War Is Peace: Can Science Fight Media Disinformation?

From Scientific American:

In the 24/7 Internet world, people make lots of claims. Science provides a guide for testing them.

When I saw the statement repeated online that theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge would be dead by now if he lived in the U.K. and had to depend on the National Health Service (he, of course, is alive and working in the U.K., where he always has), I reflected on something I had written a dozen years ago, in one of my first published commentaries:

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The Science Behind The Explosives Used On Northwest Airlines Flight 253 And By The 'Shoe Bomber'

PETN

PETN - Hard To Detect And Just 100g Can Destroy A Car -- The Guardian

The science behind the explosive pentaerythritol trinitrate, used on Northwest Airlines flight 253 and by the 'shoe bomber'.

The explosive that nearly brought down Northwest Airlines flight 253 is extremely powerful, allowing terrorists to use only small quantities to cause enormous damage. And the colourless crystals of the substance, PETN or pentaerythritol trinitrate, are hard to detect if carried in a sealed container.

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The Grouse's Wishes For A Happy, Techy 2010

From Popular Science:

There goes 2009, and what a year she was. Let’s see, the iTunes App Store eclipsed one billion downloads, Google surprised us all with the announcement of Chrome OS, Windows 7 sent Vista to the big Blue Screen of Death in the sky, Verizon and AT&T started fighting dirty and the e-reader market exploded. But instead of looking back at the year that was, we of course always find it a lot more fun to look forward. So, here’s what’s on my wish list for the year to come in gadgets and tech.

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Women 'Can Sense Attraction In Men's Sweat'

The smell of a man's sweat differs according to what mood he is in Photo: AFP/GETTY

From The Independent:

Women can sense if men are attracted to them by the smell of his sweat, a new study has revealed.

The smell of a man's sweat differs according to what mood he is in and women can pick up on changes that indicate attraction, according to new research.

The study, led by Dr Denise Chen, assistant professor of psychology at Rice University, in Texas, America, involved introducing two types of male sweat to 19 women in their 20s - one type was labelled 'normal', the other 'sexual'.

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Cao Cao: Chinese Archaeologists Uncover Vast Tomb Of Infamous 3rd Century Ruler

The austere interior of Cao Cao's tomb. He ruled the Kingdom of Wei from 208 to 220 AD.

From The Daily Mail:

Chinese archaeologists have found what could be the tomb of Cao Cao, a skilful general and ruler in the third century who was later depicted in popular folklore as the archetypal cunning politician.

Archaeological officials say Cao's 8,000 sq ft tomb complex, with a 130ft passage leading to an underground chamber, was found in Xigaoxue, a village near the ancient capital of Anyang in central Henan province.

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2009 Review: Most Popular Articles Of The Year

New Scientist solves 10 mysteries of you

From New Scientist:

2009 was a year of economic austerity, worries about climate change and ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. It was, on the whole, a bit grim.

But you'd never know it from looking at our website monitoring software, which suggests that New Scientist readers were more concerned with how to decode ancient languages, the nature of female ejaculation and whether the cosmos is really a giant hologram.

In ascending order, here are the 12 most popular articles of 2009 – one for each of the days of Christmas.

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Technology Changes 'Outstrip' Netbooks

Netbooks are under pressure as tech firms concentrate on mobile computing.

From The BBC:

Rising prices and better alternatives may mean curtains for netbooks.

The small portable computers were popular in 2009, but some industry watchers are convinced that their popularity is already waning.

"The days of the netbook are over," said Stuart Miles, founder and editor of technology blog Pocket Lint.

As prices edge upwards, net-using habits change and other gadgets take on their functions, netbooks will become far less popular, he thinks.

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As The World Churns: Earth's Liquid Outer Core Is Slowly 'Stirred' In A Series Of Decades-Long Waves

By combining measurements of Earth's magnetic field from stations on land and ships at sea with satellite data, scientists were able to isolate six regularly occurring waves of motion taking place deep within Earth's liquid core, with varying timescales. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 28, 2009) — Most of the time, at least from our perspective here on the ground, Terra firma seems to be just that: solid. Yet the Earth beneath our feet is actually in constant motion. It moves through time and space, of course, along with the other objects in the universe, but it moves internally as well.

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Body Of Sea Urchin Is One Big Eye

A purple sea urchin, Credit: Claire Fackler, NOAA National Marine Sanctuaries

From Live Science:

Sea urchins may use the whole surface of their bodies as compound eyes, scientists now suggest.

Although sea urchins don't have any problems avoiding predators or finding comfortable dark corners to hide in, they don't have eyes. The question then is how they see.

Genetic analysis of sea urchins has revealed they have light-sensitive molecules, mostly in their tube feet and in tiny stalked appendages found in among their spines. As such, "it looks like the entire surface of their bodies are acting as one big eye," said researcher Sönke Johnsen, a marine biologist at Duke University.

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Google Netbook Specs Reportedly 'Leaked'

From eWeek:

The rumored Google Netbook, which Google has not confirmed it is working on, will reportedly feature Google’s Chrome OS, a 10.1-inch multi-touch display, a beefy ARM processor and 2GB of RAM, according to the U.K.’s IBTimes, which says it has received specs for the netbook.

Tech specifications for the netbook that Google is rumored to be creating have been “leaked,” according to England’s IBTimes.

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The Top 9 Airplane Tech Advances Of The Last 10 Years

Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk

From Popular Mechanics:

The aughts capped 100 years of powered flight, pushing the technologies introduced in the 20th century to their limits. This past decade has seen the development of the biggest passenger airplanes, the fastest, most agile and stealthiest fighters, and the joy of flight brought to the amateur pilot as never before. The coming decade promises breakthroughs such as combat-ready unmanned aerial vehicles, commercial rocket planes, hypersonic jets, and more. Here's a look back at the aviation milestones of the aughts and a glimpse of what the coming decade might hold.

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Your Guide To The Year In Science: 2010

Exclusive Patent Rights Countdown Coherentimages.com

From Popular Science:

A deeper look at polar ice. An electric-car renaissance. The death and rebirth of major scientific experiments. Read on to discover what this year has in store.

Our annual sci-tech forecast looks at what 2010 has in store for medicine, space, aviation, the environment, technology and entertainment.

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Large Hadron Collider Failure Will Leave Science Back In The 'Wilderness'

Particle tracks of protons collided in CERN's Large Hadron Collider Photo: AP

From The Telegraph:

Science will be left back in a "nightmarish wilderness" if the Large Hadron Collider fails to find the elusive Higgs Boson, warns a rebel physicist.

Former Harvard research scholar, professor Shahriar Afshar said that failure to find the particle would bring current scientific theory tumbling down like a house of cards with nothing to replace it.

The controversial physicist, whose Afshar experiment has already found a loophole in quantum theory, said that unless the scientific community starts contemplating a "plan B", failure could lead to "chaos and infighting".

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At Last! Apple Tablet Is Slated For Launch In January

Industry experts believe the 'iSlate' - a cross between an iPhone and a laptop - could signal the end of the keyboard and mouse system

From The Daily Mail:

Over the past decade the iPod has revolutionised the way we listen to music, and the iPhone is the must-have gadget when it comes to mobile phones.
So it seems entirely fitting that Apple should choose the start of a new decade to launch its latest product - which could entirely change the way we use computers.

Rumours are rife that Steve Jobs, the company's chief executive, is planning to unveil a touch screen computer known as the 'iSlate' at the end of next month.

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Sugar-Free Satisfaction: Finding The Brain's Sweet Spot

The calorie-free version fails to activate a reward area of the brain
(Image: Patrick Norman/Fancy/Plainpicture)

From New Scientist:

CONTAINS zero calories! Countless soft drinks are emblazoned with that slogan as a come-on for those of us locked in a never-ending battle to rein in a spreading waistline. Calorie-free sweeteners certainly have a lot to offer. Food and drink manufacturers have become so good at blending sugar substitutes into their products that it can be almost impossible to tell them apart from the real thing - sucrose - in taste tests.

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Pulling The 'Mating Plug' May Reduce Mosquito Population And Malaria Rates

A malaria-carrying Anopheles gambiae mosquito. About 40% of the world's population is at risk of malaria, a potentially deadly disease. (CDC / December 26, 2009)

From The L.A. Times:

Scientists find that reproduction fails when they interfere with the enzyme that causes the plug to form. The team hopes the finding can be developed for use in the field.

Interfering in mosquitoes' sex lives could help halt the spread of malaria, British scientists said this week.

A study on the species of mosquito mainly responsible for malaria transmission in Africa, Anopheles gambiae, showed that because these mosquitoes mate only once in their lives, meddling with that process could dramatically cut their numbers.

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Disinfectants 'Train' Superbugs To Resist Antibiotics

From The BBC:

Disinfectants could effectively train bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics, research suggests.

Scientists know bacteria can become inured to disinfectant, but research increasingly shows the same process may make them resistant to certain drugs.

This can occur even with an antibiotic the bacteria have not been exposed to.

Writing in Microbiology, the National University of Ireland team, who focused on a common hospital bacterium, urges a rethink of how infections are managed.

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Amazon E-Book Sales Overtake Print For First Time

In the US, Amazon says its Kindle e-book reader is its most gifted product.
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

From The Guardian:

Online retailer may be on target for sales of 500,000 Kindle e-readers over Christmas.

Spare a thought for the humble hardback this Christmas. It seems the traditional giftwrapped tome is being trumped by downloads, after Amazon customers bought more e-books than printed books for the first time on Christmas Day.

As people rushed to fill their freshly unwrapped e-readers – one of the top-selling gadgets this festive season – the online retailer said sales at its electronic book store quickly overtook orders for physical books. Its own e-reader, the Kindle, is now the most popular gift in Amazon's history.

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Neuroscientists Store Information in Isolated Brain Tissue; Possible Basis Of Short-Term Memory

Location of the hippocampus in the human brain. Modified from a scan of a plate of "Posterior and inferior cornua of left lateral ventricle exposed from the side" in Gray's Anatomy. (Credit: Courtesy of Wikipedia)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 28, 2009) — Ben W. Strowbridge, PhD, associate professor of neuroscience and physiology/biophysics, and Phillip Larimer, PhD, a MD/PhD student in the neurosciences graduate program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, are the first to create stimulus-specific sustained activity patterns in brain circuits maintained in vitro.

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Airport Security: Why It Failed

From Live Science:

Airport screening procedures failed for many reasons to catch the Nigerian man who aimed to blow up flight 253 as it approached Detroit. Scanners that might have spotted the explosives are not fully deployed, and even at airports where they exist, the scanners aren't used on all passengers.

Bottom line: No system will likely prove foolproof, experts say.

Investigators say 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab hid an explosive device and the chemical explosive PETN on his body while traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit aboard the Delta flight on Christmas day.

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Once In A Blue Moon To Happen Thursday

From Mercury News:

Once in a blue moon is about to happen.

On Thursday, a second full moon in a calendar month will appear in the night sky, an occurrence known as a blue moon.

There has not been a month with two full moons since 2007, when sky gazers enjoyed one on June 1 and again on June 30 of that year. The first full moon this month occurred on Dec. 2.

The phrase "blue moon" has nothing to do with the color of the sphere, explained Conrad Jung, a staff astronomer at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland. "It's just a colloquial term, which means very, very rare," he said.

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Amazon: Kindle Is Most Gifted Item Ever

From PC World:

Amazon's Kindle e-book reader hit a watershed moment on Christmas Day, when, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. The company also claims the Kindle is the most gifted item in Amazon's history. These two facts were part of the online retailer's recently announced holiday sales activity.

But in typical Amazon style, the company did not provide any sales figures to back up its claims. Although Amazon did say that if you placed side by side all the Blu-ray disc players the company sold this season, the line would stretch for more than 27 miles. A mile has 63,360 inches, so I'll leave you to make your best guess.


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The Department of Mad Scientists -- A Book Review

From New York Times:

Two years ago, in his book “Rocketeers,” Michael Belfiore celebrated the pioneers of the budding private space industry. Now he has returned to explore a frontier closer to home. The heroes of his new book, “The Department of Mad Scientists,” work for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as Darpa, a secretive arm of the United States government. And the revolution they’re leading is a merger of humans with machines.

The revolution is happening before our eyes, but we don’t recognize it, because it’s incremental. It starts with driving. Cruise control transfers regulation of your car’s speed to a computer. In some models, you can upgrade to adaptive cruise control, which monitors the surrounding traffic by radar and adjusts your speed accordingly. If you drift out of your lane, an option called lane keeping assistance gently steers you back. For extra safety, you can get extended brake assistance, which monitors traffic ahead of you, alerts you to collision threats and applies as much braking pressure as necessary.

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My Comment: The link to read the book (on the HarperCollins site is here.

New, Terrifying, No-Electronics U.S. Flight Security Rules?

From CNET News:

That failed terrorist attack Friday might make international flights a whole lot less enjoyable. Passengers are reporting that new restrictions are in place, and their severity varies flight to flight. Among the reports: No electronics allowed.

Update: According to a tweet from industry analyst Charlene Li, here's the situation:

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Christmas Tree Torches Room In Less Than 60 Seconds

Out Of The Blue, DARPA Seeks Means To Manipulate Lightning

Lightning Mother Nature has it. DARPA wants it.

From Popular Science:

China and Russia try to control rain clouds and the Dutch use technology to keep low-lying inland areas from flooding, so why shouldn’t the United States be able to manipulate lightning? In an attempt to better understand one of nature’s most powerful processes, DARPA issued a broad agency announcement yesterday asking for ideas on how to best protect American personnel and resources from dangers and costs associated with lightning strikes. To wit:

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How Book Publishers Could Clobber Amazon

From The Raw Feed:

Walk into your local bookstore, and all is peace and order. But the tranquility masks an industry on fire. The traditional book business is being burned to the ground by technology, by recession, by the Internet -- but mostly by Amazon.

Amazon is the best thing that ever happened to self-published authors. They offer a complete publishing service that includes editing, design, and distribution -- even into brick-and-mortar bookstores. Meanwhile, they're getting ready to dictate terms over the fast-growing eBook market. Traditional publishing is being decimated, and the future looks bleak.

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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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