Panel Calls For Big Detour In NASA’s Moon Plans

NASA artwork traces each phase of a future mission to the moon and back.

From MSNBC:

Asteroids, Martian moons suggested as alternate destinations.

WASHINGTON - NASA needs to make a major detour in its effort to return astronauts to the moon, a special independent panel told the White House Thursday.

Under current plans, NASA has picked the wrong destination with the wrong rocket, the panel's chairman said. A test-flight version of the rocket, the new Ares I, is on a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, awaiting liftoff next week for its first experimental flight.

Read more ....

Will The Pill Be Responsible For The Death Of Humanity?

From Blog Critics:

For years, gays have been looking for a gene that would legitimately give them the right to say nature has turned them into the opposite sex. As a result, they believe same-sex marriage should be a natural thing. To gays, same-sex marriage should be something beautiful, natural, and part of God’s big plan. But the reasons may be anything but natural.

A few years ago, right after the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, a large number of chemical ‘cocktails’ that inhibit the function of the male hormone testosterone were found in United Kingdom rivers.

Read more ....

Did Dryas Comet Really Kill Off Mammoth?

Did a comet impact really kill off megafauna such as the mammoth,
mastodan and sabre-tooth tiger? Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

PORTLAND, OREGON: Debate on the existence of a Younger Dryas comet impact, 12,900 years ago, and whether it is linked to mass extinctions of large mammals and early humans in North America reopened this week.

The Younger Dryas was a 1,300-year-long cold snap that affected climate in much of the Northern Hemisphere. In 2007, a team led by Richard Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the U.S., argued that it was caused by the impact of a comet.

Read more ....

Google's Android Allows Soldiers To Put Drones On Buddy List

Phones for Warfighters U.S. Army/Tech. Sgt. Cohen A. Young

From Popular Science:

Defense giant Raytheon has turned Google's mobile operating system into a military application.

Google's Android operating system for cell phones could allow soldiers to track fellow squad members and even unmanned drones in real time on a map -- as long as the humans and robots are on their buddy list.

Read more ....

Scientists Reveals Secrets Of Drought Resistance

Soybean sprouts struggling in dry conditions. Biologists have now solved the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. (Credit: iStockphoto/Matt Niebuhr)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 23, 2009) — A team of biologists in California led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of California (UC), San Diego has solved the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. Understanding the inner workings of this molecule may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide, aiding biofuels production on marginal lands and mitigating drought's human and economic costs.

Read more ....

Why Some Men Can't Control Arousal

From Live Science:

Is sex a state of mind? A recent study from the University of British Columbia finds that while most men can regulate their physical and mental sexual arousal to some degree, the men most able to do so are able to control their other emotions as well.

“We suspect that if an individual is good at regulating one type of emotional response, he/she is probably good at regulating other emotional responses,” says Jason Winters, the study’s research head. “This has never been shown before.”

Read more ....

Tallying The Real Environmental Cost Of Biofuels

William Radcliffe / Science Faction / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

The promise of biofuels like ethanol is that they will someday help the world grow its way out of its addiction to oil. Nine billion gallons of corn ethanol were produced in the U.S. in 2008, while countries like Brazil have already widely replaced gasoline with ethanol from sugar cane and countless start-ups are working to bring cellulosic and other second-generation biofuels to market. The reasoning is that if we use greener biofuels in place of gasoline, it will significantly enhance our effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Read more ....

Awakening Paralyzed Limbs

Photo: Monkey think, monkey do: By translating electrical signals from a monkey’s brain into muscle contractions via implanted electrodes, an animal with a paralyzed arm was able to grasp a ball. Credit: Christian Ethier, Lee Miller

From Technology Review:

Brain signals can drive arm movement in a monkey with a paralyzed arm.

A monkey with a paralyzed arm can still grasp a ball, thanks to a novel system designed to translate brain signals into complex muscle movements in real time. The research, presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference in Chicago this week, could one day allow people with spinal cord injury to control their own limbs.

Read more ....

Space: Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Discovered

The galaxy cluster is a billion light years further from earth than any other discovered.

From The Telegraph:

The youngest and most distant galaxy cluster yet has been discovered by scientists 10.2 billion light years away, a billion further than the previous record.

The JKCS041 galaxy cluster, discovered by combining x-ray data from NASA with optical and infrared telescopes, is viewed as it was when the universe was a quarter of its current age.

Galaxy clusters are the universe's largest collections of items held together by gravity, and scientists hope the discovery of one at such an early stage will help them discover more about how the universe evolved.

Read more ....

Wildlife Photographer Of The Year 2009 Prize Goes To Leaping Wolf

An Iberian wolf jumps a fence intent on his dinner in this stunning
photo by Jose Luis Rodriguez

From The Daily Mail:

An Iberian wolf strides over a fence, its eyes intent on a tasty meal in the next field.

This stunning image won the Veolia Environement Wildlife Photographer of the Year, organised by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

This year was a bumper year with 43,135 entries from 94 countries – up 33 per cent on 2008. The best 100 images in the competition will go on show from October 23 at the Natural History Museum in London.

The competition manager, Gemma Webster, said: 'While the UK and the US remain our major source of entrants, the greatest growth in entries is happening in China and Russia.'

Read more ....

Unraveling The Brain's Secrets: Humility Required

From Scientific American:

In early October, the Singularity Summit took place on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a conference that highlighted the prospects for abolishing the ravages of aging and disease. So you’ll be able to live forever, unless you get hit by a truck.

Living forever is mainly about preserving brain function. That’s why the cryonicists—the ones who freeze themselves until some hypothetical medical miracle emerges to revive them—often just put the part above the neck into deep storage. The head in the cooler, it is assumed, retains the operating system and all of the applications software needed to resurrect the former self, even if it is ported to some new, cybernetic body. Less real estate and a lower electricity bill means a reduced rate at the cryo farm until you are brought back from the “legally dead.” In essence, bleacher seats for the Singularity.

Read more ....

Vegas Uses Computers To Nab Card Counters

From Yahoo Tech:

First they start paying out 6 to 5 on natural blackjacks, and now this? The little guy gets the short end of the stick once again, as UK researchers say they've developed a computer algorithm that can analyze how Blackjack players manage their chip stack and bet on each hand, sniffing out card counters inside 20 hands of the game.

Read more ....

Quantum Computers Could Tackle Enormous Linear Equations

From Science News:

Trillions of variables may prove no match for envisioned systems.

A new algorithm may give quantum computers a new, practical job: quickly solving monster linear equations. Such problems are at the heart of complex processes such as image and video processing, genetic analyses and even Internet traffic control. The new work, published October 7 in Physical Review Letters, may dramatically expand the range of potential uses for quantum computers.

The new quantum algorithm is “head-smackingly good,” says computer scientist Daniel Spielman of Yale University. “It is both very powerful, and very natural. I read the abstract and said, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”

Read more ....

Inside Astronaut Boot Camp

Bugging Out: Astronauts test a prototype of a six-legged lunar buggy
at Moses Lake in Washington. NASA

From Popular Science:

What does it take to prep humans for a trip to an asteroid or a martian moon? Starvation? Isolation? Recycling feces for food? NASA's newest astronauts begin a grueling training regimen this fall to find out.

Three test pilots. Two flight surgeons. One molecular biologist. A flight controller, a Pentagon staffer and a CIA intelligence officer. These are the nine people chosen by NASA to be America’s next astronauts. Late this summer they reported to Houston along with two Japanese pilots, a Japanese doctor, a Canadian pilot and a Canadian physicist who will train alongside NASA’s class of 2009. Call them the lucky 14.

Read more ....

Twin Study Reveals Secrets To Looking Younger

What keeps a woman looking young?
A study of identical twins reveals some surprising answers.

From MSNBC:

Sun, smoking, alcohol and stress can all add years to your face.

For years, the similarities between Jeanne and Susan were uncanny. Growing up, the identical twin sisters not only were mirror images of each other, but also shared a bunch of preferences and personality quirks. Even now, living 1,000 miles apart — Jeanne in Ohio, Susan in Florida — “we’ll send identical Christmas cards to our parents and choose the exact same gift wrap,” Jeanne says. But they do have some differences, she adds: “We don’t have the same taste in men or in weather.”

Read more ....

Advance In 'Nano-Agriculture:' Tiny Stuff Has Huge Effect On Plant Growth

Tomato seeds exposed to carbon nanotubes (right) sprouted and grew faster than unexposed seeds (left).

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 22, 2009) — With potential adverse health and environmental effects often in the news about nanotechnology, scientists in Arkansas are reporting that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could have beneficial effects in agriculture. Their study, scheduled for the October issue of ACS Nano, found that tomato seeds exposed to CNTs germinated faster and grew into larger, heavier seedlings than other seeds. That growth-enhancing effect could be a boon for biomass production for plant-based biofuels and other agricultural products, they suggest.

Read more ....

South Pole Offers Prime Astronomy Real Estate

Image credit: Patrick Cullis, National Science Foundation

From Live Science:

The middle of the world's most remote and inhospitable continent may not seem like an ideal place to conduct complicated scientific research, but this photo shows how the South Pole offers advantages that astronomers and other researchers just can't find anywhere else.

The photo, captured above the new elevated station at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in July 2009, is a 20-minute exposure revealing the southern celestial axis — the white cloudy streak is the Milky Way.

Read more ....

'Imagineer' Touts Geothermal Energy Invention

Photo: Karl says his portable geothermal generator can power up to 250 average U.S. homes.

From The CNN:

(CNN) -- Hidden under a quaint resort 60 miles northeast of Fairbanks, Alaska, lies a treasure trove of potential energy that's free and available 24/7.

Alaskan entrepreneur Bernie Karl has pioneered modern technology to tap into one of Earth's oldest energy resources: hot water.

Karl, 56, likes to call himself an "imagineer."

Using imagination to fuel his engineering ambitions, this tenacious thinker and self-starter has figured out a way to generate electricity using water that's the temperature of a cup of coffee -- about 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

Read more ....

Darwin Lives! Modern Humans Are Still Evolving

A. Green / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Modern Homo sapiens is still evolving. Despite the long-held view that natural selection has ceased to affect humans because almost everybody now lives long enough to have children, a new study of a contemporary Massachusetts population offers evidence of evolution still in action.

A team of scientists led by Yale University evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns suggests that if the natural selection of fitter traits is no longer driven by survival, perhaps it owes to differences in women's fertility. "Variations in reproductive success still exist among humans, and therefore some traits related to fertility continue to be shaped by natural selection," Stearns says. That is, women who have more children are more likely to pass on certain traits to their progeny.

Read more ....

Naming The Exoplanets

From Technology Review:

The International Astronomical Union is refusing to name the exoplanets. That seems unnecessarily curmudgeonly.

Since 1995, astronomers have found more than 400 planets orbiting other stars. And yet not one of them has a formal name, other than their orginal scientific designation such as MOA-2008-BLG-310-L b, (a sub-Saturnian mass planet recently detected in the Galactic Bulge). How come?

Read more ....

Augustine Report: Tough Choices Ahead On Human Spaceflight

The Ares I-X rocket sits atop launch pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday. (NASA handout/Reuters)

From Christian Science Monitor:

If NASA's Constellation program is going to take astronauts to the moon or Mars, Obama will have to increase its budget, the Augustine report says.

President Obama and Congress face a stark choice on the future of NASA’s human spaceflight program: Either scale back ambitious goals first set out in 2005 or pony up more money to match the ambitions.

That’s the implication of options set out in the final report from the Review of US Human Spaceflight Plans committee, unveiled Thursday afternoon.

Read more ....

Aah... How To Make The Perfect Gravy (And Soy Sauce Is The Secret)

Photo: Roast of the town: Many would prefer to use gravy granules rather than risk ruining a traditional British dinner

From The Daily Mail:

It can make or break a Sunday lunch.

So much so that many will reach for the gravy granules rather than risk ruining a roast.

But scientists have come to the aid of home chefs across the UK with what they believe should be adopted as the 'standard British method' for making gravy.

The Royal Society of Chemistry turned its attention to the subject as part of its Food Year, a series of events to demonstrate the role of chemistry in providing healthy and sustainable food.

Read more ....

My Comment: I am posting this story because I tried this recipe last night, and it was hmmm hmmmm good.

How the Internet is Changing the Way We Will Watch TV

Splashlight; Courtesy of Broadway Video Enterprises and NBC Studios, Inc. (SNL icon)

From Scientific American:

The Internet stands ready to upend the television viewing experience, but exactly how is a matter of considerable dispute.

It should not be so difficult. In an age when nearly all forms of media are digital, where broadband signals course through the industrial world as surely (and as critically) as electricity and freshwater, it should be possible to sit on one’s couch, push a button or two, and call up to your television any form of video-related entertainment you desire. New-release movies. Last week’s Lost . The first season of Cosmos . Setup should not require an electrical engineering degree, and you should not be forced to sift through 10 incompatible search functions to find the shows you desire.

Read more ....

Jupiter Shift Pelted Inner Planets With Asteroids

The Asteroid Belt, found between Jupiter and Mars, may have been the source of ammunition for the Late Heavy Bombardment. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltch/T.Pyle

From Cosmos:

PORTLAND, OREGON: A shift in Jupiter's orbit early in the life of the Solar System dislodged thousands of rocks from the Asteroid Belt, causing them to hit the inner planets, including Earth.

Evidence for this cataclysmic bombardment comes from a reanalysis of lunar rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts and a careful study of lunar craters, said David Kring, a planetary geologist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

Kring presented his findings this week at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting in Portland, USA.

Read more ....

We Are Upgrading Our Computer Network. We Will Be Back Online Friday Morning At 7:00 AM EST

Net Neutrality Is 'Fairness Doctrine For The Internet'

From The Hill:

Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke against net neutrality regulations today at an event put on by the Safe Internet Alliance. Representing the songwriters, singers, actors, producers and other entertainers in Memphis and Nashville, she said the creative community does not want the federal government to interfere with how they are able to get content to consumers via the Internet.

"Net neutrality, as I see it, is the fairness doctrine for the Internet," she said. The creators "fully understand what the fairness doctrine would be when it applies to TV or radio. What they do not want is the federal government policing how they deploy their content over the Internet and they want the ISPs to manage their networks and deploy the content however they have agreed on with ISP. They do not want a czar of the Internet to determine when they can deploy their creativity over the Internet. "They do not want a czar to determine what speeds will be available....We are watching the FCC very closely as it relates to that issue."

Read more ....

'Stealth' Wind Turbine Deployed

From the BBC:

A wind turbine blade that absorbs radar signals has been demonstrated at a wind farm in eastern England.

Wind turbines confuse aviation radar signals, making aircraft in wind farms' vicinities difficult to track.

Defence firm Qinetiq and turbine manufacturing firm Vestas are developing "stealth turbines", with radar-absorbing materials and coatings.

The five-year effort may help many wind farm projects that are on hold because of so-called "radar clutter" concerns.

Read more ....

Lasers Simulate Black Hole In The Lab

An artist's impression of the swirling accretion disc surrounding a black hole.
Credit: David A. Aguilar/CfA

From Cosmos:

BRISBANE: The extreme conditions found around black holes and other very dense objects can be recreated in the laboratory with powerful lasers, physicists say.

The technique may allow them to validate the computer models they use to interpret black hole data collected by space-based telescopes, such as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, according to a study published this week in Nature Physics.

Read more ....

Ladybugs Swarm Midwest

Swarming Ladies. Ladybugs are seen on cars in Chatham, Ill., Oct. 21, 2009. Around much of the country,legions of Asian lady beetles are making their seasonal appearance. AP Photo/Seth Perlman

From Discovery News:

Pest-control specialist Gene Scholes even gets bugged by them -- legions of ladybugs lately swarming his rural Missouri home and other stretches across the country, exploiting gaps in door and window seals for cozier climes inside.

Bug experts say the Asian lady beetles, considered harbingers of good luck in many cultures, are making their seasonal appearance in droves in search of warmth for the approaching winter.

The beetles are harmless to humans. That doesn't make them any less annoying for folks like Scholes.

Read more ....

What's The Point Of A Fake 500-Day Mars Mission?

Mars

From New Scientist:

The European Space Agency is seeking six volunteers to spend 520 days inside a sealed isolation facility to study the psychological effects of a journey to Mars.

The 2010 Mars-500 "mission" at the Russian Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow will simulate a round trip to the Red Planet – albeit shorter than the real thing – and follows a similar 105-day study that ended in July.

But does spending a year and a half locked inside a tin can on Earth tell us anything about how humans might behave on a high-risk interplanetary odyssey? New Scientist investigates.

Read more ....

Scientists Find A Precision Clock Logging the Milliseconds Inside Your Brain

Tick Tock Certain neurons in the striatum and prefrontal cortex fire at certain intervals, which MIT researchers have determined to be an internal clock time-stamping sensory experiences for memory just as a digital camera might time-stamp a photo file.

From Popular Science:

Though we do it without thinking, keeping track of time is integral to the brain's function, keeping our senses and our actions ordered in a chronology that we then recall in the form of memory. But important as it is, researchers have never understood the mechanism by which humans index the happenings of everyday life. Now, two macaque monkeys may have helped MIT researchers solve the time tracking puzzle.

Read more ....

Glacial Melting May Release Pollutants Into The Environment

Glacier-fed Lake Oberaar in the Bernese Alps, Switzerland.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Roland Zihlmann)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 21, 2009) — Those pristine-looking Alpine glaciers now melting as global warming sets in may explain the mysterious increase in persistent organic pollutants in sediment from certain lakes since the 1990s, despite decreased use of those compounds in pesticides, electric equipment, paints and other products.

Read more ....

Pollution Turns Leaves Magnetic

This photo, taken with a scanning electron microscope, shows one an iron-oxide sphere of pollution produced by combustion, and collected with a double-sided tape collector. Credit: Rachel Housen, Whatcom Middle School/Bellingham High School

From Live Science:

Tiny particles of pollution that are harmful to human health stick to tree leaves and leave a trace magnetism, a new study finds. More pollution is found stuck to leaves of trees near busy roadways than those in less trafficked areas.

The pollution-trapping leaves could serve as an easy, inexpensive way to monitor pollutant levels, researchers say.

Read more ....

'Double Food Output To Stop World Starving,' Say Scientists

Photo: International Rice Research Institute via flickr

From The Independent:

Royal Society wants green revolution to deal with global population rise of 3 billion.

Global food production needs to be increased by between 50 and 100 per cent if widespread famine is to be avoided in the coming decades as the human population expands rapidly, leading scientists said.

A second "green revolution" is needed in agriculture to feed the extra 3 billion people who will be added to the existing population of 6 billion by 2050.

Read more ....

Revealed: The £1m Bullet-Proof SUV (But That's Cheap Compared To The Vodka That Comes With It)

Bulletproof: The £1 million Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car

From The Daily Mail:

This is the world's most expensive SUV - but with three bottles of the world's most expensive vodka included in the price tag, it actually appears to be a bargain.

The £1million Dartz Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition has gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhausts, and the speed gauges are encrusted in diamonds.

The seats are not for the squeamish. They are made of one of the softest materials around - leather from a whale's penis.

Read more ....

Microsoft Bets On Windows Success

From BBC:

Microsoft is hoping that its newly-launched operating system will be one that "doesn't let you down".

Speaking at the official launch of Windows 7 in London, Microsoft executives said they had listened to consumers and delivered a more streamlined, feature-packed system.

It follows widespread criticism of predecessor Vista.

Windows 7 faces stiff competition from rival operating systems and new ways of storing applications.

Read more ....

Earliest Evidence Of Humans Thriving On The Savannah

From New Scientist:

Humans were living and thriving on open grassland in Africa as early as 2 million years ago, making stone tools and using them to butcher zebra and other animals. That's according to powerful evidence from artefacts found at Kanjera South, an archaeological site in south-west Kenya.

"There is no clear evidence of any hominin being associated with or foraging in open grassland prior to this 2-million-year-old site," says Thomas Plummer of Queens College at the City University of New York.

Read more ....

Massive Gene Database Planned In California

Photo: Spit kit: Genetic data from a diverse group of 100,000 California patients will be gleaned from samples of saliva, captured in kits like this one. Credit: Kaiser Permanente

From Technology Review:

The data will be compared against electronic health records and patients' personal information.

Plans for genetic analyses of 100,000 older Californians--the first time genetic data will be generated for such a large and diverse group--will accelerate research into environmental and genetic causes of disease, researchers say.

Read more ....

'Eighth Wonder' Ida Is Not Related To Humans, Claim Scientists

The skull of Ida. Photograph: Atlantic Productions

From The Guardian:

US palaeontologists dismiss initial claims about the 47million-year-old fossil found in Germany's Messel Pit.

Her arrival was announced with unrestrained razzmatazz. She was the "eighth wonder of the world", "our Mona Lisa" and an evolutionary "Rosetta Stone", according to the researchers who unveiled her.

Read more ....

Are Artificial Sweeteners Really That Bad for You?

Richard Levine / Alamy

From Time Magazine:

Too much sugar will make you fat, but too much artificial sweetener will ... do what exactly? Kill you? Make you thinner? Or have absolutely no effect at all? This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration's decision to ban cyclamate, the first artificial sweetener prohibited in the U.S., and yet scientists still haven't reached a consensus about how safe (or harmful) artificial sweeteners may be. Shouldn't we have figured this out by now?

Read more ....

CIA Buys Stake in Firm That Monitors Social Networking Sites

Gathering Intel The web 2.0 and open source intelligence make old intelligence gathering methods look, well, quaint Paramount Pictures

From Popular Science:

U.S. spies hope to glean intelligence nuggets from blog posts and Twitter.

Twitterati and other netizens should already know that their Internet musings are public and could potentially become fodder for intelligence analysts. But now U.S. spy agencies have officially invested in a software firm that monitors social media and half a million web 2.0 sites daily.

Read more ....

New Method To Help Keep Fruit, Vegetables And Flowers Fresh

Did you know that millions of tons of fruits and vegetables in the United States end up in the trash can before being eaten, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture? (Credit: iStockphoto/Jack Puccio)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 20, 2009) — Did you know that millions of tons of fruits and vegetables in the United States end up in the trash can before being eaten, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture?

A Georgia State University professor has developed an innovative new way to keep produce and flowers fresh for longer periods of time. Microbiologist George Pierce's method uses a naturally occurring microorganism -- no larger than the width of a human hair -- to induce enzymes that extend the ripening time of fruits and vegetables, and keeps the blooms of flowers fresh.

Read more ....

Music Benefits Exercise, Studies Show

From Live Science:

With the Fall marathon season in full swing, thousands of runners are gearing up for the big day. Just as important as their broken-in shoes and heart rate monitor is their source of motivation, inspiration and distraction: their tunes.

Running with music has become so common that the two biggest names in both industries, Nike and Apple, have been joined at the hip with the Nike + iPod combination. So, what is it about music and running, or any exercise, that feels so right?

Read more ....

Fancy Going To Mars? Space Agency Seeks Volunteers For 520-Day Trip... But It's Only A Simulation

A warm-up 105-day mission took place in 2009, with participants from Germany and France and four Russians living together in cramped conditions

From The Daily Mail:

Could you spend 18months with five strangers inside a small confined space? It may sound like a hellish endurance test, but The European Space Agency is calling for volunteers to do just that.

Starting in 2010, an international crew of six will simulate a 520-day round-trip to Mars, including a 30-day stay on the 'Martian surface'.

Read more ....

Weather 'Shapes Human Body Clock'

From BBC:

Our internal body clocks are shaped by the weather as well as by the seasons, scientists have discovered.

Researchers used computers to model the workings of internal biological clocks.

They found the mechanism had to be so complicated because it was able to deal with varying amounts of light from hour to hour, as well as changing seasons.

It is hoped the research, led by a team from Edinburgh University, could help tackle sleep problems caused by jet lag and shift working.

Read more ....

Intelligence Explained

Brain map: Software called BrainLab analyzes data collected during a specialized MRI scan of the author’s brain in order to create a neural wiring map. The image shows a cross-section. Specific subsets of wires are highlighted (the color indicates the direction of the wiring going through that slice). The cross-sections are computationally stitched together to create a three-dimensional image. Credit: Andrew Frew/Brainlab

From Technology Review:

Tracking and understanding the complex connections within the brain may finally reveal the neural secret of cognitive ability.

A series of black-and-white snapshots is splayed across the screen, each capturing a thin slice of my brain. The gray-scale pictures would look familiar to anyone who has seen a brain scan, but these images are different. Andrew Frew, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, uses a cursor to select a small square. Thin strands like spaghetti appear, representing the thousands of neural fibers passing through it. A few clicks of the cursor and Frew refines the tract of fibers pictured on the screen, highlighting first my optic nerve, then the fibers passing through a part of the brain that's crucial for language, then the bundles of motor and sensory nerves that head down to the brain stem.

Read more ....

Hydrogen Muscle Silences The Domestic Robot

Kwang Kim's hydrogen muscle (Image: Kwang Kim)

From The New Scientist:

IF ROBOTS are ever going to be welcome in the home they will need to become a lot quieter. Building them with artificial muscles that run on hydrogen, instead of noisy compressed-air pumps or electric motors, could be the answer.

Kwang Kim, a materials engineer at the University of Nevada in Reno, came up with the idea after realising that hydrogen can be supplied silently by metal hydride compounds.

Read more ....

Looking Beyond The Open Source Battle

Mitch Kapor. Photograph: Kim Kulish/Corbis

From The Guardian:

Software pioneer Mitch Kapor thinks Microsoft's war against open source is over – and that it must be seen in its historical context.

For years, the battle between the open source movement and Microsoft bordered on religious warfare. The two sides fired increasingly aggressive shots at one another – from the software goliath's boss, Steve Ballmer, calling open source "a cancer", to the man behind Linux, Linus Torvalds, suggesting that he might "destroy Microsoft" without even trying.

Read more ....

Medical Marijuana

From Time Magazine:

On Oct. 19, the U.S. Justice Department announced that federal prosecutors would not pursue medical-marijuana users and distributors who comply with state laws, formalizing a policy at which the Obama Administration hinted earlier this year. Currently, 13 states allow doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients suffering from ailments ranging from AIDS to glaucoma, and in Maryland a prescription can soften punishment if a user faces prosecution. But until now those laws didn't provide any protection from federal authorities.

Read more ....

Epicenter The Business of Tech Google Preparing Music Search Service

From Epicenter/Wired:

Google plans to launch a music service, Wired.com has confirmed with sources familiar with the situation. Next to nothing is known about the service at this point, rumored to be called “Google Music,” “Google Audio,” or “OneBox,” although from what we hear it’s launching sometime next week.

Read more ....

Darpa Seeks New Round Of Proposals For Universal Biosensor

Bio-Threats Darpa is seeking proposals for a antibody biosensor that can effectively identify a wide range of bio-threats. Sari Huella

From Popular Science:

Got a great idea for an antibody biosensor but unsure what to do with it? Darpa wants you. The Department of Defense's future-tech wing is seeking proposals for its newly inaugurated Antibody Technology Program, the latest bid for technologies that can pinpoint specific biological agents ranging from bioterror threats to swine flu.

Read more ....