'Rock-Breathing' Bacteria Could Generate Electricity And Clean Up Oil Spills

A discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia could contribute to the development of systems that use domestic or agricultural waste to generate clean electricity. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of East Anglia)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 15, 2009) — A discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) could contribute to the development of systems that use domestic or agricultural waste to generate clean electricity.

Recently published by the scientific journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the researchers have demonstrated for the first time the mechanism by which some bacteria survive by 'breathing rocks'.

Read more ....

Americans Are Info-Junkies

Despite having access to computers and other electronic distractions, Americans on average spend about 60 percent of their information consumption time watching TV or listening to radio. Credit: UCSD

From Live Science:

Americans are known for gorging on food, but we're also gluttons of another sort: A new study finds that the average American consumes more than 34 gigabytes of video, music and words a day—and that's only on our free time.

One byte of information is equivalent to one letter of text. One gigabyte is equal to roughly 8 minutes of high definition video. Thirty-four gigabytes of data would fit on about 7 DVD disks or 1.5 Blu-ray disks.

A mix of old and new media contribute to our daily information diet, the study finds, including TV, radio, books, the Internet, movies, text messages and video games.

Read more ....

Bad Bottles Of Wine Can Be Used For Energy

Got a Bad Bottle? Not to worry, researchers can still salvage some
electricity from a vintage that's going bad. Jairo

From Popular Science:

A bad bottle can throw a wrench in your dinner party, but researchers in the U.S. and India say it could also lower your energy bills. Using the leftover vinegar and sugar in improperly fermented wine, those scientists are devising novel methods to turn wastewater from vineyards into electricity and hydrogen, cleaning the water in the process.

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Octopuses Use Coconut Shells To Make Portable Lairs

From The Telegraph:

Octopuses collect coconuts from the sea bed and use them as portable shelters, scientists have found in the latest example of animals using tools.

Researchers watched as the eight legged creatures, not much bigger than the coconuts themselves, collected shell halves, stacked them two together, and transported them awkwardly under their bodies over distances of up to 20 metres.

Then when they arrived at their destination the octopuses in Indonesia used the two halves like shields to construct a makeshift shelter.

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Real Loneliness Can Do Serious Damage

Tom Courtenay in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.
Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

From The Guardian:

Neuroscientist John Cacioppo says social pain is akin to physical pain. So what can be done to make it better?

'Tis the season to be lonely. Half a million pensioners will spend Christmas Day alone, while nearly three in five people over 55 will be wishing they could see more of their family. This isn't just a seasonal or British phenomenon. At any given time, around one in five Americans – 60 million people – feel so isolated that it makes them seriously unhappy.

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Boeing 787 Dreamliner Finally Takes To The Skies In First Test Flight - Two Years Later Than Originally Planned

Employees cheer as the Dreamliner takes off for the first time

From The Daily Mail:

Boeing Co made the first successful test flight of its 787 Dreamliner today, almost two and a half years after the new, fuel-efficient plane was supposed to fly.

The lightweight carbon and titanium plane, promising to save airlines million of dollars in fuel and maintenance costs, has been hampered by a shortage of bolts, faulty design and a two-month strike.

But today Boeing sent the plane on a four-hour flight from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, at 10am local time, to test it as it flew around the local area.

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Rise And Fall Of A Dinosaur Hunter

Nate Murphy doing what he did best - unearthing dinosaurs
(Image: James Woodcock/Billings Gazette)

From New Scientist:

ANYONE who met Nate Murphy would think he had lived and breathed dinosaurs all his life. He's the sort of man who stands out in a crowd: stocky, outgoing and invariably wearing a straw hat and shorts. He never claimed to be a dinosaur scientist, just a regular guy with a love for fossils and a knack for finding them.

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Will The U.S. Military Do Right By The Dugong?

From Scientific American:

Would a plan to build a 2.5-mile-long airfield in Okinawa, Japan, doom a rare manateelike species to extinction? That's the assertion of more than 400 environmental organizations (pdf), which recently sent a letter to President Obama urging him to cancel the plans to expand Camp Schwab, a U.S. Marine Corps base on Okinawa island.

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Company Aims to Make Jet Fuel from Coal

An artist’s rendition of the proposed facility. Rentech

From The New York Times:

Some of the world’s largest airlines — including American, US Airways, Delta and Lufthansa — have signed a memorandum of understanding to buy 500,000 barrels per month of jet fuel made from coal and petroleum coke, a refinery waste product.

The development will be announced this morning by Rentech, the Los Angeles, Calif.-based company that plans to make the fuel at a plant in Mississippi.

Read more ....

People Who Look Young For Their Age 'Live Longer'

Photo: Fresh-faced actor Leonardo Di Caprio might expect a long life.

From BBC News:

People blessed with youthful faces are more likely to live to a ripe old age than those who look more than their years, work shows.

Danish scientists say appearance alone can predict survival, after they studied 387 pairs of twins.

The researchers asked nurses, trainee teachers and peers to guess the age of the twins from mug shots.

Those rated younger-looking tended to outlive their older-looking sibling, the British Medical Journal reports.

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More Pores Could Ease Global Warming

By boosting the number of pores in leaves, scientists hope to one day absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos/AFP:

TOKYO: Japanese researchers last week said they had found a way to make plant leaves absorb more carbon dioxide - an innovation that may help ease global warming and boost food production.

The Kyoto University team found that soaking germinated seeds in a protein solution raised the number of pores, or stomas, on the leaves that inhale CO2 and release oxygen, said chief researcher Ikuko Hara-Nishimura.

"A larger number means there are more intake windows for carbon dioxide, contributing to lowering the density of the gas," she said.

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Black Carbon Deposits On Himalayan Ice Threaten Earth's 'Third Pole'

To better understand the role that black soot has on glaciers, researchers trekked high into the Himalayas to collect ice cores that contain a record of soot deposition that spans back to the 1950s. (Credit: Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 15, 2009) — Black soot deposited on Tibetan glaciers has contributed significantly to the retreat of the world's largest non-polar ice masses, according to new research by scientists from NASA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Soot absorbs incoming solar radiation and can speed glacial melting when deposited on snow in sufficient quantities.

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Why Humans Outlive Apes

Chimps and apes are genetically so similar to humans - and their human-like gestures do remind us how close we are on the family tree - that scientists have long been puzzled why they don't live as long as we do. Diet-related evolutionary changes may explain it. Image credit: stockexpert.

From Live Science:

Genetic changes that apparently allow humans to live longer than any other primate may be rooted in a more carnivorous diet.

These changes may also promote brain development and make us less vulnerable to diseases of aging, such as cancer, heart disease and dementia.

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How James Cameron's Innovative New 3D Tech Created Avatar

Director James Cameron holding an antique stereoscope. (Photographed By Joe Pugliese, Sept. 19, 2009, at Fox Studios in Los Angeles, Calif.)

From Popular Mechanics:

Director James Cameron is known for his innovations in movie technology and ambitions to make CG look and feel real. His next film, Avatar, will put his reputation to the test. Can Cameron make blue, alien creature look real on the big screen? With all the attention focused on the film, anything short of perfection may not be good enough. Here is how Cameron plans to make movie history with a host of new technologies and years of development.

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A Stroll Around Pompeii, Courtesy Of Google’s Street View

From Discovery News:

If you can't be one of the 2.5 million tourists who wander through the streets of Pompeii every year, you now have another option: Google's Street View.

The 360-degree panoramic street-level service debuted last week in the ancient Roman town that was buried in Mount Vesuvius' catastrophic eruption in 79 A.D.

Statues, temples, amphitheaters, as well as close-up views of houses, bakeries and baths are now visible on the search engine's free mapping service.

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Discovery Of New Planets Raises Hopes Of Other Life In Universe

Astronomers have discovered four new planets Photo: NASA/AP

From The Telegraph:

Astronomers have discovered four new planets orbiting two stars similar to Earth's sun, raising hopes that other life may exist in the universe.

However, the stars are 28 and 84 light years away – placing them far beyond the reach of existing spacecraft.

The first three planets orbit the star 61 Virginis and can be seen with the naked eye in the constellation of Virgo.

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Ocean Acidification Will Threaten Our Food Supply, UK Environment Secretary To Warn

Thousands of Glassfishes swim on the edge of the coral reef near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt. Marine species are at risk of extinction due to rising acidity levels in the oceans

From The Daily Mail:

Humanity's food supply will be threatened by the acidification of our oceans unless climate change is tackled, Hilary Benn is to warn as the UN climate summit today.

The UK environment secretary will say acidification provides a 'powerful incentive' to cut carbon emissions.

The comments follow a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which has warned acidification will cause the mass extinction of marine species unless immediate action is taken.

Read more ....

Nanocrystals Create An Insulator Better Than Pure Vacuum

Better Vacuum Thermos Ain't no party like a lunar tea party: an Apollo astronaut holds a thermos for collecting lunar regolith NASA

From Popular Science:

Photonic crystal insulation could have exciting applications.

Vacuum's emptiness doesn't just pose a problem for space travelers -- a vacuum lining is also one of the best known insulators on Earth, and may help keep those holiday drinks and soups warm in your thermos. Now scientists have found that layering photonic crystals within the vacuum lining can even prevent heat loss from invisible infrared radiation.

Read more ....

Google Demonstrates Quantum Computer Image Search

D-Wave chips could make searching much faster
(Image: Copyright © 2005 – 2008 D-Wave Systems Inc.)

From New Scientist:

Google's web services may be considered cutting edge, but they run in warehouses filled with conventional computers. Now the search giant has revealed it is investigating the use of quantum computers to run its next generation of faster applications.

Writing on Google's research blog this week, Hartmut Neven, head of its image recognition team, reveals that the Californian firm has for three years been quietly developing a quantum computer that can identify particular objects in a database of stills or video.

Read more ....

How Global Warming Could Change The Winemaking Map

Photo: Members of the Vignerons Indépendants wine growers associated clinked their bottles to express concerns over the consequences of inaction on climate change. Alexandra Fleurantin / Greenpeace France

From Time Magazine:

Many Bordeaux winemakers are declaring 2009 the best vintage in 60 years, but Yvon Minvielle of Château Lagarette isn't celebrating. Like many vintners across France, Minvielle is feeling uneasy after another unusually warm summer and early grape harvest. "They say everything is going great in Bordeaux, but take a closer look," he says. Heat-stressed vines ripened at unequal rates this year, and only skillful picking spread over a full month allowed Minvielle to gather a mature crop.

Read more ....

Buy A Custom Robot That Looks Just Like You (PHOTO)

From The Huffington Post:

If you're wondering what to put on your wishlist for the holidays, here's a gift idea you might not have considered: your robot twin -- a robotic double that looks, and talks, just like you.

Japanese department store Sogo & Seibu has announced that they are selling two, customizable robots that can be tweaked to look exactly like you (or the person of the buyer's choosing).

Read more ....

Black Hole Found to Be Much Closer To Earth Than Previously Thought

An international team of astronomers has accurately measured the distance from Earth to a black hole for the first time. (Credit: Image courtesy of SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 14, 2009) — An international team of astronomers has accurately measured the distance from Earth to a black hole for the first time. Without needing to rely on mathematical models the astronomers came up with a distance of 7800 light years, much closer than had been assumed until now. The researchers achieved this breakthrough by measuring the radio emissions from the black hole and its associated dying star.

Read more ....

Real Christmas Trees 'Greener' Than Fake

From Live Science:

It may not sound like "tree-hugging," but cutting down a real tree for Christmas is actually greener than going with the artificial kind, one scientist says.

"It is a little counterintuitive to people," said Clint Springer, a biologist at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

Because of concerns over deforestation around the world, many people naturally worry that buying a real tree might contribute to that problem, Springer says. But most Christmas trees for sale these days are grown not in the forest but on tree farms, for the express purpose of being cut.

Read more ....

Super-Earths Orbit Neighboring Stars

Astronomers have found up to six new planets orbiting stars that resemble the sun, paving the way forward for the discovery of a truly extraterrestrial Earth. NASA

From Discovery News:

The discovery of up to six planets breaks new ground in the search for worlds like our own.

The race to find Earth-like planets around stars similar to our sun edged closer to a finish with the announcement on Monday that up to six "super-Earths" have been found orbiting sun-like neighbor stars.

The smallest of the bunch weighs in at about five times the mass of Earth and orbits a star known as 61 Virginis, which is visible with the naked eye in the constellation Virgo. The star is 28 light-years from Earth and closely resembles the sun in size, age and other attributes.

Read more ....

Wine Tastes Better In Blue Or Red Lit Rooms

From The Telegraph:

Wine tastes better if a room is backlit with red or blue ambient lights, a psychologist has found.

Drinkers' brains are tricked into thinking a glass of white wine is better and more expensive tasting when exposed to the red or blue background lighting than those in rooms with green or white background lighting.

And connoisseurs are warned to be wary of unscrupulous bar owners who try to pass off cheap plonk in trendy lit bars.

Read more ....

The 100,000 Words A Day That Are Changing Our Brains And Ruining Our Concentration

From The Daily Mail:

Having trouble concentrating on this story? It could be because your brain is bombarded with more than 100,000 words a day.

The average adult hears or reads 100,500 words a day, research shows.

And the 'day' takes into account only waking hours outside work - meaning the true figure is much higher.

Read more ....

Will The Google Phone Change the Mobile Game By Being Entirely Ad-Supported?

Google NexusOne, Built by HTC As leaked to Engadget

From Popular Science:

Which may sound altogether unappealing, until you realize it could be how Google plans to give away their Google Phone for free and potentially shake up the whole mobile industry in the process.

The last few days have seen Google's perceived positition regarding a Google-branded Android phone do an almost complete 180. Contrary to their previously publicized lack of interest in releasing a phone of their own, the Wall Street Journal this weekend reported on details of the Nexus One, a phone to be marketed directly to consumers as the "Google Phone" in the first quarter of 2010.

Read more ....

Learning To Love To Hate Robots

Low expectations are easily surpassed (Image: Steve Olson/Getty)

From New Scientist:

ROBOTIC helpers are not yet in every home. But in recent years robots have steadily marched into the real world to perform tasks such as cleaning floors, delivering drugs or simply entertaining.

That has let anthropologists and roboticists give these mechanical workers their first report cards - and results are mixed. Despite evidence that we can find robots useful, even lovable colleagues, they can also trigger annoyance and violence. The results should help make future robots easier to work with.

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Russia Reigns Over Its Weather

Snow may be an icon of Russian winters, but city officials in Moscow say it's too expensive to clear. They're considering a cloud-seeding process that would prevent heavy snowfalls in the capital. (Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times / December 8, 2009)

From The L.A. Times:

Moscow officials have already chased away clouds on public holidays. Now they're considering cloud seeding to keep snow-removal costs down in the winter. Neighboring towns may get dumped on.

Reporting from Moscow - In the snow-hushed woods on Moscow's northern edge, scientists are decades deep into research on bending the weather to their will. They've been at it since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin paused long enough in the throes of World War II to found an observatory dedicated to tampering with climatic inconveniences.

Read more ....

Growing Body Parts

Watch CBS News Videos Online

U.S. And Russia In Secret Cyber Warfare Talks

Russia and the US are in talks to combat the threat of cyber warfare, according to the New York Times
Photo: CLARE KENDALL

US And Russia In 'Secret' Cyber Warfare Talks -- The Telegraph

Russia and the United States are discussing how best to safeguard the internet against hostile attacks.

The talks, which are taking place between the US, Russia and a United Nations arms control committee, are aimed at finding ways of strengthening internet security and limiting the military use of cyberspace, according to a report in the New York Times.

Online attacks against government websites, corporate computer systems and other business-critical infrastructures have increased in the last two years. Anonymous hackers have managed to access the Pentagon's computers and overwhelm government websites, and President Obama has ordered an urgent review of the United States' internet security.

Read more ....

More News On These "Cyber Warfare Talks"

U.S and Russia in Talks to Heighten Security of Cyberspace -- FOX News
Russia and US in secret talks to fight net crime -- The Guardian
NY Times report: US and Russia in secret talks to deal with cyber-crime -- Top News
US, Russia talks on cyberspace security: report -- AFP
U.S., Russia discuss cybersecurity -- Times Of The Internet/UPI
US and Russia begin cyberwar limitation talks -- The Register
In Shift, U.S. Talks to Russia on Internet Security -- New York Times
U.S., Russia in Cyberweaponry Talks -- Gov. Info Security

Apple’s Next Media Frontier Will Be Streaming Video

From Gadget Lab:

Video entertainment was “the one that got away” from Apple, but recent moves reveal the company is taking a second stab at the category, and that streaming video will play a major role.

The addition of video cameras to Apple’s latest iPhone and iPod Nano were just the first hints of the company’s new personal-media strategy. The company is also building a 500,000 square-foot data center in North Carolina, which could provide the massive bandwidth required for ubiquitous streaming video. And Apple’s recent acquisition of Lala suggests it’s interested in rebooting iTunes into a streaming service, according to Wall Street Journal. That means music, in Lala’s case, but the same infrastructure could be shared with streaming video.

Read more ....

Understanding Apples' Ancestors

Researchers study wild Malus orientalis in the Caucasus region.
(Credit: Photo by Phil Forsline)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 14, 2009) — Wild Malus orientalis -- species of wild apples that could be an ancestor of today's domesticated apples -- are native to the Middle East and Central Asia. A new study comparing the diversity of recently acquired M. orientalis varieties from Georgia and Armenia with previously collected varieties originating in Russia and Turkey narrows the large population and establishes a core collection that will make M. orientalis more accessible to the breeding and research communities.

Read more ....

Turtles Act Like Chameleons

A dark-colored midland painted turtle darkens to adapt to its surroundings.
Credit: John Rowe.

From Live Science:

Freshwater turtles’ skin and shells often match the color of their habitat’s substrate, which may help them deceive predators and prey alike. But what happens if turtles change abodes, from a black swamp, say, to a sandy-bottomed pond?

John W. Rowe, of Alma College in Michigan, and three colleagues collected gravid female midland painted turtles and red-eared sliders from the wild, brought them to the lab, and injected them with oxytocin, a hormone that induces egg laying.

Read more ....

Barley + Space = Space Beer!

From Wired Science:

I love beer, and I love space. So how could I not love beer from space? I’m not usually one for beer gimmicks, but somehow Sapporo’s Space Barley is an exception.

The beer was made with grains descended from barley that spent five months in the Zvezda Service Module on the International Space Station. The very limited results, just 250 precious six-packs, will be sold through a lottery for 10,000 yen ($110) each. But only people living in Japan are eligible. Sigh.

Why are the Russian Academy of Sciences, Okayama University and presumably Russia’s space agency Roscosmos aiding this scheme? Well, science of course. And charity.

Read more ....

Carnival Of Space 133 With North Pole Mysteries, Astronomy And Future Space Colonization

From Next Big Future:

1. Above is a piece of the 370 megapixel image of 500,000 galaxies.

Phil Plait, the bad astronomer, discusses the huge image just released by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey Deep Field #1, a ginormous mosaic of the night sky.

Read more ....

Nano-Test Quickly Detects Cancer Tests

The test could detect the concentration of a single grain of salt dissolved in a large swimming pool, say rsearchers (Source: iStockphoto)

From ABC News (Australia)/AFP:

Scientists have developed a nanosensor for the quick detection of cancers through a simple blood test.

A technique developed at Yale University in the United States allows scientists to "detect tiny amounts of cancer biomarkers in a small volume of whole blood in just 20 minutes," according to the report in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Read more ....

WISE Satellite Set To Map The Infrared Universe

Photo: EYE FOR THE INVISIBLE: Technicians prepare the WISE satellite for launch. NASA

From Scientific American:

NASA's latest space surveyor should be able to peer at distant galaxies and uncover dim objects right in our own celestial backyard.

Nestled into the payload of a Delta 2 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California is a satellite that should open new targets for astronomical study both near and far. NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), slated for launch no earlier than 6:09 A.M. Pacific Standard Time on December 11, is charged with mapping the sky in the mid-infrared to create an atlas of objects whose emitted light is invisible to human eyes and largely absorbed by Earth's atmosphere.

Read more ....

Cheap, Plastic Memory For Flexible Devices

Photo: Flexible flash: This plastic sheet is arrayed with 676 flash memory cells. Credit: Science/AAAS

From Technology Review:

A new type of flash could be used in e-readers.

Cheap and plastic aren't words often associated with cutting-edge technology. But researchers in Tokyo have created a new kind of plastic low-cost flash memory that could find its way into novel flexible electronics.

Flash memory stores data electrically, in specially designed silicon transistors. Information can be recorded and read quickly and is retained even when the power is off. This makes flash ideal for MP3 players, cameras, memory cards, and USB drives. But the technology is still more expensive than conventional hard disks.

Read more ....

Video: NASA Drops A Helicopter From Midair To Test New Anti-Crash Tech

From Popular Science:

No stranger to rough landings, NASA just engineered a crash of its own design to test a new crash countermeasure for helicopters. NASA dropped a donated Army MD-500 carrying four crash test dummies from 35 feet, to determine whether a new honeycomb cushion made of Kevlar strapped to the bottom of the copter could absorb the brunt of the impact. The result: a more or less intact MD-500, and the cool impact video below.

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Modern Life Causes Brain Overload, Study Finds

People are bombarded with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes of information a day.

From the Telegraph:

The wealth of media in modern life means the average person is bombarded with enough information every day to overload a laptop computer, a study has found.

Through email, the internet, television and other media, people are deluged with around 100,500 words a day – equivalent to 23 words per second, researchers claim.

Scientists from the University of San Diego, California, who conducted the research, believe that the information overload may be having a detrimental effect on our brains.

Read more ....

Three Years Late, 'The Grizzly' Military Transport Plane Finally Takes To The Skies

(Click Image to Enlarge)
We have lift-off: The A400 Airbus finally gets into the sky, and the design specifications that make it so special

From The Daily Mail:

Heading into the blue three years late, Airbus's troubled A400M 'flying truck' military transport plane lifts off for its maiden flight.

The plane took off from Seville, in Spain, yesterday, with the flags of nine countries emblazoned on its side - the seven Nato nations plus Malaysia, which has ordered several planes, and South Africa, which recently pulled out of its order.

Britain has ordered up to 20 of the planes but the project has been dogged by delays and cost-overuns.

Read more ....

Suzaku Catches Retreat Of A Black Hole's Disk

Image: GX 339-4, illustrated here, is among the most dynamic binaries in the sky, with four major outbursts in the past seven years. In the system, an evolved star no more massive than the sun orbits a black hole estimated at 10 solar masses. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2009) — Studies of one of the galaxy's most active black-hole binaries reveal a dramatic change that will help scientists better understand how these systems expel fast-moving particle jets.

Binary systems where a normal star is paired with a black hole often produce large swings in X-ray emission and blast jets of gas at speeds exceeding one-third that of light. What fuels this activity is gas pulled from the normal star, which spirals toward the black hole and piles up in a dense accretion disk.

Read more ....

Titan: A Climate Out Of This World

Titan in Saturn’s system: Titan (top) emerges from behind its parent planet, Saturn. Another satellite, Tethys, is visible at the bottom left of the picture. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

From Live Science:

Our knowledge of Titan has improved considerably over the last five years. Before that, Saturn's largest satellite had only been hastily approached by a handful of space probes.

In 1980, the Voyager-1 spacecraft took advantage of a flyby to take a few mysterious, yet frustrating close-ups of Titan's opaque, rusty atmosphere. Despite its color, Titan actually seemed to look a lot like the early Earth.

Read more ....

Legal Battles Rage Over E-Book Rights To Old Books

From CNET News:

William Styron may have been one of the leading literary lions of recent decades, but his books are not selling much these days. Now his family has a plan to lure digital-age readers with e-book versions of titles like "Sophie's Choice," "The Confessions of Nat Turner" and Styron's memoir of depression, "Darkness Visible."

But the question of exactly who owns the electronic rights to such older titles is in dispute, making it a rising source of conflict in one of the publishing industry's last remaining areas of growth.

Read more ....

Genetic 'Map' Of Asia's Diversity

The study indicates that all of Asia was populated through one migration event.

From The BBC:

An international scientific effort has revealed the genetics behind Asia's diversity.

The Human Genome Organisation's (HUGO) Pan-Asian SNP Consortium carried out a study of almost 2,000 people across the continent.

Their findings support the hypothesis that Asia was populated primarily through a single migration event from the south.

The researchers described their findings in the journal Science.

They found genetic similarities between populations throughout Asia and an increase in genetic diversity from northern to southern latitudes.

The team screened genetic samples from 73 Asian populations for more than 50,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Read more ....

Geminid Meteor Shower 2009: Where To Watch, What To Bring

From L.A. Times:

Sky-watchers, get ready for another late-night adventure. The Geminid meteor shower is to be at its peak tonight and into the wee hours of Monday morning. Though not as popular as the Perseids, these meteors generally put on a great show when they appear in our skies annually in December.

When you spot the Geminids, which emanate from the constellation Gemini (hence, their name), you will be observing debris from an extinct comet by the name of 3200 Phaethon. “It is, basically, the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after too many close encounters with the sun,” writes Tony Phillips in a NASA blog.

Read more ....

Getting Power From Coal Without Digging It Up

Photo: Truly clean coal: Swan Hills Synfuels generates a clean-burning gas mixture from coal at its underground gasification plant northwest of Edmonton. The company plans to generate 300 megawatts of power with the gas, while storing the resulting carbon dioxide in Alberta’s oil fields. Credit: Swan Hills Synfuels

From Technology Review:

An Alberta project will transform coal deep beneath the ground into gas.

Converting coal in the ground directly into clean-burning gases could have huge environmental benefits--not the least of which would be the avoidance of destructive mining operations. The problem is, technology for underground coal gasification is still in its early stages.

Now the government of Alberta says it will give C$285 million ($271 million) to a coal gasification project by Calgary-based Swan Hills Synfuels that involves the deepest-ever operation to generate power from coal--without digging it up.

Read more ....

Troops Strike Up A Tune To Repair The Damage Of Brain Injuries

Band Aid Music could provide relief to hundreds of brain-injured veterans.
Hanan Isachar/Superstock

From Popular Science:

The opening riff of “Takin’ Care of Business” thumps rhythmically from an iPod as a room full of middle-aged military veterans tap in time on drums. This is the sound of brain rehab.

Studies show that music can promote new neural connections, which Colorado State University neuroscientist Michael Thaut theorized could help overcome common symptoms of traumatic brain injury (TBI), such as short-term memory loss and impaired decision-making skills. Thaut and his colleagues enrolled 31 veterans suffering from TBI in a “neurologic music therapy” study where each drummer matches rhythms and tempos set by a bandleader. Last summer, they published results that show that after several 30-minute sessions, the group performed better on standard decision-making tests.

Read more ....

Three New Planets Found Orbiting Star Similar To Sun

From The Telegraph:

Three new planets have been found orbiting a nearby star that is almost identical to the Sun.

The planets, forming a mini-solar system, circle the star 61 Virginis which is just 27.8 light years away and can be seen with the naked eye.

They have masses ranging from 5.3 to 24.9 times that of the Earth.

Read more ....

Trying To Stop An International "Arms Race" In Cyberspace

In Shift, U.S. Talks To Russia On Internet Security -- New York Times

The United States has begun talks with Russia and a United Nations arms control committee about strengthening Internet security and limiting military use of cyberspace.

American and Russian officials have different interpretations of the talks so far, but the mere fact that the United States is participating represents a significant policy shift after years of rejecting Russia’s overtures. Officials familiar with the talks said the Obama administration realized that more nations were developing cyberweapons and that a new approach was needed to blunt an international arms race.

Read more ....

My Comment: This is a major policy shift for the U.S. The key paragraph in this report is the following:

The mere fact that the United States is participating represents a significant policy shift after years of rejecting Russia’s overtures. Officials familiar with the talks said the Obama administration realized that more nations were developing cyberweapons and that a new approach was needed to blunt an international arms race.

The problem is that I do not see how it is possible to regulate and blunt the development of software that may (or may not) contravene any future agreements .... let alone establishing a monitoring agency that will have the resources to verify compliance for any future agreement.

Climate Change Emails Row Deepens As Russians Admit They DID Come From Their Siberian Server

Agenda: An Iceberg projection highlighting the Copenhagen UN summit shows the high level of political interest in climate change - and why scientists may be desperate to prove it is a man-made problem we can solve

From The Daily Mail:

The claim was both simple and terrifying: that temperatures on planet Earth are now ‘likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years’.

As its authors from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) must have expected, it made headlines around the world.

Yet some of the scientists who helped to draft it, The Mail on Sunday can reveal, harboured uncomfortable doubts.

In the words of one, David Rind from the US space agency Nasa, it ‘looks like there were years around 1000AD that could have been just as warm’.

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Do Truth Serums Work?

The Straight Dope:

Truth serums are based on a phenomenon known since ancient times, when Pliny the Elder coined the phrase in vino veritas: "in wine, truth." He meant anything that lowers your inhibitions is likely to cause you to say things you'd normally keep secret. Unfortunately for cops and CIA interrogators, what you spill isn't necessarily the truth.

Although people have been plying one another with liquor for centuries, the earliest confession induced using something stronger was reported in a 1903 criminal case involving a New York cop. He admitted under ether that he'd faked insanity when accused of killing his wife.

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