Apple Poised To Start New Year With Launch Of Tablet Computer

From The Guardian:

The device, likely to be called the iSlate, has no keyboard and allows users to watch TV shows and read online magazines.

Apple is expected to start the new year with the launch of its latest gadget: a tablet computer that will allow users to surf the web, watch TV shows and read the next generation in online magazines and newspapers.

Speculation is rife that the Californian technology group will unveil the device, which has no keyboard and resembles a large iPhone, at an event on January 26 in San Francisco. Some technology bloggers have already christened the touchscreen device the iSlate after it emerged that Apple has registered the iSlate.com internet domain name.

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New Clues Emerge For Understanding Morphine Addiction

Scientists are reporting new clues to understanding morphine addiction.
(Credit: US Drug Enforcement Administration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 27, 2009) — Scientists are adding additional brush strokes to the revolutionary new image now emerging for star-shaped cells called astrocytes in the brain and spinal cord. Their report, which suggests a key role for astrocytes in morphine's ability to relieve pain and cause addiction, appears online in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research, a monthly publication.

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9 Science Stories We Loved, And Hated, In 2009

From Live Science:

The best science answers tough questions, and so some of the hardest-hitting discoveries often elicit controversy, ruffling the feathers of readers and sometimes even other scientists. Here are some of the most loved and hated science stories of the year.

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Will Free Wi-Fi Become The Norm?

From CBS News:

McDonalds Is Latest Company to Offer Free Wireless Internet; Airlines and Many Hotels Still Charge.

(CBS) I'm a big fan of free Wi-Fi and appreciate it when coffee shops, hotels and other businesses are nice enough to let visitors use their laptops to surf the Web for free. Last year, for example, Starbucks started offering two hours of free service a day for those who purchase and register a Starbucks card.

And soon you'll be able to get Wi-Fi with your French fries when McDonalds rolls out its free service in January. The company last week announced that it will drop its $2.95 Wi-Fi fee.

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North Magnetic Pole Moving East Due To Core Flux

Blue lines show Earth's northern magnetic field and the magnetic north pole in an artist's rendering. Picture courtesy Stefan Maus, NOAA NGDC

From National Geographic:

Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says.

The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space.

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How Tech Touched The '00s

From CNET News:

I've been enjoying all of the end-of-decade lists that have suddenly cropped up. I like knowing what I was intimately aware of and what I completely missed.

This week, the Associated Press came out with its list of "50 things that changed our lives in the aughts." First off, the reference to the "aughts" made me chuckle. Back in late 1999, I was concerned about two things: Y2K and what the heck we were going to call the first decade. Neither of those concerns turned out to be much of a problem in the end. "Aughts" certainly never caught on.

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Dec. 24, 1968: Christmas Eve Greetings From Lunar Orbit

From This Day In Tech:

1968: The crew of Apollo 8 delivers a live, televised Christmas Eve broadcast after becoming the first humans to orbit another space body.

Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders made their now-celebrated broadcast after entering lunar orbit on Christmas Eve, which might help explain the heavy religious content of the message. After announcing the arrival of lunar sunrise, each astronaut read from the Book of Genesis.

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Panasonic Will Market First Li-Ion Storage Battery For Home Use In 2011

Panasonic's Lithium-Ion Storage Battery Panasonic

From Popular Science:

The battery could power zero-emissions homes.

Bringing power storage to the people, Panasonic will bring a home-use lithium-ion storage cell to market in fiscal 2011, making it possible for homes to store a week's worth of electricity for later use. Panasonic -- along with the recently acquired Sanyo -- have already test-manufactured such a battery, which could allow for more widespread deployment of eco-friendly but inconsistent modes of power generation.

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High-Tech Cars Are Trouble For Some Mechanics

From MSNBC/AP:

Automakers hold onto information, bill in Congress would address problem.

LOS ANGELES - A sign inside the Humming Motors auto repair shop says, "We do the worrying so you don't have to."

These days, owner David Baur spends a lot of time worrying in his full-service garage near downtown Los Angeles.

As cars become vastly more complicated than models made just a few years ago, Baur is often turning down jobs and referring customers to auto dealer shops. Like many other independent mechanics, he does not have the thousands of dollars to purchase the online manuals and specialized tools needed to fix the computer-controlled machines.

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Vitamin C 'Could Boost Stem Cell Generation'

From The Independent:

Vitamin C could play an essential role in the manufacture of stem cells for treating human diseases, new research suggests.

The vitamin boosts the reprogramming of adult cells to give them the properties of embryonic stem cells.

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Christmas Card Snowflakes 'Corrupt Nature' By Defying Laws Of Physics

Real snowflakes clinging to a car window. Phoney flakes lack the characteristic six-fold, hexagonal symmetry. Photograph: M Scott Moon/AP

From The Guardian:

Professor rails against depictions of 'unnatural' snowflakes that lack hexagonal symmetry.

The fragile truce between science and art came under strain today when common depictions of snowflakes threatened to divide the two cultures over the festive season.

In the latest salvo between the warring factions, Christmas card manufacturers, advertising agencies and children's book publishers are accused of corrupting nature with "incorrect designer versions" of snowflakes that defy the laws of physics.

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2009: Year Of The Social Network

Artwork: Chip Taylor

From PC World:

As 2009 draws to a close, it's clear that the year was a watershed for social networks and the firms that own them.

The year saw major changes at sites like Facebook and Twitter as millions of non-technical users became regular users of social networks.

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Sun and Moon Trigger Deep Tremors On San Andreas Fault

Looking along the peak ridgeline of the Pinnacle National Monument. These jagged spires are the result of an ancient volcano, erosion and tectonic uplift along the San Andreas Fault. The faint tug of the sun and moon on the San Andreas Fault stimulates tremors deep underground, suggesting that the rock 15 miles below is lubricated with highly pressurized water that allows the rock to slip with little effort. (Credit: iStockphoto/Michael Almond)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 25, 2009) — The faint tug of the sun and moon on the San Andreas Fault stimulates tremors deep underground, suggesting that the rock 15 miles below is lubricated with highly pressurized water that allows the rock to slip with little effort, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, seismologists.

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5 Big Fat Holiday Health Lies

From Live Science:

It's the holidays, that ambiguous time of indulgence that used to be confined to Thanksgiving but which now encompasses the chunk of the year between Halloween and Valentine's Day — and, oh, why not, let's just throw in St. Patrick's Day.

Focusing just on Christmas, though, here are five pervasive health misconceptions you might encounter during your time of merriment:

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Average Net User Now Online 13 Hours Per Week

From CNET:

How much time do you spend online each week? If you're an average Net user, a new poll shows, it's around 13 hours--excluding e-mail.

The Harris Interactive poll, released Wednesday, found that 80 percent of U.S. adults go online, whether at home, work, or elsewhere. Those who surf the Net spend an average of 13 hours per week online, but that figure varies widely. Twenty percent are online for two hours or less a week, while 14 percent are there for 24 hours or more.

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The Operation To 'Cure' High Blood Pressure: How It Works

From The Telegraph:

High blood pressure increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and in general the higher the blood pressure, the greater the risk.

LIfestyle improvements such as weight loss if necessary, exercise, stopping smoking and a low salt diet can reduce high blood pressure but many will require medication.

There are an estimated 15 million people in Britain with raised blood pressure and drugs to treat the condition are amongst the most commonly prescribed drugs.

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Astronauts Follow Apollo 8 Crew's Example By Spreading Christmas Cheer In Space

A Nasa TV grab shows the Expedition 22 crew getting into the
Christmas spirit with santa hats and presents

From The Daily Mail:

Three astronauts arrived at the International Space Station bearing gifts today, just in time for Christmas.

The three wise men floated through the passage shortly after the hatches opened between the newly-arrived Soyuz spacecraft and the orbiter.

Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov entered first wearing a Santa hat and carrying a Christmas wreath. Next came Soichi Noguchi came in a Santa hat with a white bag of presents slung over his shoulder, followed by Nasa astronaut Timothy Creamer wearing an elf hat and elf ears.

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Applied Materials Moves Solar Expertise To China

Image: Glass power: Equipment at Applied Materials’s R&D center in Xi’an, China, processes glass panels 5.7 square meters to make solar cells. Credit: Applied Materials

From Technology Review:

The company says its future is in energy products for the Chinese market.

The world's biggest supplier of solar-manufacturing equipment has opened a research and development center in China, and its chief technology officer will relocate from Silicon Valley to that country next month. Applied Materials, founded in 1967 as a semiconductor company, has manufactured in China for 25 years, but is expanding its presence to be closer to its customers and develop products suited to the country's urban population.

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2010 Preview: The Polyglot Web

Mapping the internet as it goes truly global (Image: Matthew Hurst/SPL)

From The New Scientist:

Imagine what browsing the web would be like if you had to type out addresses in characters you don't recognise, from a language you don't speak. It's a nightmare that will end for hundreds of millions of people in 2010, when the first web addresses written entirely in non-Latin characters come online.

Net regulator ICANN - the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - conceded in October that more than half of the 1.6 billion people online use languages with scripts not fully compatible with the Latin alphabet. It is now accepting applications for the first non-Latin top level domains (TLDs) - the part of an address after the final "dot". The first national domains, counterparts of .uk or .au, should go live in early 2010. So far, 12 nations, using six different scripts, have applied and some have proudly revealed their desired TLD and given a preview of what the future web will look like.

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GAO Warns Space Station May Be A Bust

From Discovery News:

The Government Accountability Office has some somber words for U.S. taxpayers: After 25 years of work and billions of dollars, we may not get our money’s worth out of the International Space Station.

There are several reasons for the situation, the GAO said in a new report, including the fact that there currently is no money to keep the station operational past 2015. NASA and its international partners in the program -- Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan -- are just beginning to ramp up research after a 12-year construction effort ends next year.

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Super Strength Robot Suit

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Europe's Goce Satellite Probes Earth's Gravity

A first glimpse at the data coming down from Europe's Goce satellite

From The BBC:

Europe's Goce satellite is returning remarkable new data on the way the pull of gravity varies across the Earth.

Scientists say its first maps clearly show details not seen in previous space and ground measurements.

Goce was launched by the European Space Agency (Esa) in March from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia.

Its information is expected to bring new insights into how the oceans move, and to frame a universal system to measure height anywhere on the planet.

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How The Brain Encodes Memories At A Cellular Level

This is a neuron. (Credit: Sourav Banerjee)

From The Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 25, 2009) — Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a major discovery in how the brain encodes memories. The finding, published in the December 24 issue of the journal Neuron, could eventually lead to the development of new drugs to aid memory.

The team of scientists is the first to uncover a central process in encoding memories that occurs at the level of the synapse, where neurons connect with each other.

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Pain Pills Could Ease Hurt Feelings

From Live Science:

Getting the snub from friends can feel like a slap in the face. Now researchers say treating such social pain may be as easy as popping a pain pill. They warn, however, that more research is needed before anyone tries the approach.

The finding builds on research showing that psychological blows not only feel like they hurt us, they actually do. For instance, scientists have found a gene linked with both physical pain and a person's sensitivity to rejection. And some of the same brain regions are linked with both pain types.

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Alcohol Substitute That Avoids Drunkenness And Hangovers In Development

From The Telegraph:

An alcohol substitute that mimics its pleasant buzz without leading to drunkenness and hangovers is being developed by scientists.

The new substance could have the added bonus of being "switched off" instantaneously with a pill, to allow drinkers to drive home or return to work.

The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of well being and relaxation.

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Unveiled: China's 245mph Train Service Is The World's Fastest... And It Was Completed In Just FOUR Years

Travellers board a high-speed train which heads to Guangzhou
in Wuhan, Hubei province, on Boxing Day

From The Daily Mail:

In the week that Britain's high speed rail link closed down because the wrong sort of snow interfered with the engine's electronics, China unveiled the world's fastest train service on one of the coldest days of the year.

Days after thousands of passengers were left stranded when Eurostar services were cancelled, China's new system connects the modern cities of Guangzhou and Wuhan at an average speed of 217mph - and it took just four years to build.

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Security In The Ether

Cloud crowd: Some 4,000 servers hum at IBM’s cloud computing center in San Jose, CA.
Credit: Jason Madara

From Technology Review:

Information technology's next grand challenge will be to secure the cloud--and prove we can trust it.

In 2006, when Amazon introduced the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), it was a watershed event in the quest to transform computing into a ubiquitous utility, like electricity. Suddenly, anyone could scroll through an online menu, whip out a credit card, and hire as much computational horsepower as necessary, paying for it at a fixed rate: initially, 10 cents per hour to use Linux (and, starting in 2008, 12.5 cents per hour to use Windows). Those systems would run on "virtual machines" that could be created and configured in an instant, disappearing just as fast when no longer needed. As their needs grew, clients could simply put more quarters into the meters. Amazon would take care of hassles like maintaining the data center and network. The virtual machines would, of course, run inside real ones: the thousands of humming, blinking servers clustered in Amazon's data centers around the world. The cloud computing service was efficient, cheap, and equally accessible to individuals, companies, research labs, and government agencies.

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2010 Preview: Waiting For ET To Phone

On the lookout for intelligent signals from the stars (Image: Louie Psihoyos/Corbis)

From New Scientist:

West Virginia. It is 6 am on an April morning in 1960 and Frank Drake is freezing cold. He peers up towards the focal point of the radio telescope. He mounts a flimsy ladder to the top and climbs into a space about the size of a garbage can. For the next 45 minutes, he tunes the receiver inside, which feels like starting an old car. He climbs back down and begins to listen.

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Sumatra-Andaman Disaster: 5 Years Later

A combination photo shows (top) a view of the damage near Baiturrahman mosque December 27, 2004, the day after a tsunami hit the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh, and (bottom) an Acehnese man collecting grass for his goat in the same area, December 4, 2009. (Reuters)

From Discovery News:

It's been five years since an 800-mile-long (1,300 km) section of colliding plates in Earth's crust unzipped and unleashed a 9.3 megathrust earthquake from Sumatra to the Andaman Islands. The rupture moved a block of earth as long as California about 30 feet. At least 230,000 people perished from the quake and the tsunamis that followed. We're remembering the disaster, as well as looking at the many lessons and discoveries been gleaned from it -- lessons that should never be forgotten.

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Rise In Cyber Crime

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Is Running Bad For Your Knees? Maybe Not.

Image: Tim Tadder / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Perhaps because it seems intuitively true, the notion persists that running, especially when done long-term and over long distances, is bad for the joints. Indeed it would be hard to think otherwise when, with each foot strike, a runner's knee withstands a force equal to eight times his body weight — for a 150-lb. person, that's about 1,200 lbs. of impact, step after step.

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Troubleshooters That Block Cancer

From The BBC:

Scientists have shown how a family of "limpet-like" proteins play a crucial role in repairing the DNA damage which can lead to cancer.

They hope the finding could pave the way for a new type of drug which could help kill cancer cells, and promote production of healthy replacements.

The proteins seem to have a remarkable ability to zero in on damaged areas.

The breakthrough, uncovered independently by two teams, appears in the journal Nature.

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Kindle Is Most Gifted Amazon Item, Ever

Amazon's second-generation Kindle
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)

From CNET News:

Amazon.com on Saturday released its annual post-Christmas statement on holiday sales, and made one thing clear: the Kindle was king, perhaps fueled by continued shifts in plans for shipments of Barnes & Noble's competing Nook e-reader.

"We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history," said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos.

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Calorie Restriction: Scientists Take Important Step Toward 'Fountain Of Youth'

Glucose molecular model. (Credit: iStockphoto/Martin McCarthy)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 26, 2009) — Going back for a second dessert after your holiday meal might not be the best strategy for living a long, cancer-free life say researchers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. That's because they've shown exactly how restricted calorie diets -- specifically in the form of restricted glucose -- help human cells live longer.

This discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal, could help lead to drugs and treatments that slow human aging and prevent cancer.

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Behind The Scenes: The First Women In Antarctica

Terry Tickhill (light hat) and Eileen McSaveney (red headband) use a hand augur to drill Lake Vanda, Wright Valley, Antarctica during the 1969-1970 field season. Water collected during this effort was used to date the lake. The green tent in the background was of the same type as the field crew used for housing during their work in Wright Valley. Credit: Lois Jones

From Live Science:

In the spring of 1969, Terry Tickhill Terrell was 19 and an undergraduate chemistry major at Ohio State University, bored with her lab work and restless. She had never traveled more than 250 miles from the Barnesville, Ohio farm where she grew up.

One day, after reading an article in the school newspaper about a graduate student who had just returned from Antarctica, Terrell decided that that was where she wanted to go.

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Looking Back At The 100 Best Innovations Of 2009

From Popular Science:

If you're like me, the holiday break is all about consuming everyone's year-end recaps--and of course, looking ahead to the year to come. We're taking a short break here on PopSci.com, but we're not going to leave you hanging with nothing--here we've compiled both our year-end Best of What's New list and our look ahead to 2010 in science, all in one place for your holiday enjoyment.

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Trading Shares In Milliseconds

A monitor at Tradeworx’s offices keeps track of the net trading operations during the day. It generally ticks up. Credit: Steve Moors

From Technology Review:

Today's stock market has become a world of automated transactions executed at lightning speed. This high-frequency trading could make the financial system more efficient, but it could also turn small mistakes into catastrophes.

If Manoj Narang is about to bring down the markets, he's certainly relaxed about it. Narang, who wears a goatee and wire-frame glasses, is casually dressed in a brown shirt and dark gray sweatshirt. Sitting on a swivel chair with one leg tucked under the other, he seems positively composed, especially for a man who has just bought and sold 15 million shares with a total value of $600 million. For Narang, however, such volume represents just the start of a normal day. Though it's about noon on a Friday morning, he has barely begun.

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Ouch! We Really CAN Feel The Physical Pain Of Others

In a recent study, a third of subjects claimed to feel real pain in the same
part of the body as the victim they were watching

From The Daily Mail:

For most of us the expression 'feeling someone else's pain' is simply a way of saying we sympathise with their sadness or discomfort.

But there are some who don't just have an emotional reaction to another's agony - they feel genuine physical pain as well, researchers have found.

The finding could explain why some people are more sympathetic to other people's misery.

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New Advances In Airport Screening Technology Will Deter Future Terrorist Attacks

T-rays can offer a safer, more effective alternative to current airport screeners
that employ X-rays. Getty Images

New Airport Screeners Could Save Time, Energy -- Discovery News

Holiday travelers: Sick of waiting in long airport security lines? T-rays are here to help.

Using several new advances in T-rays, or terahertz radiation, airport scanners could soon determine if a vial of white powder in a suitcase is common sugar or illegal drugs.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Rice University, in Europe and elsewhere have independently undertaken research to make it dramatically easier and cheaper to produce, amplify and direct T-rays.

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Glitter-Sized Solar Photovoltaics Could Revolutionize the Way Solar Energy Is Collected and Used

Representative thin crystalline-silicon photovoltaic cells -- these are from 14 to 20 micrometers thick and 0.25 to 1 millimeter across. (Credit: Image by Murat Okandan)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 23, 2009) — Sandia National Laboratories scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used.

The tiny cells could turn a person into a walking solar battery charger if they were fastened to flexible substrates molded around unusual shapes, such as clothing.

Read more ....

9 Things We Learned About Us In 2009

From Live Science:

For a species that has been studying itself for thousands of years, you might think humans would have learned everything there is to know about, well, us. But science never ceases to reveal more about the complex human body, mind and culture. Here are 9 of the most fascinating things we learned about ourselves in 2009:

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Why It's Better To Pretend You Don't Know Anything About Computers.

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The Innovative 787 Carries Boeing, And Aviation, Ahead

From Autopia:

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner looks like any other airliner, so it might be hard for anyone but an airplane geek to get so excited about its inaugural flight. But the energy-efficient airliner is a bold step forward for Boeing, and for aviation.

As much as the 787 Dreamliner looks like the jet that carried you on that cramped, uncomfortable flight last month, almost everything about it is new. From the extensive use of composite materials and advanced aerodynamics to its fuel-efficient Rolls Royce engines and all-electric systems, Boeing is betting the 787 will be the plane to usher in a cleaner, greener future for the airline business.

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Surfing A Wave Of Californian Sunshine As America Looks For Renewable Future

The eSolar plant in the Mojave Desert generates enough electricity to power 4,000 homes

From Times Online:

On a dry, scrubby plain on the edge of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, 24,000 mirrors track the Sun’s progress across a clear, blue sky. The neat ranks of heliostats and the computer algorithm that moves them make the Sierra SunTower plant a focal point for a novel type of power generation and a new wave of energy companies looking to turn the search for renewables into successful businesses.

Solar tower technology uses mirrors to reflect sunlight on to a thermal receiver atop a tower. The reflected sunlight boils water inside the receiver to create superheated steam at 440C (824F), which drives a turbine and generates electricity.

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Congressional UAV Caucus Courts Robot Voters

Go Long via Buck McKeon's Flickr

From Popular Science:

The US Congress has well over 100 caucuses, or groups of common interests. They're like the clubs in a high school that play chess or work on the year book, except they usually focus on a constituency like fiscal conservatives or Americans of Asian descent. Well, thanks to California Representative Howard "Buck" McKeon, Congress has a new caucus focused entirely on unmanned aerial vehicles.

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The Year In Biomedicine

From Technology Review:

Advances in antiaging drugs, acoustic brain surgery, flu vaccines--and the secret to IQ.

We may look back on 2009 as the year human genome sequencing finally became routine enough to generate useful medical information ("A Turning Point for Personal Genomes"). The number of sequenced and published genomes shot up from two or three to approximately nine, with another 40 or so genomes sequenced but not yet published. In a few cases, scientists have already found the genetic cause of a disorder by sequencing an affected person's genome.

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Revenge Of The Chilli: Why Pepper Seeds Are Designed To Burn Your Mouth

Professor Sue Hartley (right) supports volunteer Adam after he eats a Naga chilli

From The Daily Telegraph:

Ever wondered why chilli peppers are so mind-blowingly hot? It's all down to their ultra-effective defense system developed in the ongoing war between plants and animals.

When humans bite down on chillis they crush the seeds the plants want to spread with their molar teeth. The peppers extract their revenge by releasing a mouth-burning mix of chemicals called capsinoids.

Read more ....

BlackBerry Struggles With Second Outage In Less Than A Week

BlackBerry Users See The Fail Whale Twice In A Week -- Gadget Lab

The cult of the BlackBerry phone is based on the device’s ability to can bring e-mails to users faster than they can click through them.

But that could become history. BlackBerry users faced a service outage on Tuesday evening–the second time in less than a week–that made e-mail, text messages and web services such as Twitter and Facebook inaccessible.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion restored the service Wednesday morning and blamed it on a glitch in its instant messaging program called the BlackBerry messenger.

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Can We Find A Living Planet By 2020?

From Discovery News:

There was a lot of excitement last week about the discovery of a “waterworld” planet called GJ 1214b, as reported on Discovery News by my colleague Ian O’Neill.

This world belongs to an emerging class of planets dubbed “super-Earths.” It is 6.5 times Earth’s mass and nearly three times our diameter. Its mass, diameter and density suggest the planet is largely a ball of water with and icy/rocky core.

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Review Of The Year 2009: Discoveries

Skeleton key: the 47 million-year-old remains of 'Ida' are the most complete fossil of a primate ever found. The young female specimen was found in Germany. AFP/GETTY IMAGES

From The Independent:

We saw Darwin in a whole new light.

Climate change, stem cells and evolution were the three big science themes of 2009, which happened to be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his seminal book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. It was the year when Darwin's remarkable insight into the evolution of life on earth was celebrated around the world.

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Brown Dwarf Pair Mystifies Astronomers

Artist's rendition of a brown dwarf and its moon orbiting a triple star system. (Credit: NASA)

From Daily Space:

Science Daily (Dec. 23, 2009) — Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international team of astronomers.

"We have found two brown dwarf-sized masses around an ordinary star, which is very rare," said Alex Wolszczan, Evan Pugh professor of astronomy and astrophysics, Penn State and lead scientist on the project.

Read more ....

Santa Claus: The Real Man Behind The Myth

It wasn't until 1809 that Santa Clause got fat, and by the late 1800s he was wearing the full red suit with the fur trim and leather boots. Image credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

Like America itself, the jolly figure we call Santa Claus is a melting pot of cultures, blending elements of folklore with the fantastical.

Santa Claus the man is actually loosely rooted in fact, though he hasn't always looked the way he does today, having evolved from a gift-giving Catholic saint who lived during the third century.

Read more ....

Report: FBI Investigating Citibank Cyberattack

From CNET:

Citigroup denies it, but its Citibank unit was reportedly robbed of tens of millions of dollars, the victim of a cyberattack by members of a Russian criminal gang, says Tuesday's Wall Steet Journal (subscription required).

The attack was discovered this past summer, says the Journal, but investigators for the FBI and National Security Agency believe it could have happened months or a year prior. The two agencies have reportedly shared information with the Department of Homeland Security and Citigroup to defend against the attack. The investigation is supposedly ongoing, with no word on whether or not any of the stolen money has been found.

Read more ....

Robotic Knee Helps Perfectly Healthy Runners Run Even Better

The Cyborg Leg It helps perfectly healthy runners run 30 percent more efficiently.
Tsukuba University

From Popular Science:

Attention cyborg wonks and lazy people: Japanese scientists at Tsukuba University have created a motorized knee that you can attach to your leg to increase your muscle power and running speed. The 11-pound kit's weight is shared by an exoskeleton-like attachment for your leg and a power source that's carried in a small backpack. But here's the best part: the device is not designed with any kind of rehabilitation or handicap-assisting function in mind; it's simply to make it easier for regular folks to run faster!

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