A Science News Aggregator That Covers Stories in the World Of Science And Technology.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Children Playing Multiple Sports Suffer Fewer Injuries
From The Telegraph:
Playing more than one sport should protect you from injury, claim scientists.
Researchers have found that it is a good idea to break up your normal training routine with a different sport as it avoids repetitive strain injuries and increases the strength of joints and muscles.
They believe that especially in similar speed sports such as basketball and football it can greatly reduce injuries.
Read more ....
Tiny 'Sticking Plaster' Nanoparticles For Broken Nerves Could Provide Spinal Cord Treatment
From The Daily Mail:
Scientists last night raised hopes that microscopic nanoparticles could be injected into the spines of paralysed people to help them walk again.
They have conducted experiments on rats which show that the tiny particles can act as a 'sticking plaster' to repair broken nerves.
When the microscopic spheres, known as micelles, were injected into the tails of paralysed rats, they regained the use of all their limbs.
Read more ....
Early Life Stress 'Changes' Genes
From BBC News:
A study in mice has hinted at the impact that early life trauma and stress can have on genes, and how they can result in behavioural problems.
Scientists described the long-term effects of stress on baby mice in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Stressed mice produced hormones that "changed" their genes, affecting their behaviour throughout their lives.
This work could provide clues to how stress and trauma in early life can lead to later problems.
The study was led by Christopher Murgatroyd, a scientist from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany.
Read more ....
Signature Of Antimatter Detected In Lightning
From Science News:
Fermi telescope finds evidence that positrons, not just electrons, are in storms on Earth.
Washington — Designed to scan the heavens thousands to billions of light-years beyond the solar system for gamma rays, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has also picked up a shocking vibe from Earth. During its first 14 months of operation, the flying observatory has detected 17 gamma-ray flashes associated with terrestrial storms — and some of those flashes have contained a surprising signature of antimatter.
Read more ....
Skype Founders Wrestle Back $400m Share Of Company
From The Guardian:
• Creators receive 14% of stock in $2bn sale
• Deal ends long running dispute over company's future
The founders of Skype have regained a significant stake in the internet company after settling a contentious legal dispute that had threatened to derail its $2bn sale.
The deal, which was announced today, will give Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis a 14% stake in the internet telephony service they originally sold to auction website eBay in 2005 for $2.6bn.
Read more ....
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Middle-Aged Wolves Retire From the Hunt
From Discovery:
It takes wolves a year or two to learn how to hunt, but their ferociousness doesn't last long.
According to a new study, most wolves lose their prowess by age 3, just halfway through their lives. After that, they have to rely on younger members of the pack to catch the majority of their meals.
The discovery adds to growing evidence that aging affects animals much like it affects people. The findings might also change the way scientists think about the health of both wolf packs and the elk they prey on.
Read more ....
Male Sabertoothed Cats Were Pussycats Compared To Macho Lions
From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Despite their fearsome fangs, male sabertoothed cats may have been less aggressive than many of their feline cousins, says a new study of male-female size differences in extinct big cats.
Commonly called the sabertoothed tiger, Smilodon fatalis was a large predatory cat that roamed North and South America about 1.6 million to 10,000 years ago, when there was also a prehistoric cat called the American lion. A study appearing in the November 5 issue of the Journal of Zoology examined size differences between sexes of these fearsome felines using subtle clues from bones and teeth.
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Why Did Our Species Survive The Neanderthals? -- A Commentary
From New Scientist:
ONCE upon a time, a race of cavemen ruled Europe and Asia, then mysteriously vanished, leaving little but bones and stone tools behind.
The history of the Neanderthals isn't a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, but much of what has been written about the ancient human species may as well be, says evolutionary ecologist Clive Finlayson in his informative monograph.
Take their disappearance, which a team led by Finlayson has pinpointed to the rock of Gibraltar, between 28,000 and 24,000 years ago. Since the discovery of the first Neanderthal bones in Belgium in 1829, anthropologists have proposed any number of explanations for their extinction.
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Hunting For Tuna: The Environmental Peril Grows
From Time Magazine:
Nearly every day at dawn, John Heitz falls a little bit in love. Leaning over a 150-lb. (70 kg) yellowfin tuna, the 55-year-old American, whose business is exporting fish, circles his forefinger around its deep eye socket. "Look how clear these eyes are." He traces the puncture where the fish was hooked, and the markings under its pectoral fin where it struggled on the line. "Sometimes," Heitz says, "I see a good tuna, and it looks better to me than a woman."
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The Next Two US Recessions
From The Futurist:
Here at The Futurist, we maintain a track record of predicting bubbles, busts, and recessions long before they happen. For example, the housing bubble was identified in April 2006, back when a person could be socially excommunicated for claiming that houses may not rise in value forever. After that, I have identified when the current recession started, months before most economists, and have even predicted when the present recession will end, and at what level job losses would end at. This track record will now lead me to set my sights on the next two troubles on the horizon, which will be the causes of the next two potential recessions.
Read more ....
Nitrogen Cycle Added To Climate Model
From Future Pundit:
What is missing from climate models?
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 9, 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.
My own reaction: amazement. We are in the year 2009 and only now the nitrogen cycle gets added to climate models? What other important factors are not yet in climate models? Does anyone know? I'm looking for a knowledgeable reply, not a rant. What is the state of climate models? What are the prospects for more accurate models 5, 10, 20 years from now?
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Hot Spot Hot Rod: The Internet Invades The Automobile
From Scientific American:
A group of companies led by Alcatel-Lucent demonstrate the power of next-generation wireless broadband technologies by rolling out a Prius with 4G connectivity.
With U.S. commuters spending an estimated 500 million hours per week in their vehicles, carmakers, software companies and content providers are trying to figure out how to take advantage of new high-speed wireless network technologies to help drivers have better Internet access during this often idle time.
Read more ....
Will a Shortage of Nuclear Isotopes Mean Less Effective Medical Tests?
From Popular Science:
The Chalk River nuclear reactor in Ontario doesn’t sell a watt of electricity. Never has. But when it sprang a leak and shut down this spring, it threw a multibillion-dollar industry into crisis. Before it broke, the reactor produced nearly two thirds of the U.S. supply of molybdenum-99, or Mo-99, the isotope behind 16 million critical diagnostic medical tests each year. In July, things got worse: The Dutch reactor that supplied the remaining third shut down for a month of repair work.
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Japan Uses Controverisal Nuke Fuel
From CBS News:
(AP) Japan used weapons-grade plutonium to fuel a nuclear power plant Thursday for the first time as part of efforts to boost its atomic energy program.
Kyushu Electric Power Co. said workers fired up the No. 3 reactor at its Genkai plant in the southern prefecture of Saga using MOX fuel - a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide.
Read more ....
Genes Show When A Woman's Biological Clock Will Stop
From New Scientist:
IT IS a dilemma facing a growing number of young women: can I delay having a baby until my career is more established? A genetic test that could make this decision less of a gamble might be on offer by next year, thanks to the discovery of a gene that seems to predict the rate at which a woman's egg supply diminishes.
No one is yet sure how useful the test will be. But the aim is to tell a woman in her early 20s whether she is at high risk of early menopause. If she is, monitoring her egg supply will confirm whether her fertility is in early decline. Armed with this information she could then decide whether to start a family sooner or later, or freeze some eggs to increase her chances of conceiving later on.
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From Space To Soil, Farmers Enlist Satellites For More Bountiful Harvests
From Popular Science:
There was a time when a farmer simply tasted a clump of dirt to tell the fecundity of the soil. Now, a wide range of chemical analysis help instruct farmers on the optimal mix of fertilizer, pesticide and water. However, tests on soil samples are expensive and time consuming, and few farmers can afford to waste either time or money. And that's where the satellite imaging comes in.
Read more ....
Space Hotel Reportedly On Track For 2012 Opening, Already Has Paying Guests
From Popular Science:
A company aiming to open the first space hotel already has 43 paying customers at $4.4 million a pop.
Anyone with a cool $4 million and change might consider doing what 43 other people have done, and sign up for an orbital space vacation in 2012 with Galactic Suite Space Resort. The Barcelona-based company plans to open the first space hotel if all goes according to plan.
Read more ....
Killer Dolphins Baffle Marine Experts
From The Telegraph:
It's hard to visualise but the intelligent and ever-friendly dolphin can also be a determined killer.
- Orca whales hunt eider ducks for practice
- 'Tougher laws' to protect friendly dolphins
- Shark pictures show amazing killing display
New evidence has been compiled by marine scientists that prove the normally placid dolphin is capable of brutal attacks both on innocent fellow marine mammals and, more disturbingly, on its own kind.
Study: Internet Users Aren't Isolated (Thank Facebook)
Internet users are not as isolated as sociologists thought, but we've known that all along. Rather than isolating Americans, a new study finds the Internet broadens our social circle, and Facebook gets particular credit.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that "Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported. People's use of the mobile phone and the Internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks."
Read more ....
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Early Scents Really Do Get 'Etched' In The Brain
From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Common experience tells us that particular scents of childhood can leave quite an impression, for better or for worse. Now, researchers reporting the results of a brain imaging study online on November 5th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, show that first scents really do enjoy a "privileged" status in the brain.
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Horror Movies: Why People Love Them
This time of year, screens big and small entertain our basest instincts with horrifying gore, monsters, insanity and the supernatural. Although considered a mostly niche genre, horror films enjoy an avid following and rake in plenty of bucks at the box office.
Yet, as horror buffs come down from their Halloween rush, many are ready to do it again. Being scared out of their wits, it seems, is fun. Audiences get another chance this weekend as the "based-on-true-events" alien-abduction thriller "The Fourth Kind" (Universal) opens nationwide.
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Masturbation In The Animal Kingdom.
Isn't it wonderful when science and religion come together? My Slate colleague William Saletan points out that a recent paper has laid the groundwork for a pro-life defense of onanism. According to obstetrician David Greening, a rigorous program of daily masturbation can actually improve sperm quality in men with fertility problems. (Samples collected at the end of the program showed less DNA damage and higher sperm motility than samples from control subjects.) Since masturbation can help you have babies, Saletan argues, it must also serve the "procreative and unitive purposes" described in the Catechism.
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Report: Cyber Attacks Caused Power Outages in Brazil
Electrical blackouts impacting millions of people in Brazil in 2005 and 2007 were caused by hackers targeting control systems, according to the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes.
In a show set to air Sunday night, CBS blames a two-day outage in Espirito Santo in 2007 on a hack attack. The blackout affected three million people. Another, smaller blackout north of Rio de Janeiro in January 2005 was also triggered by computer intruders, the network claims.
My Comment: I am sure there are now more safeguards to prevent such occurrences from happening, but it is an excellent example to use in revealing how easy it is to put down a power grid.
Electric SUVs: A Smaller Footprint For Big Vehicles
From The Christian Science Monitor:
Converting existing gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs into hybrid and electric vehicles gains traction.
Tom Reid likes his ride big – a 2000 Ford Explorer SUV with plenty of interior room and all the amenities. None of those prissy little hybrid vehicles will do for him.
But after gas hit $4 a gallon last year, Mr. Reid had a big fuel bill, too – and an epiphany: convert his gas guzzler to an all-electric vehicle.
So he did. Now Reid’s bright idea has become a sideline business for his shop, HTC Racing, which produces specialized protective coating for automotive and other metal parts in Whitman, Mass. He offers kits to convert any 1995-2004 gas-sucking Ford Explorer into a cheap-to-keep, no fuel, little maintenance all-electric SUV. Cost: $15,000.
Read more ....
Vision Of The Future: Custom Corneas
From Discovery News:
NASA technology that allows the Hubble telescope to focus on distant stars now offers LASIK eye surgery patients customized options for fine-tuned night vision, superior image contrast and sight even beyond 20/20.
Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2001, wavefront technology is the newest LASIK innovation that ophthalmologists are using not only to correct eyesight, but also to peer into the physical structure of patients' eyes and locate the exact sources of their vision problems.
Read more ....
How Much Power Does The Human Brain Require To Operate?
From Popular Science:
Simulating the brain with traditional chips would require impractical megawatts of power. One scientist has an alternative.
According to Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist at Stanford University, a robot with a processor as smart as the human brain would require at least 10 megawatts to operate. That's the amount of energy produced by a small hydroelectric plant. But a small group of computer scientists may have hit on a new neural supercomputer that could someday emulate the human brain's low energy requirements of just 20 watts--barely enough to run a dim light bulb.
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Drinking Eight Cups Of Tea A Day 'Reduces Heart Attack And Stroke Risk'
heart attack and lower cholesterol." Photo: GETTY
From The Telegraph:
Drinking up to eight cups of tea a day offers "significant health benefits", including a lower risk of heart attack and stroke, according to research.
Caffeinated drinks including tea, coffee and cocoa have a positive effect on mental function, increasing alertness, wellbeing and short-term memory, according to the study.
Dr Carrie Ruxton, a dietician who conducted a review of 47 published studies, found that an intake of 400mg of caffeine a day – or eight cups of tea – delivered "key benefits in terms of mental function and heart health" without any adverse consequences.
Read more ....
The Future Of Nuclear Power
From MIT:
Introduction
An interdisciplinary MIT faculty group decided to study the future of nuclear power because of a belief that this technology is an important option for the United States and the world to meet future energy needs without emitting carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants. Other options include increased efficiency, renewables, and carbon sequestration, and all may be needed for a successful greenhouse gas management strategy. This study, addressed to government, industry, and academic leaders, discusses the interrelated technical, economic, environmental, and political challenges facing a significant increase in global nuclear power utilization over the next half century and what might be done to overcome those challenges.
This study was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and by MIT's Office of the Provost and Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.
Read more ....
Simply Astronomical – The Square Kilometre Array
(Image: SKA Project Office/Xilostudios)
From NOVA:
ustralia is playing a leading part in plans to build the world’s largest radio telescope.
Australia is in the running to host a giant new radio telescope, the astronomical equivalent to the Large Hadron Collider which has been called the biggest science experiment in history.
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope will be too complex and costly (A$2.9 billion) to be built by any one country. Instead an international consortium of 19 countries has been formed to plan and build it. In October 2006, the consortium announced that two countries had been short listed to host the SKA – Australia and South Africa.
Read more ....
Heads Up! Space Station Flyby Sunday Evening
The International Space Station is back in our evening skies, and on Sunday evening the big contraption will be flying up the East Coast and almost directly over Baltimore. (And even more directly over Ocean City.)
The weather forecast is quite promising for this pass, and the station will appear especially bright, even in badly light-polluted urban settings. It's also a convenient early-evening pass, so sky watchers will have no excuse not to step outside with the kids and get a look at your (and their) tax dollars at play.
15 Awesome Ultramodern Fireplaces
The following 15 fireplaces are at the cutting-edge of modern fireplace design.
1. Fireplace In a Can
We have managed to put everything else in a can, so why can’t we do the same thing with fire? Designer Camillo Vanacore must have been thinking the very same thing when he dreamed up this portable, encapsulated fireplace.
The concept involves a form of magical ceramic from outer space. It starts out opaque, and then becomes transparent when it is exposed to heat generated by a flame. The fireplace in a can is also small enough to fit in just one hand. It’s an interesting design that is great when on a camping trip or in an emergency, but I don’t expect to go to the grocery store to pick up a six-pack of fire anytime soon.
Read more ....
Abiotic Synthesis Of Methane: New Evidence Supports 19th-Century Idea On Formation Of Oil And Gas
From Science Daily:
ScienceDaily (Nov. 6, 2009) — Scientists in Washington, D.C. are reporting laboratory evidence supporting the possibility that some of Earth's oil and natural gas may have formed in a way much different than the traditional process described in science textbooks.
Their study is scheduled for Nov./Dec. issue of ACS' Energy & Fuels, a bi-monthly publication. Anurag Sharma and colleagues note that the traditional process involves biology: Prehistoric plants died and changed into oil and gas while sandwiched between layers of rock in the hot, high-pressure environment deep below Earth's surface. Some scientists, however, believe that oil and gas originated in other ways, including chemical reactions between carbon dioxide and hydrogen below Earth' surface.
Read more ....
Music Improves Brain Function
WASHINGTON (ISNS) -- For most people music is an enjoyable, although momentary, form of entertainment. But for those who seriously practiced a musical instrument when they were young, perhaps when they played in a school orchestra or even a rock band, the musical experience can be something more. Recent research shows that a strong correlation exists between musical training for children and certain other mental abilities.
The research was discussed at a session at a recent gathering of acoustics experts in Austin, Texas.
Read more ....
Skunks: From A Continuing Series On Revolting Creatures.
A mother skunk trailed by six little striped kits is a sight at least as charming as ducklings following their mother. Skunks themselves are not revolting. It's the pungent, oily, yellow-green liquid that streams out of nozzles on either side of a skunk's anus that is revolting. Lovable though the creatures are, there will never be a children's book called Make Way for Skunks.
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Sesame Street Celebrates 40th Anniversary with Premiere on November 10th
From Geek Dad:
COOKIE!!!
Cookie Monster is no doubt the least good-for-you part of Sesame Street but it was always my favorite. And then there’s Oscar the Grouch, who’s already been the subject of a Geek Dad post.One of us.
Likely the Cookie Monster is the favorite of many others too, since Google placed him on their homepage to celebrate the show’s 40th anniversary, which is Tuesday, November 10, as new segments will begin airing on PBS stations. There are preview clips available at the official website linked above but, be warned, there is video that turns on instantly, so if you’re not in the mood for Ernie, you might want to hit the mute button.
How Much Would You Pay To See Your Future?
(Credit: Elizabeth Armstrong Moore/CNET)
From CNET:
My dad used to say technology is advancing so quickly that, by the time a product reaches market, it is already obsolete. Moreover, if you wait just a little longer, you can pay a lot less. The sequencing of the human genome takes the advancement of technology, and its fast reduction in cost, to an entirely new level.
Read more ....
How Astronomers Fill In Uncharted Areas Of The Universe
From The Christian Science Monitor:
Thanks to new tools, scientists are quickly mapping the stars.
Astronomers are filling in the blank spaces on their 3-D map of our universe thanks to their ability to sense almost every conceivable form of electromagnetic radiation. Those blanks include remote regions of space and time when the first stars formed and when young galaxies began to group themselves into gravitationally bound clusters.
Read more ....
Aluminum Fuel Could Power Future Space Trips
From Discovery News:
Aluminum and water is usually a boring combination, but light a mixture of nanoaluminum and ice and the results are explosive.
Scientists from Purdue University have created a new, environmentally friendly solid rocket fuel that recently sent a rocket screaming 1300 feet into the air using seven inches of nanoaluminum and ice. The new fuel could power missions to the moon or Mars while dramatically reducing the amount of on-board fuel.
"Theoretically you can get very high temperatures using aluminum and water, but the kinetics would be so slow and it would be so hard to ignite that it's very hard to actually make the rocket work," said Steven Son, a professor at Purdue University in Indiana who helped develop the new fuel.
Read more ....
Beyond North and South: Evidence For Magnetic Monopoles
From Scientific American:
A sighting, of sorts, of separate north-south magnetic poles.
Magnets are remarkable exemplars of fairness—every north pole is invariably accompanied by a counterbalancing south pole. Split a magnet in two, and the result is a pair of magnets, each with its own north and south. For decades researchers have sought the exception—namely, the monopole, magnetism’s answer to the electron, which carries electric charge. It would be a free-floating carrier of either magnetic north or magnetic south—a yin unbound from its yang.
Read more ....
Comic Books Are Good For Children's Learning
Parents should not "look down" on comics as they are just as good for children as reading books, a new study claims.
Researchers believe they can benefit from tales about the caped crusader, Superman and even Dennis the Menace in the same way they can from reading other types of literature, despite teachers and parents often being snooty about comics, experts say.
According to the research, critics say that reading comics is actually a "simplified version" of reading that doesn't have the complexity of "real" books with their "dense columns of words and lack of pictures".
Read more ....
Which One To Choose? Apple's Store Tops 100,000 Applications
From The Daily Mail:
Apple revealed today that developers have crammed the virtual shelves of their App Store with more than 100,000 programmes for iPhones and iPod Touch devices.
Applications can range from time-wasting games, to maps that interact with real-time videos which create an augmented reality.
Even celebrities are getting in on the app action. Noel Edmonds has created a Cosmic Ordering programme to maker user's dreams come true while David Hasselhoff has launched 'Ask the Hoff' to answer your tricky questions.
Read more ....
Early Origins For Uncanny Valley
From The BBC:
Human suspicion of realistic robots and avatars may have earlier origins than previously thought.
The phenomenon, called the uncanny valley, describes the disquiet caused by synthetic people which almost, but not quite, match human expressiveness.
Experiments with macaque monkeys show they too are suspicious of replicas that fall short of the real thing.
The research suggests a deep-seated evolutionary origin for the reactions such artificial entities evoke.
Read more ....
Friday, November 6, 2009
Archaeologists Track Infamous Conquistador Through Southeast
From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Nov. 5, 2009) — Archaeologists at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History have discovered unprecedented evidence that helps map Hernando de Soto's journey through the Southeast in 1540. No evidence of De Soto's path between Tallahassee and North Carolina has been found until now, and few sites have been located anywhere.
Read more ....
The Truth About 2012 Doomsday Hype
From Live Science:
2012 is coming very soon. The movie, that is — the disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich depicting global catastrophe of Biblical proportions. The year itself is of course a few dozen months away, and there is growing interest, excitement, and concern for both events.
The film "2012," which opens Nov. 13, takes place, rather obviously, in the year 2012, though it could have been set in 1995 or 2013. The movie's disasters have no particular link to that year, it's just when the Earth happens to start burping earthquakes and farting fire. 2012 made a perfect promotional hook for the film, because the ancient Mayans predicted that the world would end that year, if not specifically on December 21, 2012.
Remembering A Former Caltech Rocket Scientist And The Founder Of China's Space Program
From Popular Science:
Qian Xuesen has died at 98; he helped found Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory before being deported as a suspected Communist.
One can only imagine how history might have played out if the United States had not deported a Chinese-born Caltech rocket scientist on suspicion of being a Communist in 1955. Qian Xuesen first fought his deportation, but later accepted his fate and went on to become the founder of China's missile and space programs. His death this past Sunday comes as China broadens its space exploration efforts to become a potential challenger to a troubled U.S. space program, or perhaps a partner.
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Can We Really Control The Weather?
From The Independent:
Recently both Russia and China have claimed to be able to use cloud seeding to increase rainfall and snowfall, or change the location of where it falls. In the past, snow-making experiments have been carried out in North American ski resorts in the past with little evidence of success. So how have the Russian and Chinese scientists achieved this feat and what evidence is there that it is in fact due to cloud seeding?
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Nanoparticles Could Damage DNA At A Distance, Study Suggests
Photograph: Getty Images
From The Guardian:
Lab tests show that metal nanoparticles can affect DNA without actually coming into contact with it – though the results are difficult to extrapolate to the human body.
Nanoparticles of metal can damage the DNA inside cells even if there is no direct contact between them, scientists have found. The discovery provides an insight into how the particles might exert their influence inside the body and points to possible new ways to deliver medical treatments.
Read more ....
Tweak Gravity: What If There Is No Dark Matter?
From Scientific American:
Modifications to the theory of gravity could account for observational discrepancies, but not without introducing other complications.
Theorists and observational astronomers are hot on the trail of dark matter, the invisible material thought to account for puzzling mass disparities in large-scale astronomical structures. For instance, galaxies and galactic clusters behave as if they were far more massive than would be expected if they comprised only atoms and molecules, spinning faster than their observable mass would explain. What is more, the very presence of assemblages such as our Milky Way Galaxy speaks to the influence of more mass than we can see. If the mass of the universe were confined to atoms, the clumping of matter that allowed galaxies to take shape would never have transpired.
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Carl Sagan Day Celebrated At Florida University
From The Telegraph:
The first Carl Sagan Day is being celebrated at Broward College, Florida, in honour of the great astronomer, novelist and sceptic.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author, who died in 1996, would have turned 75 on Monday 9 November 2009. Broward College is to hold a day of activities and talks in his memory.
The university, near Davie, Florida, held planetarium shows and star-gazing, as well as a talk by the magician and sceptic James Randi, a friend of Dr Sagan.
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A Neutron Star Is Born: Stellar Core Just 12 Miles Across Spotted 11,000 Light Years Away
From The Daily Mail:
An infant neutron star, the super-dense core of a stellar explosion, has been observed for the first time.
The 12.4 mile-wide object is the youngest object of its kind ever discovered, having appeared just 330 years ago.
It has been cloaked in mystery since it was identified as a powerful X-ray source in 1999. Astronomers now know the source is a neutron star 11,000 light years from Earth at the centre of the supernova Cassiopeia A.
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Coffee Brims With Health Benefits, Researchers Say
Although caffeine might be considered the "active ingredient" in coffee, coffee is only two percent caffeine and 98 percent "other stuff," including more than 1,000 different compounds such as vitamins, minerals and amino acids. It even contains fiber. Each cup contains the kind that helps prevent cholesterol from being absorbed by the intestines.
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