Senate Panel: 80 Percent of Cyber Attacks Preventable

From Threat Level:

If network administrators simply instituted proper configuration policies and conducted good network monitoring, about 80 percent of commonly known cyber attacks could be prevented, a Senate committee heard Tuesday.

The remark was made by Richard Schaeffer, the NSA’s information assurance director, who added that simply adhering to already known best practices would sufficiently raise the security bar so that attackers would have to take more risks to breach a network, “thereby raising [their] risk of detection.”

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My Comment: There is a lot of meat in this story .... read it all.

Robots Perform Shakespeare

From Autopia:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been updated for the 21st Century with seven small robots playing fairies alongside carbon-based co-stars.

Beyond being a cool thing to do, researchers saw bringing ‘bots to the Bard as a chance to introduce robots to the public and see how people interact with them. Their findings could influence how robots are designed and how they’re used in search and rescue operations.

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The Race To Build A 1000 mph Car

From New Scientist:

Strapped into a custom built seat, Andy Green prepares for the ride of his life. The pancake-flat desert stretches out for miles ahead. The computer indicates all systems are normal. He eases off the brakes and puts his foot down on the throttle. The jet engine roars into life. In precisely 42.5 seconds he'll be travelling 1000 mph. In a car.

"It's almost impossible to tell the difference between going supersonic in a car and in an aircraft," says Green. He is the only person on Earth who can say that from personal experience. Green was a fighter pilot for the UK Royal Air Force for 20 years, and he is also the fastest man on wheels. In 1997, driving a vehicle called ThrustSSC, he set the world land speed record of 763 miles per hour, becoming the first and only person to break the sound barrier in a car (761 mph under standard conditions). Now, together with the Bloodhound SSC design team, he's attempting to do it all over again, and then some.

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Liquid Cooling Bags For Data Centers Could Trim Cost and Carbon By 90 Percent

The Iceotope Water-Cooling Component After the individual bags of coolant pull heat away from the individual server components, a water transfer system moves heat out of the data center, possibly for use in heating offices during cold weather. Iceotope

From Popular Science:

Server farms are undeniably awesome in that they store huge pools of data, enable such modern phenomena as cloud computing and Web-hosted email, and most importantly, make the Internet as it stands today possible. The downside: data centers get very, very hot. Cooling huge banks of servers doesn't just cost a lot, it eats up a lot of energy, and that generally means fossil fuels. UK-based Iceotope hopes to cut those costs by about 93 percent by wrapping servers in liquid coolant.

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Women 'Should Bare 40 Per Cent Of Their Bodies To Attract Men'

Liz Hurley wearing her famous 'safety pin' dress Photo: REX

From The Telegraph:

Women should wear clothes that bare 40 per cent of their flesh to maximise their chances of attracting men, new scientific research indicates.

Striking the right balance between revealing too much and being too conservative in how much skin is on show has long been a dilemma for women when choosing the right outfit for a night out.

However, a study by experts at the University of Leeds has come to the rescue by calculating the exact proportion of the body that should be exposed for optimum allure.

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Email Could Be 'Extinct Within A Decade' As Teens Turn To Twitter-Style Messaging

Photo: Email took 20 years to develop but may disappear within a decade, experts believe

From The Daily Mail:

Email could be extinct within a decade as millions of teenagers ditch it as their main form of communication, say researchers.

Youngsters have been shown to favour social networking sites and instant messaging instead.

The report found the electronic form of contact is already becoming 'grey mail' with the most devoted users being pensioners, followed by middle-aged Britons.

Although inboxes are still filling up daily all over the world, experts believe emails are dying out because they are too slow, too inconvenient and simply not fashionable any more.

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PICTURES: The Hunt for Lost WWII 'Samurai Subs'

In this image, the I-401 submarine is shown. The I-401 aircraft-carrying submarine could travel one and a half times around the world without refueling. (Wild Life Productions, National Geographic Channel)

From ABC News:

National Geographic Channel Program Documents Undersea Search for Japanese Super-Submarines.

With more time, military experts say, a fleet of revolutionary Japanese super-submarines could have changed the course of World War II.

Some were designed to launch bombers on kamikaze missions against New York City, Washington, D.C., and the Panama Canal. Others were thought to be twice as fast any other submarine used in the war.

None had the chance to execute their stealth missions against the U.S. mainland or critical targets in the Pacific during the war.

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CSN Editor: For background information, see History of Submarine Aircraft Carriers -- New Wars

What Would Shackleton's Whisky Taste Like?

From the BBC:

After a century buried in the Antarctic ice, a rare batch of whisky that belonged to the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton is to be recovered. So what might it taste like?

It's been on the rocks for the last 100 years, buried under two feet of Antarctic ice. Now the two cases of "Rare Old" brand Mackinlay and Co whisky are to be retrieved.

A team of New Zealand explorers heading out in January has been asked by Whyte & Mackay, the company that now owns Mackinlay and Co, to get a sample of the drink. The crates were left behind by Sir Ernest Shackleton when he abandoned his mission to the South Pole in 1909.

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My Comment: I will now formally volunteer to be a taster for any whiskey that is retrieved.

Space Shuttle Has Docked With The Space Station

Shuttle Docks With Space Station -- BBC

The space shuttle Atlantis has successfully docked with the International Space Station, according to Nasa officials.

The shuttle blasted off on Monday with six astronauts on an 11-day voyage to deliver new equipment to the station.

The docking was manually completed by commander Charlie Hobaugh as the two spacecraft travelled towards each other at 17,000 miles an hour.

The astronauts' arrival will be met with a traditional welcoming ceremony.

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More News On the Space Shuttle Mission

Shuttle Atlantis arrives at space station -- Reuters
Shuttle docks at space station, looks 'beautiful' -- AP
Space Shuttle Atlantis Docks at ISS -- Voice of America
FACTBOX: The mission of space shuttle Atlantis -- Reuters
NASA: With Atlantis docked, work begins today -- Computer World
NASA seeks new emblem for shuttle program -- MSNBC

'Vampire Star': Ticking Stellar Time Bomb Identified

The expanding shell around V445 Puppis. (Credit: Image courtesy of ESO)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 17, 2009) — Using ESO's Very Large Telescope and its ability to obtain images as sharp as if taken from space, astronomers have made the first time-lapse movie of a rather unusual shell ejected by a "vampire star," which in November 2000 underwent an outburst after gulping down part of its companion's matter. This enabled astronomers to determine the distance and intrinsic brightness of the outbursting object.

It appears that this double star system is a prime candidate to be one of the long-sought progenitors of the exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae, critical for studies of dark energy.

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No Surprise: Coed Dorms Fuel Sex and Drinking

From Live Science:

It's no secret to students that coed dorms are more fun than same-sex dorms. But they can also fuel very unhealthy behavior that might otherwise be moderated.

A new study finds university students in coed housing are 2.5 times more likely to binge drink every week. And no surprise, they're also likely to have more sexual partners, the study found. Also, pornography use was higher among students in coed dorms.

Some 90 percent of U.S. college dorms are now coed.

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Neuron Chamber Mimics Brain

From Wired:

The Neuron Chamber, on display at San Francisco's Exploratorium, is an interactive, electro-kinetic sculpture representing the form and function of neurons in the brain.

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Heart Disease Was Rife Among Affluent Ancient Egyptians

X-rays of ancient Egyptian mummies hint that modern lifestyles may not be entirely to blame for heart disease. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

From The Guardian:

X-rays of mummies reveal atherosclerosis, suggesting there may be more to heart disease than bad diet and smoking.

Heart disease plagued human society long before fry-ups and cigarettes came along, researchers say. The upper classes of ancient Egypt were riddled with cardiovascular disease that dramatically raised their risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Doctors made the discovery after taking hospital X-ray scans of 20 Egyptian mummies that date back more than 3,500 years.

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Female Sexual Dysfunction: Myth or Malady?

Ian Hooton / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

There was a time when Wendy and her husband had sex three times a week. But for the past six years, the purple negligee that Wendy used to entice her husband has been stuffed in the back of a drawer. And now, instead of getting hot and bothered by her husband's advances, Wendy is simply bothered. "All of a sudden I didn't have any desire. There's just nothing there anymore," says Wendy, who requested that her last name not be published.

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Why Web Widgets Will Invade Your TV

Image: Beware, the web widgets are coming. Rob Dunlavey

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Web widgets bring Internet perks to the biggest screen in most people’s homes.

The Internet revolution may finally be televised.

Innocuous little software applications, popularly known as “widgets,” may turn out to be the back door to your TV screen that Internet companies have been waiting for.

For more than a decade, businesses have been trying to make the Internet available on the largest screen in most homes. In 1996, Time Warner offered WebTV, which failed to find an audience and folded. Even today, projects like Hewlett Packard’s MediaSmart (2006) and Apple TV (2007) have yet to win over large numbers of viewers, hampered by complicated setups or limited programming choices.

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Innovation: The Dizzying Ambition Of Wolfram Alpha

From New Scientist:

When the search engine Wolfram Alpha launched earlier this year, the interest was huge. Enticed by a well-oiled publicity machine, web users swamped the site and its servers were overwhelmed. Then everything went quiet – so quiet that it was easy to imagine that Alpha would follow countless Google wannabes to the great search engine directory in the sky.

That was to reckon without Stephen Wolfram, a physicist famous for creating and selling the mathematics software Mathematica and for his pioneering but controversial work on cellular automata.

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Google, Bing Continue Gains At Yahoo's Expense

From CNET:

Yahoo continues to lose share in the search market, as Google and Microsoft pick up the difference.

Comscore's measurement of the U.S. search market in October shows that Google--as usual--still dominates the search landscape. It now watches 65.4 percent of all searches pass through its servers, up 0.5 market share points from September of this year.

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The Top 8 Dinosaur Discoveries of 2009

(Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

Paleontologists have had a good year, bringing a slew of new dinosaurs to the books. We pored through the many finds to bring you the best horned, bird-footed, feathered and, of course, ferocious new dinosaurs unveiled this year.

In science, it's exceedingly rare when the naked eye usurps modern technology—powerful telescopes offer humans unprecedented views of celestial phenomena, surgeons can send tiny cameras inside your intestinal tract and even iPhone apps can spot public restrooms before you can. However, for the paleontologists who routinely discover new dinosaurs, a good set of eyes, geological know-how and a little luck remain the best tools.

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Spanish Scientists Mod Optical Mouse Into Counterfeit Coin Detector

Counterfeit Coin Detector Tresanchez et al., via EurekAlert

From Popular Science:

Counterfeiting is as old as money itself, with the history of currency including a millennia-long arms race between mints and the forgers that copy them. While governments have finally crafted paper money so intricate that counterfeiting isn't a major problem, detecting counterfeit coins remains a challenge. Now, Spanish scientists have modified a regular optical computer mouse to create a cheap and easy device for sniffing out phony Euro coins.

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Ancient Weapons Dug Up by Archaeologists in England

Over 5000 worked flints came from one small area, including flint cores used for tool creation, blades, flakes and 'debitage' (small chips from tool-working), and scrapers, piercers and microlith tools with the latter being used in composite arrowheads. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Leicester)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 17, 2009) — Staff at the University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) have been excited by the results from a recently excavated major Prehistoric site at Asfordby, near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. The Mesolithic site may date from as early as 9000 BC, by which time hunter-gatherers had reoccupied the region after the last ice age. These hunters crossed the land bridge from the continental mainland -- 'Britain' was only to become an island several thousand years later.

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The Future of Evolution: What Will We Become?

Could humans split into two species? Perhaps, if we engineer one or if a colony is isolated in outer space. Image credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

Editor's Note: This is the last in a 10-part LiveScience series on the origin, evolution and future of the human species and the mysteries that remain to be solved.

The past of human evolution is more and more coming to light as scientists uncover a trove of fossils and genetic knowledge. But where might the future of human evolution go?

There are plenty of signs that humans are still evolving. However, whether humans develop along the lines portrayed by hackneyed science fiction is doubtful.

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How To Upgrade A Supercomputer, 37,376 Chips At A Time

From Gadget Lab:

The most powerful supercomputer in the world, the Cray XT5 — aka ‘Jaguar’ — is a computing monster with the ability to clock 1.759 petaflops (1,759 trillion) calculations per second.

So just what exactly is inside this machine?

About 37,376 AMD processors, to begin with. The Jaguar has 255,584 processing cores and is built using AMD six-core Istanbul Opteron chips running at 2.6 gigahertz.

That’s a step up from the four-core AMD chips that the computer used to have.

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Vaccines On Horizon For AIDS, Alzheimer's

From Time Magazine:

(MARIETTA, Pa.) — Malaria. Tuberculosis. Alzheimer's disease. AIDS. Pandemic flu. Genital herpes. Urinary tract infections. Grass allergies. Traveler's diarrhea. You name it, the pharmaceutical industry is working on a vaccine to prevent it.

Many could be on the market in five years or less.

Contrast that with five years ago, when so many companies had abandoned the vaccine business that half the U.S. supply of flu shots was lost because of contamination at one of the two manufacturers left.

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Interview: The Man Who Makes Killer Robots For The US Military

From CNET:

It sounds like the opening scene of a Terminator movie: a team of intelligent air, land and sea robots working together to hunt down a group of human soldiers. Detected by infrared sensors mounted on a cyber-jetski, the platoon is forced to take shelter in a beach bunker. Stealthy flying drones then co-ordinate an attack, flushing the panicked warriors right into the arms of a pair of tracked and armed ground robots. Game over, man.

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My Comment: An easy to read article and interview.

Don't Pack Your Parachute: Totally Free Fall

From New Scientist:

ON A bright day in 1912, an Austrian tailor named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. This was no suicide attempt. Reichelt was wearing a special overcoat of his own design that was supposed to let him glide gently to the ground. Sadly, it didn't work. As the crowd watched and movie cameras whirred, the "flying tailor" plunged 60 metres to his death.

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Top 10 Languages On The Internet

From Discovery News:

f the Internet is the new public square, it's crowded and noisy. More than 1.4 billion people gather and talk on its cyber sidewalks.

Despite all those tongues, it's not a very linguistically diverse place.

More than half are in three languages: English, Chinese and Spanish.

Compare that to the number of known languages, 6,912 according to Ethnologue.com, and residency in the online neighborhood seems wildly exclusive.

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The Retirement Of The Space Shuttle—And What's Next For NASA

From Popular Mechanics:

Today, November 16, 2009, the Space Shuttle Atlantis successfully launched to rendezvous with the International Space Station. This will be the sixth-to-last launch for NASA's Space Shuttle program. For now, NASA plans to retire the Space Shuttle after the last launch and replace it after a yet-to-be-determined gap in time with the Constellation Program, which will make use of the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle and Ares I rockets. At this pivotal moment in manned space flight history, PM looks back at our coverage of the technology behind the Constellation Program and the development of the International Space Station, as well as news surrounding the Space Shuttles.

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A Case In Antiquities For ‘Finders Keepers’

Viktor Koen

From New York Times:

Zahi Hawass regards the Rosetta Stone, like so much else, as stolen property languishing in exile. “We own that stone,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking as the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The British Museum does not agree — at least not yet. But never underestimate Dr. Hawass when it comes to this sort of custody dispute. He has prevailed so often in getting pieces returned to what he calls their “motherland” that museum curators are scrambling to appease him.

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Best of What's New 2009: The Year's 100 Greatest Innovations

Best of What's New 2009: Click here to explore the full list

From Popular Science:

Innovation manifests itself in myriad ways: groundbreaking, revolutionary bursts we'd never before imagined possible, or in more nuanced but no less brilliant refinements of existing technology. And while this year's list contains plenty of instances of the former, in compiling it we've noticed one thing: 2009 is the year of stealth innovation.

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Report: Countries Prepping For Cyberwar

Countries armed with "cyberweapons," according to McAfee.
(Credit: McAfee)

From CNET:

Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War," amassing cyberweapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report to be released on Tuesday by McAfee.

In particular, countries gearing up for cyberoffensives are the U.S., Israel, Russia, China, and France, the says the report, compiled by former White House Homeland Security adviser Paul Kurtz and based on interviews with more than 20 experts in international relations, national security and Internet security.

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'Universal' Programmable Two-Qubit Quantum Processor Created

NIST postdoctoral researcher David Hanneke at the laser table used to demonstrate the first universal programmable processor for a potential quantum computer. A pair of beryllium ions (charged atoms) that hold information in the processor are trapped inside the cylinder at the lower right. A colorized image of the two ions is displayed on the monitor in the background. (Credit: J. Burrus/NIST)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 16, 2009) — Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have demonstrated the first "universal" programmable quantum information processor able to run any program allowed by quantum mechanics -- the rules governing the submicroscopic world -- using two quantum bits (qubits) of information. The processor could be a module in a future quantum computer, which theoretically could solve some important problems that are intractable today.

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Attractiveness Based Partly on Skin Color

Participants in the study changed the skin color of the faces in images (right), making the skin redder, yellower and brighter (from top to bottom), saying those looked healthier than faces that are less red, less yellow and less bright (left). Credit: www.perceptionlab.com at the University of St. Andrews.

From Live Science:

When it comes to an attractive face, color can make all the difference, suggests a new study.

The research focused on facial skin color among Caucasians, finding a light, yellowish complexion looks the healthiest. The skin color could indicate a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables, whose pigments are known to change the skin's hue, researchers suggest.

(The researchers predict the results would hold for other ethnicities as well.)

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Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator’s Speed Record

From Wired Science:

The retooled Jaguar supercomputer blew away the competition on the latest list of the 500 fastest computers in the world, clocking an incredible 1.759 petaflops — 1,759 trillion calculations per second.

The machine, housed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, added two more cores with the aid of almost $20 million in stimulus spending. With the new processors, the Cray XT5 plowed past the Top500 competition. It’s more than 69 percent faster than the previous record holder, Los Alamos National Laboratory’s IBM Roadrunner, and is more than twice as powerful as the third-fastest computer on the list.

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Astronomers Name Scottish Park One Of World's Best Stargazing Sites

The night sky as seen in Galloway Forest Park, which has
been awarded 'dark skies' status. Photograph: PR

From The Guardian:

Galloway Forest Park awarded 'dark skies' status and praised for accessibility to public.

A vast stretch of forest in south-west Scotland boasting unrivalled views of the millions of stars in the galaxy was today named as one of the best places in the world to stargaze.

Galloway Forest Park, a 300 square mile tract of conifer forests and hills, became one of the first places outside the US to be given status as a "dark skies park" by astronomers at the International Dark Skies Association.

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Climate Change Gives Ancient Trees Growth Spurt

Wiltshire's Ancient Trees. Photo from The BBC

From The New Scientist:

Rising temperatures are causing some of the oldest trees on Earth to grow faster, new research suggests. But scientists are divided over whether or not the change will benefit the climate, as it may simply cause the trees to die more quickly.

Previous research (pdf) suggested that Great Basin bristlecone pines located in the mountains of western US are growing more rapidly. But the reason for the growth spurt – and whether or not it is unusual – was unclear.

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Bacteria 'Glow Near Landmines'

From The Telegraph:

Bacteria that glow green in the presence of explosives could provide a cheap and safe way to find hidden landmines, according to British scientists.

The bugs can be mixed into a colourless solution that forms green patches when sprayed on to ground where mines are buried.

Researchers who created the bacteria at the University of Edinburgh believe the microbes could be dropped from the air on to danger areas.

Within a few hours, they would react to traces of explosives leaking from the devices buried underground.

Each year, between 15,000 and 20,000 people are killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance, according to the charity Handicap International.

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British Scientists Testing Ukrainian 'Super Flu' That Has Killed 189 People

Ukraine's Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (L) visits flu victims
at a hospital in the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk

From The Daily Mail:

British scientists are examining the strain of swine flu behind a deadly Ukrainian outbreak to see if the virus has mutated.

A total of 189 people have died and more than one million have been infected in the country.

Some doctors have likened the symptoms to those seen in many of the victims of the Spanish flu which caused millions of deaths world-wide after the World War One.

An unnamed doctor in western Ukraine told of the alarming effects of the virus.

He said: 'We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal.

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China Joins Supercomputer Elite

From The BBC:

China has become one of a handful of nations to own one of the top five supercomputers in the world.

Its Tianhe-1 computer, housed at the National Super Computer Center in Tianjin was ranked fifth on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.

The machine packs more than 70,000 chips and can compute 563 trillion calculations per second (teraflops).

It is used for petroleum exploration and engineering tasks such as simulating aircraft designs.

However, the fastest machine is the US-owned Jaguar supercomputer, which now boasts a speed of 1.759 petaflops.

One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

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Fishing Quota Will Lead To Extinction Of Bluefin Tuna, Warn Conservationists

From Times Online:

Conservationists have accused the organisation charged with ensuring the survival of the bluefin tuna of pushing the fish to extinction.

Members of the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) voted to allow 13,500 tonnes of tuna to be caught next year, which scientists say will lead to the disappearance of the fish from the Mediterranean within two years.

The European Union was blamed for having blocked plans at the Brazil conference for a moratorium on catching the fish in the Mediterranean.

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Scientists Test First Universal Programmable Quantum Computer

Quantum Processor Beryllium ions to lasers: you spin me right round J. Burrus/NIST

From Popular Science:

Quantum computing uses spooky physics to run faster and more powerfully than traditional computers.

Physicists have been taking baby steps toward creating a full-fledged quantum computer faster and more powerful than any computer in existence, by making quantum processors capable of performing individual tasks. Now a group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed the world's first universal programmable quantum computer that can run any program that's possible under the rules of quantum mechanics.

Read more ...

Improving Security With Face Recognition Technology

This photo shows how to determine discriminative anatomical point pairings using Adaboost for 3-D face recognition. (Credit: University of Miami)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 15, 2009) — A number of U.S. states now use facial recognition technology when issuing drivers licenses. Similar methods are also used to grant access to buildings and to verify the identities of international travelers. Historically, obtaining accurate results with this type of technology has been a time intensive activity. Now, a researcher from the University of Miami College of Engineering and his collaborators have developed ways to make the technology more efficient while improving accuracy.

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Just Thinking of a Loved One Can Reduce Physical Pain

From Live Science:

They say love hurts. But it can also make people feel better.

In an offbeat study, researchers applied "moderately painful heat stimuli" to the forearms of 25 women while each held the hand of her boyfriend, the hand of a male stranger, or squeezed a ball. The women reported less pain when holding their boyfriends' hands.

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Surprising Discovery Explains Formation Of New Memories

From U.S. News And World Report:

Short-term memory may depend in a surprising way on the ability of newly formed neurons to erase older connections. That's the conclusion of a report in the November 13th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, that provides some of the first evidence in mice and rats that new neurons sprouted in the hippocampus cause the decay of short-term fear memories in that brain region, without an overall memory loss.

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Time-Travelling Browsers Navigate The Web's Past

19 October 1996: Plane maker Boeing had what was,
for the time, a very image-intensive home page

From New Scientist:

Finding old versions of web pages could become far simpler thanks to a "time-travelling" web browsing technology being pioneered at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Bookmarking a page takes you to its current version – but earlier ones are harder to find (to see an award-winning 1990s incarnation of newscientist.com, see our gallery of web pages past, right). One option is to visit a resource like the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. There, you key in the URL of the site you want and are confronted with a matrix of years and dates for old pages that have been cached. Or, if you want to check how a Wikipedia page has evolved, you can hit the "history" tab on a page of interest and scroll through in an attempt to find the version of the page on the day you're interested in.

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Scientists Identify Gene That Can Help You Live To 100

From The Telegraph:

A gene that can help you live to 100 has been identified by scientists.

Researchers studying a group of people with an average age of 97 found they had all inherited a gene that appears to prevent cells ageing.

They found that the 86 people studied and their children had higher levels of an enzyme called telomerase which is known to protect the body's DNA from degrading.

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Last Ice Age Took Just SIX Months To Arrive

Photo: Climate catastrophe: Rapid climate change was the subject of the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow

From The Daily Mail:

It took just six months for a warm and sunny Europe to be engulfed in ice, according to new research.

Previous studies have suggested the arrival of the last Ice Age nearly 13,000 years ago took about a decade - but now scientists believe the process was up to 20 times as fast.

In scenes reminiscent of the Hollywood blockbuster The day After Tomorrow, the Northern Hemisphere was frozen by a sudden slowdown of the Gulf Stream, which allowed ice to spread hundreds of miles southwards from the Arctic.

Geological sciences professor William Patterson, who led the research, said: 'It would have been very sudden for those alive at the time. It would be the equivalent of taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months.'

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Starvation 'Wiped Out' Giant Deer

From The BBC:

The giant deer, also known as the giant Irish deer or Irish elk, is one of the largest deer species that ever lived.

Yet why this giant animal, which had massive antlers spanning 3.6m, suddenly went extinct some 10,600 years ago has remained a mystery.

Now a study of its teeth is producing tantalising answers, suggesting the deer couldn't cope with climate change.

As conditions became colder and drier in Ireland at the time, fewer plants grew, gradually starving the deer.

The discovery is published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

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Leonid Meteor Showers Tonight

The Leonid meteor shower streaks over Joshua Tree
during a spectacular display in 2001. (Newscom)

Leonid Meteor Shower Times: When You Should Look Skyward -- Christian Science Monitor

In 2009, the Leonid meteor shower will strike between 3:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Eastern time.

The Leonid meteor shower is back in town Tuesday morning. Every November, Earth gets a spritz of meteor light in the night sky. While Asia will get the best show this year, early birds in North America can enjoy a few dozen Leonid meteors per hour.

Thinking of getting up early? Americans, set your clocks to 3:30 a.m. East Coast time. The shower will run from then until about 5:30 a.m. However, no matter where you live, you may luck out and catch a stray meteor anytime between 1 a.m. and dawn.

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Shuttle Atlantis Lifts Off for 11-Day Mission

From The New York Times:

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The shuttle Atlantis vaulted into orbit Monday and set off after the International Space Station, carrying 15 tons of spare parts and equipment as a hedge against failures after the shuttle fleet is retired next year.

“We’re looking for the long-term outfitting of station,” said the shuttle commander, Col. Charles O. Hobaugh of the Marines.

With Colonel Hobaugh and Capt. Barry E. Wilmore, a Navy pilot, at the controls, Atlantis’s twin solid-fuel boosters ignited with a blast of fire at 2:28 p.m., Eastern time, instantly pushing the winged spacecraft away from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

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More News On Today's Shuttle Launch

Shuttle Atlantis takes off on station delivery mission -- CNET
NASA launches shuttle Atlantis to space station -- Reuters
Space shuttle Atlantis lifts off on supply mission -- AP
Space Shuttle Atlantis Blasts off on Delivery Mission -- FOX News
Atlantis heads for ISS with spare parts: Last shuttle blast of year -- The Register

Weapons Manufacturer Unveils Black Box for Guns

Black Box Gun Tracking gun and user performance since 2009 FN Herstal

From Popular Science:

The gadget would record details of every shot fired to track both weapon and user performance.

Military and police higher-ups can now see just how many shots a particular weapon fired during the course of a battle or incident. The Register reports that a new black box device designed for rifles and submachine guns could report on ammo usage and weapon jamming, as well as who shot whom at what time.

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Why NCAR’s Meehl Paper On High/Low Temperature Records Is Bunk

This graphic shows the ratio of record daily highs to record daily lows observed at about 1,800 weather stations in the 48 contiguous United States from January 1950 through September 2009. Source NCAR

From Watts Up With That?

One wonders why the story of a new paper covered on WUWT: NCAR: Number of record highs beat record lows – if you believe the quality of data from the weather stations did not include the 1930’s and 1940’s and earlier, conspicuously missing from the NCAR graphic above.

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United States Using Less Water Than 35 Years Ago

Crop irrigation. The largest uses of fresh surface water were power generation and irrigation. (Credit: USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Nov. 16, 2009) — The United States is using less water than during the peak years of 1975 and 1980, according to water use estimates for 2005. Despite a 30 percent population increase during the past 25 years, overall water use has remained fairly stable according to a new U.S. Geological Survey report.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Anne Castle announced the report, Estimated Use of Water in the United States in 2005, as part of her keynote speech on October 29 at the Atlantic Water Summit in the National Press Club.

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Texting A Pain In The Neck, Study Suggests

From Live Science:

Texting long messages can be a pain in the neck — literally.

The repetitive action of working your fingers across the number pad of your cell phone can cause some of the same chronic pain problems previously confined to those who'd spent a lifetime typing, a new study suggests.

The possible connection is particularly worrying given how much teens and young adults — and increasingly those in professional settings — are texting nowadays, said Judith Gold of Temple University in Philadelphia, who carried out one of the first studies on the potential connection.

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Using CO2 To Extract Geothermal Energy

Photo: Hot air: The Soultz-sous-Fôrets geothermal plant in Alsace, France, pumps water into fractured rock to extract heat and thus generate electricity. Researchers backed by $16 million in federal stimulus funds seek to prove that such geothermal plants could generate 50 percent more heat by cycling carbon dioxide underground instead.
Credit: Géothermie Soultz

From Technology Review:

Carbon dioxide captured from power plants could make geothermal energy more practical.

Carbon dioxide generated by power plants may find a second life as a working fluid to help recover geothermal heat from kilometers underground. Such a system would not only capture the carbon dioxide and keep it out of the atmosphere, it would also be a cost-effective way to use the greenhouse gas to generate new power.

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Two Rival Supercomputers Duke It Out For Top Spot

Kraken, a Cray XT5 system, is the world's sixth-fastest computer. Photo/Adam Brimer

From PC World:

The top two systems on June's list of the Top 500 supercomputers swapped places on the latest list, released Monday.

A Cray supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has regained the title of the world's most powerful supercomputer, overtaking the installation that was ranked at the top in June, while China entered the Top 10 with a hybrid Intel-AMD system.

The upgraded Jaguar supercomputer at Oak Ridge, in Tennessee, now boasts a speed of 1.759 petaflops per second from its 224,162 cores, while the IBM Roadrunner system at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico slowed slightly to 1.042 petaflops per second after it was repartitioned. A petaflop is one thousand trillion calculations per second.

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