World's Oldest Known DNA Discovered

DNA from 419-million-year-old bacteria may have belonged to the descendants of
the world's first life forms (Source: iStockphoto)

From ABC News (Australia):

It won't make Jurassic Park a reality, but scientists have discovered 419 million-year-old DNA intact inside ancient salt deposits.

The genetic material, the oldest ever found, belongs to salt-loving bacteria whose ancestors may have been among the first life forms on Earth.

Scientists have previously recovered similar genetic material from the Michigan Basin, the same region where the latest discovery was made. But the DNA was so similar to that of modern microbes that many scientists believed the samples had been contaminated.

Not so this time around.

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Obama Pledges Billions For Rural Broadband

President Obama has pledged billions to extend America's rural broadband access.
Photo: AFP

From The Telegraph:

President Barack Obama has pledged £2 billion in loans and grants to fund the expansion of America’s broadband network to help better serve rural areas and urban communities.

The details of the spending plan were announced last week by Joe Biden, the vice president, and will see an initial $183 million invested in broadband projects in 17 states.

The funding is also expected to create “tens of thousands of jobs”. However, Mr Biden’s chief economist Jared Bernstein could not say precisely how many jobs will emerge, according to a Reuters’ report.

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Rethinking Artificial Intelligence

From R&D:

The field of artificial-intelligence research (AI), founded more than 50 years ago, seems to many researchers to have spent much of that time wandering in the wilderness, swapping hugely ambitious goals for a relatively modest set of actual accomplishments. Now, some of the pioneers of the field, joined by later generations of thinkers, are gearing up for a massive “do-over” of the whole idea.

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Computer Algorithm Identifies Authentic Van Gogh

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 21, 2009) — Igor Berezhnoy of Tilburg University in the Netherlands has developed computer algorithms to support art historians and other art experts in their visual assessment of paintings. His digital technology is capable of distinguishing a forgery from an authentic Van Gogh based on the painter's characteristic brush work and use of colour.

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The Real Reason Cell Phone Use Is Banned On Airlines

From Live Science:

Airline passengers who sneak in cell phone calls, play with gaming devices or listen to their mp3 players during takeoff or landing probably won't cause a plane crash, but they may risk a confrontation with flight attendants. Federal agencies and airlines typically err on the side of caution — even though researchers and aircraft companies have found almost no direct evidence of cell phones or other electronic devices interfering with aircraft systems.

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21 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade

Yellowstone's Plumbing Exposed

Image: Seismic imaging was used by University of Utah scientists to construct this 3-D picture of the Yellowstone hotspot plume of hot and molten rock that feeds the shallower magma chamber (not shown) beneath Yellowstone National Park, outlined in green at the surface, or top of the illustration. The Yellowstone caldera, or giant volcanic crater, is outlined in red. State boundaries are shown in black. The park, caldera and state boundaries also are projected to the bottom of the picture to better illustrate the plume's tilt. Researchers believe "blobs" of hot rock float off the top of the plume, then rise to recharge the magma chamber located 3.7 miles to 10 miles beneath the surface at Yellowstone. The illustration also shows a region of warm rock extending southwest from near the top of the plume. It represents the eastern Snake River Plain, where the Yellowstone hotspot triggered numerous cataclysmic caldera eruptions before the plume started feeding Yellowstone 2.05 million years ago.

From E! Science News:

The most detailed seismic images yet published of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano shows a plume of hot and molten rock rising at an angle from the northwest at a depth of at least 410 miles, contradicting claims that there is no deep plume, only shallow hot rock moving like slowly boiling soup. A related University of Utah study used gravity measurements to indicate the banana-shaped magma chamber of hot and molten rock a few miles beneath Yellowstone is 20 percent larger than previously believed, so a future cataclysmic eruption could be even larger than thought.

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Spitzer’s Cold Look At Space

From American Scientist:

To get a clear view of infrared emissions from celestial objects, the Spitzer Space Telescope has been cryogenically cooled—and what sights it has seen.

In astrophysical observations, more is more—imaging across multiple wavelengths leads to richer information. One electromagnetic band in which most celestial bodies radiate is the infrared: Objects ranging in location from the chilly fringes of our Solar System to the dust-enshrouded nuclei of distant galaxies radiate entirely or predominantly in this band. Thus, astrophysicists require good visualization of these wavelengths. The problem, however, is that Earth is a very hostile environment for infrared exploration of space, as the atmosphere also emits in the infrared spectrum and additionally absorbs much of the incoming signal. Even heat produced by a telescope itself can degrade its own clarity.

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The Physics Of Space Battles

Joseph Shoer is a Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering, studying how modular spacecraft could be assembled, and hoping that they will be the telescopes and human exploration vehicles of the future, and not for crushing the dreams of Martian colonists.

From Gizmodo:

I had a discussion recently with friends about the various depictions of space combat in science fiction movies, TV shows, and books. We have the fighter-plane engagements of Star Wars, the subdued, two-dimensional naval combat in Star Trek, the Newtonian planes of Battlestar Galactica, the staggeringly furious energy exchanges of the combat wasps in Peter Hamilton's books, and the use of antimatter rocket engines themselves as weapons in other sci-fi. But suppose we get out there, go terraform Mars, and the Martian colonists actually revolt. Or suppose we encounter hostile aliens. How would space combat actually go?

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Pictured: Fiery Bubbles Of Molten Lava Fill The Ocean In First Ever Images Of Deep-Sea Volcanic Eruption

Blast: A plume of sulphur and molten lava erupts from the West Mata Volcano nearly 4,000 feet beneath the Pacific Ocean, south of Samoa

From The Daily Mail:

Scientists have witnessed the eruption of a deep-sea volcano for the first time ever, capturing on video the fiery bubbles of molten lava as they exploded 4,000 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Researchers are calling it a major geological discovery after a submersible robot witnessed the eruption during an underwater expedition in May near Samoa.

The high-definition videos were revealed yesterday at a geophysics conference in San Francisco.

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Beware Humans Bearing Gifts -- A Commentary

Christmas can be an anxiety-inducing experience for many (Image: Gareth Cattermole/Getty)

From New Scientist:

THERE'S a Latin proverb, per angusta ad augusta, which translates as "through trial to triumph". Literally speaking, "angusta" refers to a narrow passageway. It gives us the English word "anxious", signalling a place that presses against you, where the walls are tight, and you might be too big to get through. Anxiety is the feeling that you might not make it out the other side.

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Darker Liquor Makes You Sicker

Overall, bourbon drinkers reported feeling worse than vodka drinkers, rating higher on scales that measure the severity of hangover malaise. Getty Images

From Discover News:

Before heading out to that holiday party this weekend, consider carefully how you pick your poison.

A new study may help drinkers pick their poison. In a head-to-head comparison, bourbon gave drinkers a more severe hangover than vodka, report Damaris Rohsenow of Brown University and colleagues in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

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Video: Simulation Renders Entire Known Universe

From Popular Science:

Everyone loves a good road movie, whether it's Hope and Crosby or Fonda and Hopper. But the scope of those films pales in comparison to the ground covered by the Hayden Planetarium's new video, The Known Universe. The video starts in Tibet and zooms out through time and space until it shows well, the entire known universe.

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Cannabis Damages Young Brains More Than Originally Thought, Study Finds

Daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause depression and anxiety, and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain. (Credit: iStockphoto/Rasmus Rasmussen)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 20, 2009) — Canadian teenagers are among the largest consumers of cannabis worldwide. The damaging effects of this illicit drug on young brains are worse than originally thought, according to new research by Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a psychiatric researcher from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. The new study, published in Neurobiology of Disease, suggests that daily consumption of cannabis in teens can cause depression and anxiety, and have an irreversible long-term effect on the brain.

Read more ....

Three Station Fliers Set Off On Flight To Lab Complex

The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
(Credit: NASA)

From CNET News:

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three fresh crew members bound for the International Space Station blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Monday local time, lighting up a cold, pre-dawn sky with a torrent of flame visible for miles around.

With Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, a station veteran, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, a shuttle veteran, and rookie astronaut Timothy Creamer strapped into the Soyuz TMA-17 capsule, the rocket roared to life at 4:52 p.m. EST Sunday (3:52 a.m. Monday local time) and quickly climbed away from the same pad used by Yuri Gagarin at the dawn of the space age.

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Autism Numbers Are Rising. The Question is Why? Read more

Sven Hagolani / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

One in 110 American children are considered to fall somewhere along the autism spectrum, according to the latest report released by the federal government. The new figure, which was released initially in October, comes from the most comprehensive set of data yet on the developmental health of eight-year-olds.

Increasing the previous federal estimate of 1 in 150, the new data suggest that 1% of children now exhibit some symptoms of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a collection of neurological conditions whose symptoms may range from mild social impairment to more serious communication, language and cognitive deficits. The estimate also represents a stunning 57% increase in prevalence since 2002, when health officials first began a nationwide effort to quantify the risk of autism in childhood.

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Chink Found In Armor Of Perfect Cloak

Changing courseNew research predicts the telltale radiation (orange) emitted by an electron as it moves along a trajectory (dotted line) through a perfect spherical cloak. Credit: B. Zhang and B.-I. Wu/PRL upcoming

From Science News:

Charged particles could reveal hidden object's location, new idea suggests.

Tiny charged particles could reveal the location of a perfect invisibility cloak. Such a cloak — which exists only in theory at the moment — would render an object invisible by gently deflecting photons around it. But charged particles wouldn’t be fooled: they would interact with the cloak in a telltale way, giving up the cloak’s location, researchers report in a paper to appear in an upcoming Physical Review Letters.

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Distance Vision Is All A Blur To More Of Us

From L.A. Times:

A study finds that 17% more Americans have myopia than 30 years ago. Close-up computer work could be a reason.

For an increasing number of Americans, life's a blur.

That's according to a population-based study published Monday showing that rates of myopia -- difficulty seeing distant objects -- are soaring. The trend is matched in many other countries, causing eye doctors to wonder what could be causing the decline in human vision.

Some suspect both an increase in our close-up work time (think computer use) and a decrease in time spent outdoors.

Read more ....

'Google Phone Set For Launch': Videos Emerge Of New Nexus One Mobile Dubbed 'iPhone-Killer'

This picture of the Nexus One was one of many that have
appeared on Twitter over the weekend

From The Daily Mail:

Two videos have emerged of Google's first ever phone called Nexus One.

The mobile is still unofficial but reports suggest it will be launched in the New Year in a bid to take on Apple iPhone.

A technology website has released two short teaser clips of the phone in action. The first video showed the animation on the start up screen, incorporating the colours of Google's logo. The second appeared to show an animated wallpaper.

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Why Your Boss Is Incompetent

It's not their fault that they are incompetent (Image: David Seed/Taxi/Getty)

From New Scientist:

IN THIS season of goodwill, spare a thought for that much-maligned bunch, the men and women at the top of the management tree. Yes, the murky machinations of the banking bosses might have needlessly plunged millions into penury. Yes, the actions of our political leaders might seem to be informed more by dubious wheeler-dealing than by Socratic wisdom. And yes, the high-ups in your own company might well be the self-important time-wasters you've always held them for.

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Obama To Ramp Up Human Space Program

From Discovery News:

Science magazine is reporting tonight that President Obama has made his decision about the future of the U.S. human space flight program, with a plan to turn over space taxi services to the International Space Station to commercial companies and to direct NASA to spend its money and resources developing a heavy-lift booster for human missions to the moon, asteroids and the moons of Mars.

Citing unnamed sources, the magazine reports that Obama will ask for a $1 billion boost in NASA’s 2011 budget to jumpstart the new launcher and to expand the agency's Earth-monitoring science satellites.

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About Wikipedia’s Handling Of Controversial Topics…Like Climate Science

From Fabius Maximus:

Summary: This is a hat trick. About effective propaganda. And climate science. And more evidence that Wikipedia cannot be relied upon as an information source regarding controversial matters — or any work of importance. (It’s always useful as a first place to look and source of links.)

Contents

1. “Wikipedia Is A Stunning Example Of How The Propaganda Machine Works“, Lawrence Solomon, National Review (reposted by CBS), 8 July 2008
2. “Wikipedia’s climate doctor“, Lawrence Solomon, National Post, 19 December 2009 – “How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.”

Update: an email reply by Wikipedia Editor Pierre Grés to Dennis Kuzara’s complaint about bias of Wikipedia Administrator William Connolley, posted at Watts Up With That, 19 December 2009 (see the actual Wikipedia file on this here):

“In September 2009, the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee revoked Mr. Connolley’s administrator status after finding that he misused his administrative privileges while involved in a dispute unrelated to climate warming.”

We’ll learn much about Wikipedia’s honesty by what happens now to the dozens of articles seriously distorted or outright suppressed by Connolley. Is this a structural problem with Wikipedia, or just a bad apple in the barrel?

Read more ....

Sophisticated New Computer Models Predict Details Of Insurgent Attacks

How Do The World's Most War-Torn Countries Always Seem To Have A Toyota Dealership?
Foreign Policy

From Popular Science:

Chaos, confusion, and uncertainty have pervaded battle since Homer first described the din of clashing hoplites. But new developments in computer modeling look to pierce the fog of modern war by predicting the time and location of insurgent attacks. More comprehensive than the SCARE IED cache location program, these models claim to have predicted everything from the number of casualties in an attack to the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.

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Climategate: How The Cabal Controlled Wikipedia

From The National Post:

How Wikipedia’s green doctor rewrote 5,428 climate articles.

The Climategate Emails describe how a small band of climatologists cooked the books to make the last century seem dangerously warm.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

Read more ....

Hubble's Festive View Of A Grand Star-Forming Region

The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. (Credit: NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. O'Connell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 20, 2009) — Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood.

Read more ....

New Device Provides Internet And Phone Service In Disasters

From Live Science:

Losing an Internet connection or phone service can prove incredibly annoying for most people, but in an emergency, it can spell disaster.

During the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, frantic calls jammed cell phone networks, and firefighters, police and ambulances could not even talk to one another by radio. Since then, European researchers have tried to develop a technology that allows emergency responders to still use phone or Internet in the most chaotic situations.

Their solution: a souped-up router that allows a specially equipped command vehicle to find the best Internet access through any available wireless networks, or even satellite connections.

Read more ....

Avatar Mirrors Emotions With Motion Capture

From Wired:

Go behind the scenes of 'Avatar' with James Cameron, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana to see the new technology used to capture actors' facial expressions in striking detail.

Read more ....

Grunts From The Front: From Roman Tablets To Army Blogs

From The Independent:

Humans have always fought each other, but the written narrative of warfare begins about 6,000 years ago with documents detailing a conflict between Elam and Sumer (modern-day Iran and Iraq). Since then military history has been dominated by the official story of leaders and their strategic political and military decisions. Wars have rarely been narrated by the ordinary foot soldier, pilot or sailor.

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My Comment: Plus ca change .... plus c'est le meme chose. The more things change .... the more that they stay the same.

Banned Gouais Blanc Grape Is The Long-Lost Mother Of Champagne

From Times Online:

The Gouais blanc grape, disparaged for centuries as an inferior wine ingredient fit only for peasants, has been revealed as the mother of many of today’s finest and most sought-after varieties.

A genetic study has shown that Gouais blanc is the chief ancestor of modern grapes such as Chardonnay, the grape used to make Chablis and a component of Champagne, and Gamay noir, which is most famous as the mainstay of Beaujolais.

Read more ....

The Skull Bone Is Different To The Hip Bone

From The Telegraph:

Fundamental differences between skull and limb bones have been identified by British scientists in a discovery they hope will lead to treatments and even a cure for osteoperosis.

Bones in the arms and legs become weak and brittle in old age often because they are not engaged in as much exercise and bearing of weight as they are in youth.

However skull bone, which bears almost no weight throughout life, remains hard and particularly resistant to breaking.

Read more ....

Snowflakes, The Coolest Shapes On The Planet Are Even More Beautiful Close Up

From The Daily Mail:

If the recent snowfalls have left you dreaming of a white Christmas, your wish might be granted - because forecasters say we're in for more over the next week.

And although a crisp and pristine blanket of the stuff is a wonderful sight to wake up to, snow is even more beautiful in close-up.

As these photographs show, each snowflake is a miniature masterpiece of nature: six-sided, perfectly symmetrical - and unique.

Read more ....

2010 Preview: Tooth-Mounted Hearing Aid For The Masses

Learning to hear again (Image: Barnaby Hall/Photonica/Getty)

From The New Scientist:

Beethoven is said to have overcome his deafness by attaching a rod to his piano and clenching it between his teeth, enabling the musical vibrations to travel through his jawbone to his inner ear. Next year, a similar but less unwieldy approach might restore hearing to people with a common form of deafness.

Single-sided deafness (SSD) affects around 9 million people in the US, and makes it difficult for them to pinpoint the exact source of sounds. This can make crossing roads extremely hazardous, and also makes it hard to hear conversations in noisy rooms.

Read more ....

Data To Expose 'Ghost Mountains'

A simple illustration of the Gamburtsevs inferred from new gravity data

From The BBC:

Scientists who mapped one of the most enigmatic mountain ranges on Earth have given a first glimpse of their data.

An international team spent two months in 2008/9 surveying the Gamburtsevs in Antarctica - a series of peaks totally buried under the ice cap.

The group has told a major conference in the US that the hidden mountains are more jagged than previously thought.

They are also more linear in shape than the sparse data collected in the past had suggested.

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Why Does A Human Baby Need A Full Year Before Starting To Walk?

Why does a human baby need a full year before it can start walking, while a newborn foal gets up on its legs almost directly after birth? (Credit: iStockphoto/Beth Jeppson).

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 19, 2009) — Why does a human baby need a full year before it can start walking, while a newborn foal gets up on its legs almost directly after birth? Scientist have assumed that human motor development is unique because our brain is unusually complex and because it is particularly challenging to walk on two legs. But now a research group at Lund University in Sweden has shown that human babies in fact start walking at the same stage in brain development as most other walking mammals, from small rodents to elephants.

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Happiest States Revealed By New Research

The Happiest States

1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
6. Mississippi
7. Montana
8. South Carolina
9. Alabama
10. Maine

From Live Science:

Ever wondered if you'd be happier in sunny Florida or snow-covered Minnesota? New research on state-level happiness could answer that question.

Florida and two other sunshine states made it to the Top 5, while Minnesota doesn't show up until number 26 on the list of happiest states. In addition to rating the smile factor of U.S. states, the research also proved for the first time that a person's self-reported happiness matches up with objective measures of well-being.

Essentially, if an individual says they're happy, they are.

Read more ....

15 Cigarettes: All It Takes To Harm Genes

Scientists believe this new insight into the genetics of cancer will eventually lead to new drugs that target the specific changes to the gene that helps to trigger the disease. ALAMY

From The Independent:

Study reveals the genetic mutations suffered by smokers who go on to develop lung cancer.

One genetic mutation occurs on average for every 15 cigarettes that a typical lung-cancer patient smokes, according to a study that has identified for the first time all of the mutations acquired during the lifetime of a cancer patient.

Scientists have completed a full genetic analysis of the genomes of cancer patients, and hope the information will lead to a fundamental understanding of the causes of cancer – and possibly drugs and treatments – by identifying the mutations that turn a healthy cell into a cancerous tumour cell.

Read more ....

Marijuana, Alcohol Addiction May Share Genes

From Yahoo News/Health Day:

FRIDAY, Dec. 18 (HealthDay News) -- The genes that make people susceptible to alcoholism also make them prone to becoming addicted to marijuana, a new study suggests.

Researchers interviewed almost 6,300 men and women aged 24 to 36, including almost 2,800 sets of twins who were part of the Australian Twin Registry, about their use of alcohol and marijuana over their lifetime.

Twins are valuable to researchers in determining the role of genetics in various diseases or conditions because identical twins share 100 percent of their genes, while fraternal twins share 50 percent of their genes, the same as other siblings.

Read more ....

Data Deluge Will Reboot Our Brains

We are being bombarded with increasing amounts of information, although scientists say the brain itself is not under threat. (Pete Saloutos)

From Times Online:

The speed of modern life is 2.3 words per second, or about 100,000 words a day. That is the verbiage bombarding the average person in the 12 hours they are typically awake and “consuming” information, according to a new study.

Through emails, texting, internet surfing, reading and other media, our brains are being deluged with increasing quantities of information. Although we may not actively read 100,000 words a day, that is the approximate number reaching our eyes and ears. Add images, such as videos and computer games, and we are faced with the equivalent of 34 gigabytes of information each day — enough to overload the typical laptop inside a week.

Read more ....

Living In Big Cities 'Makes You Miserable'

Piccadilly Circus, London, UK: Researchers found the popularity of big cities such as London, New York and Los Angeles undermined their attractions by increasing congestion, house prices and air pollution Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Living in big cities makes you miserable and people are actually more happy away from urban areas, claims research.

Researchers looking at happiness levels found that the popularity of big cities such as London, New York and Los Angeles undermined their attractions by increasing congestion, house prices and air pollution. Only the high wages and exciting jobs offset this lower quality of life.

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Google Books Project Found Guilty Of Violating Copyright By French Court

A number of French publishers spent three years fighting
Google's plan to scan and sell their books online

From The Daily Mail:

Google was found guilty by a French court today of violating copyright by digitising books and putting extracts online.

The search engine company initially started scanning books without permission for its controversial online library project. They were forced to strike deals in the U.S and the UK after hundreds of complaints.

In France, major publishers issued a legal challenge arguing the digital service would lead to publishers and authors losing out.

Read more ....

Cooking Is What Made Us Human

From New Scientist:

What was the central mystery of human evolution that you were trying to solve?

I was sitting next to the fire in my living room and I started asking the question, when did our ancestors last live without fire? Out of this came a paradox: it seemed to me that no human with our body form could have lived without it.

Why can't a human exist on the same diet as a chimpanzee?

A chimpanzee's diet is like eating crab apples and rose hips. Just go into the woods and find some fruits, and see if you can come back with a full stomach. The answer is you can't. The big difficulty is that the nutrient density is not very high. This is problematic for humans because we have a very small gut, about 60 per cent of the volume it would be if we were one of the other great apes. We don't have enough intestine to keep low-quality food in our gut long enough to digest it.

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Guardian Headline – Low Targets, Goals Dropped: Copenhagen Ends In Failure

From Watts Up With That?

When the Guardian, that champion of everything “green” says it, you know it was a failure.

Excerpt:

The UN climate summit reached a weak outline of a global agreement last night in Copenhagen, falling far short of what Britain and many poor countries were seeking and leaving months of tough negotiations to come.

Read more ....

Fake Blood-Clotting Products To Heal Wounded Soldiers

Photo: Immediate treatment can save lives.

From The BBC:

Scientists say they have made a synthetic blood-clotting agent that could help wounded troops and patients.

In the lab, the fake platelets cut bleeding in half compared with having no treatment.

They could offer doctors a limitless supply with a longer shelf life than fresh donor platelets, the journal Science Translational Medicine reports.

The Case Western Reserve University team in the US hopes the product could become available in coming years.

Read more ....

My Comment: This is going to save many lives.

The Known Universe By AMNH (Video)

Hat Tip: Geek Press

Avatar's Moon Pandora Could Be Real, Planet-Hunters Say

This artist's conception shows a hypothetical gas giant planet with an Earth-like moon similar to the moon Pandora in the movie Avatar. New research shows that, if we find such an "exomoon" in the habitable zone of a nearby star, the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to study its atmosphere and detect key gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water. The key is to find a planet that transits its star, and then find a moon orbiting that planet more than one stellar radius away, so that the moon can be studied independently of the planet. Moreover, an alien moon orbiting the gas giant planet of a red dwarf star may be more likely to be habitable than tidally locked Earth-sized planets or super-Earths. (Credit: David A. Aguilar, CfA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 18, 2009) — In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable -- and inhabited -- alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact.

If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger shows that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be able to study their atmospheres and detect key gases like carbon dioxide, oxygen, and water vapor.

Read more ....

The Shortest Day: The Science Of The Winter Solstice

The winter solstice marks the shortest day of the year, when the sun is at its lowest point in the sky.
Credit: Stockxpert.

From Live Science:

You may think Mr. Frost's blustery entrance already occurred, but not officially. The winter solstice, and thus the official start of the chilly season on the astronomical calendar, begins Monday.

More exactly, the winter solstice begins at 12:47 p.m. EST (1747 UT) on Dec. 21.

Here's what's behind the timing:

Read more ....

New Crew Poised To Launch To Space Station

From Yahoo News/Space.com:

A Russian cosmonaut doctor, a veteran Japanese astronaut and a rookie American spaceflyer are poised to blast off Sunday for the International Space Station.

The three spaceflyers are slated to launch Dec. 20 at 4:51 p.m. EDT (2151 GMT) on the Russian Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. They will spend about two days catching up to the space station, where they plan to dock Tuesday.

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How High Will The Seas Go In A Warmer World?

Remi Benali / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Even as negotiators scramble to salvage an agreement at the foundering Copenhagen climate talks, a new study in this week's issue of Nature shows that the consequences of inaction on reducing emissions could be more severe than anyone thought.

By looking back about 125,000 years, to a time when global temperatures were as high as they are expected to be by 2100, a team of scientists from Princeton and Harvard universities has calculated that the oceans were probably at least 26 ft. higher than they are now, maybe as much as 31 ft. higher. That's significantly higher than the 13-ft.-to-19-ft. range scientists have been counting on, and it is, write Peter Huybers of Harvard and Peter Clark of Oregon State University in an accompanying commentary in Nature, "a disconcerting message."

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Sky Snake Flexible Blimps Are Bending The Rules On UAV Design

A segmented 76-foot airship during flight testing over Stuttgart, Germany.
(Sanswire-TAO Corp)

From Air And Space Smithsonian:

The blimp—that bloated, egg-shaped thing that blocks out the sun at major public events—remains one of aviation’s oddballs. Think Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the movie Ghostbusters. And it’s a high-maintenance oddball: lots of construction and operating costs relative to the few people it carries. No speed. Huge amounts of hangar space needed to shelter it when nasty weather arrives. How does this thing get work? Other than hoisting cameras above the Super Bowl for 10-second shots during TV commercial breaks, the blimp, or zeppelin as it’s never called anymore, has been a caricature of itself for decades.

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New Map Reveals Tsunami Risks In California

Photo: West Coast Risk: Some 350,000 California residents are at risk if a tsunami strikes there. istockphoto

From Scientific American:

The map, released close to the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Sumatran Tsunami, will be helpful in emergency response planning.

SAN FRANCISCO—Just days before the fifth anniversary of the 2004 Sumatran Tsunami, California officials on Thursday released a new map of the state's tsunami hazard, which details how an event could affect 350,000 people who live along the coast and cause tens of billions of dollars of damage.

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The (Last and Next) Decade In Gadgets

(Photograph by George Frey/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

In January 2000, odds are that you didn't own an MP3 player, digital camera or even a cellphone. You certainly couldn't send saliva through the mail to a service (23andMe) to analyze your DNA. Times have changed. Here, Gizmodo's Mark Wilson breaks down the biggest tech breakthroughs of the past 10 years, and predicts where tech is going in the next 10.

Read more ....

Scientists Find Formula For Beautiful Face

Actress Jessica Alba Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the measurements between a woman’s eyes, mouth and ears, scientists claim.

Researchers have calculated the ratios of the “perfect” face and claim that celebrities including Jessica Alba, Liz Hurley and Shania Twain have the magic formula.

While being labelled average is rarely regarded as a compliment, they also found that the “golden ratio” matched dimensions of an average woman’s face.

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Our Vision Of the Future Of Magazines

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

From Popular Science:

Although we believe in a strong future for print media, we’re even more excited about the digital potential for magazines. That’s why we’re thrilled with this initial vision for a future PopSci developed by Bonnier’s R&D group with design firm BERG.

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Pictured: Majestic Brown Bears Go Head To Head In Remarkable 15-Minute Duel

The bears fought each other in the middle of stunning Alaskan scenery for 15 minutes before wandering off to catch salmon in a nearby river.

From The Daily Mail:

These two brown bears couldn't have picked a more stunning setting to engage in a spot of rough and tumble.

In front of a spectacular, snow topped mountain range in Alaska, the giant animals took each other to task, with one even taking a crafty low side-swipe.

Despite one of the bears holding a definite weight advantage, the pair grappled and exchanged blows.

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New Weapon In Battle Of The Bulge: Food Releases Anti-Hunger Aromas During Chewing

A real possibility does exist for developing a new generation of foods that make people feel full by releasing anti-hunger aromas during chewing. (Credit: iStockphoto/Jan Couver)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 17, 2009) — A real possibility does exist for developing a new generation of foods that make people feel full by releasing anti-hunger aromas during chewing, scientists in the Netherlands are reporting after a review of research on that topic. Such foods would fight the global epidemic of obesity with aromas that quench hunger and prevent people from overeating. Their article appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

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New Diet Advice: Curb Weekend Calories

From Live Science:

It's no surprise that holiday feasts often bring expanding waistlines, but a new study finds that weekend eating can also be a cause for concern.

Some people chow down more calories on Saturday and Sunday than on a typical weekday, researchers find. The study also showed that people tend to keep track of how much they are consuming on a daily basis, at least in a rough sense. Specifically, if they skimped on breakfast, they would make up for it by gorging at lunch, more or less.

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