controlled spider bot can scuttle around inside the colon or intestine and perform a medical inspection instead.

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Ever Wonder What Every Space Mission From The Last 50 Years Looks Like On One Map?

A Visual History of Space Exploration: National Geographic

From Popular Science:

Well, here it is. National Geographic has plotted the route of every space mission carried out over the last 50 years onto a map of the solar system, giving a nice visual look at the history of space travel.

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The Chemistry of Information Addiction

From Scientific American:

A new experiment reveals why we always want to know the answer.

My mother is a more patient human being after having raised a child who incessantly asked, “Are we there yet?” That information, often out of reach for a frustrated toddler, carries with it a feeling of reward. The majority of us are all too familiar with the urge to know more about the future, whether it is an exam grade, an experimental result, or the status of a new job.

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Flu Vaccines Hit A Wall

Photo: Attacking influenza: Scientists hope that new technologies for making vaccines will lead to quicker availability of vaccines against the human strain of H1N1 that originated from the swine flu virus, shown here. Credit: CDC

From Technology Review:

As new influenza strains emerge, researchers struggle to speed vaccine development.

Making a vaccine against seasonal influenza is a constant catch-up game. Scientists must predict which of the constantly mutating virus strains will be most virulent six months in the future, the amount of time it takes to manufacture the vaccine. The system has worked well enough for the regular flu. But when new, virulent strains emerge--including the current, rapidly spreading swine flu (H1N1)--the traditional approach falls short. Even as consumers clamored for a vaccine, it took seven months and around 48,000 confirmed U.S. cases before the first H1N1 vaccines were shipped to hospitals around the country.

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Farmers Milk Facebook, Twitter For All It's Worth

From McClatchy News:

With a hand-held video camera, a computer and 800 cows, Barbara Martin of Lemoore is letting the world into her life as a dairy operator.

No, it's not a new reality television show. And Martin isn't craving her 15 minutes of fame.

But she is joining a growing number of farmers and others in agriculture who are using social media tools to communicate with each other, send out information and educate the public about agriculture.

Read more ....

Nitrogen Cycle: Key Ingredient In Climate Model Refines Global Predictions

ORNL's Peter Thornton is helping climate scientists incorporate the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 11, 2009) — For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.

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Reports Of American Longevity Greatly Exaggerated

(Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times)

From Live Science:

Americans got a bit of good news this month: Half the kids born today in wealthy countries could live at least 100 years. The other half might live long, too.

This respite from otherwise grim news of, say, increasing slaughter and insurgency in Afghanistan, where life expectancy is 44 years, came courtesy of a study published by European researchers in the journal the Lancet.

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Brain Food: Can Maths Really Let You See Into The Future?

From The Guardian:

Meet the professor who can seemingly predict political events using a laptop.

Let's start with some news from the near future. Iran won't build a nuclear bomb. With extra aid money, Pakistan will become more peaceful. And the Copenhagen summit on climate change this December is doomed to failure.

If Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is right, those are the headlines you'll be reading over the next few months. The author of a new book called Predictioneer, he makes big-picture forecasts employing maths, and a laptop that has been so heavily used its letters have worn away.

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Introducing The Most Efficient Solar Power In The World

Image: Randy Montoya

From Discovery Magazine:

It's taken 25 years, but a new solar-thermal plant in New Mexico has finally broken the old efficiency record.

In 1986 solar panels were literally ripped from the White House roof. But political will and financial incentives have reignited the search for efficient, affordable ways to harness the sun’s energy. Two new solar thermal technologies—which focus sunlight to create heat rather than convert it directly to electricity, as photovoltaics do—promise to make solar power practical at vastly different scales.

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The Fusion Illusion -- A Commentary

From The New Atlantis:

To hear President Barack Obama tell it, we need to fundamentally overhaul the way we produce, deliver, and consume energy. After the House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in June, the president said it would “spark a clean energy transformation in our economy. It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy—everything from wind, solar, and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal. It will spur new energy savings, like the efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. And most importantly, it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.” He repeated those sentiments before the G-8 in Italy several weeks later when he stated, “One of my highest priorities as president is to drive a clean energy transformation of our economy.”

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Report: 41 Percent of Personal Computing Software Is Pirated

From Threat Level/Wired Science:

The Business Software Alliance is taking the offensive, sending out millions of takedown notices the first six months of the year in a bid to combat piracy.

Reason: if the BSA is to believed, about 41 percent of all software on personal computers is pirated – socking the industry with some $53 billion in losses. That’s the size of the proposed 2010 budget for the state of Illinois.

Read more ....

8 Experts Weigh In OnThe Future Of Human Spaceflight

From Popular Mechanics:

The Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Planes Committee is getting ready to release its full report detailing the options for the future of manned missions into space. While the discussion over the future of NASA continues, PM turned to the leading rocketeers, astronauts and manufacturers to weigh in on the debate

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Robots That Eat Bugs and Plants For Power

Crunch'n'Munch EATR will grab plants with its robotic arm, chop them with a mini chainsaw, and burn them in its onboard steam combustion engine to make power. Francis Govers III

From Popular Science:

Controversial robots devour biomass to gain energy independence.

No matter how intelligent a robot might be, it’s nice knowing you can pull its plug to halt the anti-human insurrection. Whoops, not anymore. A new cohort of ’bots that make energy by gobbling organic matter could be the beginning of truly autonomous machines.

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Energy Crisis Is Postponed As New Gas Rescues The World

Oil shale is rock containing deposits of oil and is pictured here burning.

From The L.A. Times

Engineers have performed their magic once again. The world is not going to run short of energy as soon as feared.

America is not going to bleed its wealth importing fuel. Russia's grip on Europe's gas will weaken. Improvident Britain may avoid paralysing blackouts by mid-decade after all.

The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected.

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Wide Angle: Genetic Science

From Discovery Magazine:

Discovery Tech explores manipulating genes for our own good.

Not only has the human genome been sequenced, but so too have the genomes of many animals and crops. The sequences represent a genetic blue print of how these organisms function and how they might be repaired when they don't function. In this Wide Angle on Genetic Science, we'll look at the myriad ways, whys and hows researchers are modifying the genes of various life-forms in order to treat disease, modify crops, clone animals and repair tissue.

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Blood Counts Are Clues To Human Disease

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 12, 2009) — A new genome-wide association study published October 11 in Nature Genetics begins to uncover the basis of genetic variations in eight blood measurements and the impact those variants can have on common human diseases. Blood measurements, including the number and volume of cells in the blood, are routinely used to diagnose a wide range of disorders, including anaemia, infection and blood cell cancers.

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How Loud Is Your iPod?

Some college students listen to their iPods at volumes that may lead to hearing damage, according to a new study Credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

A teenager equipped with an iPod and earbuds can have his own personal concert — as loud and as long as he likes. But his parents might wonder if the child is listening at levels that could damage his hearing. It's possible, according to a new study of college-aged students.

In the study of 31 college students, more than half of the participants listened to their portable music players at levels that could, over a prolonged period of time, lead to hearing loss, say researchers from the University of Southern Mississippi.

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Computer Program Proves Shakespeare Didn't Work Alone, Researchers Claim

From Times Online:

The 400-year-old mystery of whether William Shakespeare was the author of an unattributed play about Edward III may have been solved by a computer program designed to detect plagiarism.

Sir Brian Vickers, an authority on Shakespeare at the Institute of English Studies at the University of London, believes that a comparison of phrases used in The Reign of King Edward III with Shakespeare’s early works proves conclusively that the Bard wrote the play in collaboration with Thomas Kyd, one of the most popular playwrights of his day.

The professor used software called Pl@giarism, developed by the University of Maastricht to detect cheating students, to compare language used in Edward III — published anonymously in 1596, when Shakespeare was 32 — with other plays of the period.

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Sky Guns For iTunes Market With New Music Download Service

Sky to compete with Apple's iTunes with 'Sky Songs' downloading service

From The Guardian:

Sky is to join the digital music marketplace when it launches a subscription download service that it hopes will persuade millions more consumers to switch to buying albums digitally and threaten the dominance of Apple's iTunes.

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A Cure For Jet Lag? Scientists Identify Brain Cell Which Keeps Us Awake

Photo: The discovery of the brain cell which determines our sleep patterns could pave the way for the introduction of a pill to beat jetlag

From The Telegraph:

A pill that cures jet lag is a step closer today, after scientists discovered how signals from the brain control our biological clocks.

Tests on mice suggested the human body clock - controlled by a region of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nuclei - does not constantly fire electrical pulses to regulate our sleeping patterns, as was previously thought.

Instead, it fires at dusk and remains inactive during the night, then stirring back to life at daybreak.

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Learning To Juggle Grows Brain Networks For Good

Good for the brain (Image: Alex Segre/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

Juggling boosts the connections between different parts of the brain by tweaking the architecture of the brain's "white matter" – a finding that could lead to new therapies for people with brain injuries.

White matter describes all areas of the brain that contain mostly axons – outgrowths of nerve cells that connect different cells. It might be expected that learning a new, complex task such as juggling should strengthen these connections, but previous work looking for changes in the brains of people who had learned how to juggle had only studied increases in grey matter, which contains the nerve cells' bodies.

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Training To Climb An Everest Of Digital Data

From CNET:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government.

At the heart of this criticism is data. Researchers and workers in fields as diverse as bio-technology, astronomy and computer science will soon find themselves overwhelmed with information. Better telescopes and genome sequencers are as much to blame for this data glut as are faster computers and bigger hard drives.

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Pallas Is 'Peter Pan' Space Rock

From The BBC:

The Hubble telescope has provided new insight on 2 Pallas, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System.

The nearly 600km-wide rock is an example of an object that started out on the process of becoming a planet but never grew up into the real thing.

Researchers have published a 3D model of the grapefruit-shaped mini-world in Science magazine.

Hubble's data makes it possible to discern surface features, including what appears to be a big impact crater.

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YouTube: A Billion Views Served Daily

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Chad Hurley, chief executive and co-founder of YouTube, marked today's three-year anniversary of Google's acquisition with a blog post that proclaimed the popular video site is "serving well over a billion views a day" globally.

"This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you," he said.

YouTube says that about 70 percent of its traffic originates overseas, with the balance coming from within the United States.

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Feral Children: Are They Really Wild?

Photo: This grainy image is a mug shot of Colton Harris-Moore, a.k.a. the "Barefoot Burglar." Although Harris-Moore has been described as a "feral child," there have been other documented cases of truly "wild" children throughout history. AP Photo/Island County Sheriff's Office via the Everette Herald

From Discovery Magazine:

Living barefoot in the woods and hiding himself in the trees, 18-year-old fugitive Colton Harris-Moore, a.k.a. the "Barefoot Burglar," is making life miserable for the inhabitants of the islands north of Seattle, allegedly burglarizing homes, jacking boats, even stealing small airplanes and crash-landing them.

The teen has managed to elude police in Washington state for the past year and half.

Read more ....

A Third of Dinosaur Species Never Existed?

Many fossils of young dinosaurs, including T. rex relatives (above, a computer-generated image of a young T. rex), have been misidentified as unique species, paleontologists said in October 2009. That means up to a third of all dinosaur species may have never existed, experts say. Photograph © NGC

From National Geographic:

Many dinosaurs may be facing a new kind of extinction—a controversial theory suggests as many as a third of all known dinosaur species never existed in the first place.

That's because young dinosaurs didn't look like Mini-Me versions of their parents, according to new analyses by paleontologists Mark Goodwin, University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State University.

Instead, like birds and some other living animals, the juveniles went through dramatic physical changes during adulthood.

Read more ....

Physicists Measure Elusive 'Persistent Current' That Flows Forever

Image: Harris made the first definitive measurement of an electric current that flows continuously in tiny, but ordinary, metal rings. (Credit: Jack Harris/Yale University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 12, 2009) — Physicists at Yale University have made the first definitive measurements of “persistent current,” a small but perpetual electric current that flows naturally through tiny rings of metal wire even without an external power source.

The team used nanoscale cantilevers, an entirely novel approach, to indirectly measure the current through changes in the magnetic force it produces as it flows through the ring. “They’re essentially little floppy diving boards with the rings sitting on top,” said team leader Jack Harris, associate professor of physics and applied physics at Yale. The findings appear in the October 9 issue of Science.

Read more ....

Clever New Device Sees Through Walls

Researchers had a person walk around a square of 28 radio transceivers mounted on plastic pipes. The person creates shadows in the radio waves, resulting in the blob-like image (right). Credit: Sarang Joshi and Joey Wilson, University of Utah.

From Live Science:

A new contraption that essentially sees through walls using radio receivers to track moving objects could one day help police and others nab intruders and rescue hostages or fire victims.

Joey Wilson and Neal Patwari of the University of Utah used so-called radio tomographic imaging (RTI), which can detect and track moving people or other objects in an area surrounded by inexpensive radio transceivers that send and receive signals, they announced today.

Read more ....

Vegetarian Spider Is First Of Its Kind

It isn't entirely clear why B. kiplingi is able to evade acacia ants, whose goal is to protect the shrub from attacks. Credit: Christopher Meehan

From Cosmos:

NEW YORK: A jumping spider found in Central America is the first known species to subsist primarily on plants, according to American scientists.

While many spiders eat nectar and a single species has been observed eating pollen in addition to insects, Bagheera kiplingi dines almost exclusively on 'Beltian bodies', protein- and lipid-rich structures located on the tips of acacia shrub leaves.

Out of about 41,000 known species it is the sole spider to maintain a nearly vegetarian diet.

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Solar Power Outshining Colorado's Gas Industry

From Time Magazine:

(DURANGO, Colo.) — The sun had just crested the distant ridge of the Rocky Mountains, but already it was producing enough power for the electric meter on the side of the Smiley Building to spin backward.

For the Shaw brothers, who converted the downtown arts building and community center into a miniature solar power plant two years ago, each reverse rotation subtracts from their monthly electric bill. It also means the building at that moment is producing more electricity from the sun than it needs.

"Backward is good," said John Shaw, who now runs Shaw Solar and Energy Conservation, a local solar installation company.

Good for whom?

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From Twitter To MySpace, Social Networks Are Now Run By Women Over 35

From Times Online:

Social-networking sites, like much of the internet, were once a playground for young men. They were drowning in obscure jargon, long rants and, of course, pornography. But nowadays, it is a growing brigade of thirty- and fortysomethings who are behind their extraordinary growth.

Famous users such as Sarah Brown are among those non-teenage women who are increasingly turning to sites such as Facebook and Twitter. New figures show that female users now dominate social-networking sites, and those aged 35 and over are among the fastest-growing demographic for many social networks.

Read more ....