Nearby T Pyxidis Supernova Could Destroy Life On Earth

Too Close for Comfort T Pyxidis, a star on the verge of growing too massive and collapsing into a type Ia supernova, was discovered to be closer to Earth than previously thought – close enough to end life here when it finally explodes. NASA

From Popular Science:

Doomsdayers and 2012 blog-keepers, take note. Astronomers at this week's American Astronomical Society meeting revealed that a massive white dwarf star in the throes of multiple nova is much closer to our solar system than once thought. When it does finally collapse into a type Ia supernova -- okay, if it collapses into a type Ia supernova -- the resulting thermonuclear blast will destroy life on earth. Seriously.

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NASA's Kepler Finds Its First Five Planets - An Odd Assortment

Kepler's first five exoplanets are compared to those in our
solar system in this illustration from NASA. NASA

From Christian Science Monitor:

NASA's Kepler space telescope is just beginning its three-year mission to find Earth-like planets in habitable zones around stars. The first new planets it has found, announced Monday, include two so hot they would melt iron.

NASA's planet-hunting telescope Kepler has bagged its first quarry: five new planets Neptune's size and larger, including one with the density of Styrofoam, making it one of the lightest planets yet found.

In addition to the new planets, Kepler results suggest that the light output from two-thirds of some 43,000 sun-like stars in its field of view is virtually as stable as the sun's output.

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'Ferropaper' Is New Technology For Small Motors, Robots

Purdue researchers have created a magnetic "ferropaper" that might be used to make low-cost "micromotors" for surgical instruments, tiny tweezers to study cells and miniature speakers. Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering, holds a miniature birdlike shape made from the material. The wings move slowly, but the structure is not capable of flight. (Credit: Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 6, 2010) — Researchers at Purdue University have created a magnetic "ferropaper" that might be used to make low-cost "micromotors" for surgical instruments, tiny tweezers to study cells and miniature speakers.

The material is made by impregnating ordinary paper -- even newsprint -- with a mixture of mineral oil and "magnetic nanoparticles" of iron oxide. The nanoparticle-laden paper can then be moved using a magnetic field.

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Mystery of World's Biggest Beasts Possibly Solved

The primitive whale Mammalodon colliveri might have sucked up prey from seafloor mud, suggesting the origin of today's giant filter-feeding whales. Credit: Brian Choo, Museum Victoria

From Live Science:

The origins of the largest animals in the world, the baleen whales, might be rooted in the mud, which they potentially sucked up like vacuum cleaners, analysis of a bizarre extinct dwarf whale now suggests.

The baleen whales include the largest animal to have ever lived, the blue whale. Instead of teeth, they use baleen to feed — plates with frayed edges in the upper jaw that filter seafood from the water.

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Milky Way's Dark Matter 'Turned On Its Side'

From New Scientist:

The cloud of dark matter that is thought to surround the Milky Way may be shaped like a squashed beach ball. This halo of invisible matter also seems to sit at an unexpected angle – which could be a strike against a theory that challenges Einstein's account of gravity.

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Intermediate Black Hole Implicated In Star's Death

From Discovery News:

Astronomers presenting at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Washington D.C. on Jan. 4, have reported the detection of the emission generated by a black hole as it devoured a white dwarf star in the elliptical galaxy NGC 1399.

This may not appear to be a huge deal to begin with -- stars being eaten by supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies have been detected before -- but it would appear that this particular white dwarf was ripped apart and then devoured by a mysterious "intermediate-mass" black hole.

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Study Pinpoints Autism Clusters in Calif.

Image: (CBS/iStockphoto)

From CBS News:

More Cases Found in Areas where Parents are Better Educated and Near Autism Treatment Centers

(CBS) Researchers in California have identified 10 regions in the state where cases of autism are higher than in nearby regions.

The study finds that the areas, called clusters, are in places where parents have above average levels of education, or are also places located near large autism treatment facilities.

The research, conducted by scientists at UC Davis, showed that the clusters appear in highly populated areas of Southern California and the Bay Area.

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Two Killer Whale Types Found In UK Waters

Forming a new species? The 'type 2' dolphin hunting killer whales.

From The BBC:

Scientists have revealed that there is not one but two types of killer whale living in UK waters.

Each differs in its appearance and diet, with males of one type being almost two metres longer than the other.

The killer whales could be at an early stage of becoming two separate species, the researchers say.

The international group of scientists has published its results in the journal Molecular Ecology.

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Oil And Gas Drilling In Greenland To Begin This Summer

From Popular Mechanics:

When the 748-foot Stena Forth plows into the deep waters of Greenland’s Disko West zone next summer, the advanced drillship will be taking the first crack at what could be the world’s biggest untapped reservoir of oil and gas. The ship, built by Samsung in South Korea’s Geoje shipyard just over a year ago, can drill to 35,000 feet, in 10,000 feet of water.

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Manned And Unmanned Helicopters Most Efficient When Working Together

Flock of Copters Fly, my pretties! U.S. Army/Spc. George Welcome

From Popular Science:

Flying alongside drones might seem a bit strange for U.S. Army chopper pilots, but it has major payoffs. The U.S. Army found that a mixed flight force of manned and unmanned helicopters could locate and kill 90 percent of targets, compared to manned helicopter forces that located just 70 percent of targets, according to DOD Buzz.

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My Comment: This is another reason why unmanned helicopters and UAVs are the big thing in the military .... their kill rate is impressive.

Tellyphone: America Is Finally Poised To Get Mobile Television

From The Economist:

YOUR correspondent is always miffed when he sees others taking for granted things he has waited years for. Case in point: the way the Japanese think it is perfectly normal to watch live national and local television free on their mobile phones. In fact, they can do so on practically anything they care to carry around with them—from portable game consoles and electronic dictionaries to satnavs for their cars. And it is not just in Japan that you can watch live television on the hoof. It is also taken for granted in South Korea, China, Brazil and parts of Europe.

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Whale Activists Say Their Catamaran Was Sunk By Japanese Vessel

Whale Wars: How Was The Sea Shepherd's New Ship Sunk? -- Christian Science Monitor

Paul Watson, star of "Whale Wars," and his eco-vigliantes at the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have been sailing close to the legal wind for some time, harassing Japanese whalers. Wednesday the Sea Shepherd's $2.5 million speedboat Ady Gil was sunk.

The reaction of Paul Watson, the controversial leader of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, to the destruction of the crown jewel in his tiny anti-whaling fleet on Wednesday was swift. But Watson also managed to get a plug in for his reality TV show, "Whale Wars."

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When Robots Want Rights

Many believe super-intelligent machines are inevitable,
but will we treat them as mere property? REUTERS

From The Globe And Mail:

Many believe super-intelligent machines are inevitable, but will we treat them as mere property? REUTERS

In late November, Gecko Systems announced that it had been running trials of a “fully autonomous personal companion home-care robot,” also known as a “CareBot,” designed to help elderly or disabled people live independently. The company reported that a woman with short-term memory loss broke into a big smile when the robot asked her, “Would you like a bowl of ice cream?” The woman answered “yes,” and presumably the robot did the rest.

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Nature's Most Precise Clocks May Make 'Galactic GPS' Possible: Pulsars Help In Search For Gravitational Waves

Fermi Large Area Telescope first year map of the gamma-ray sky at energies above 100 MeV with the locations of the new millisecond pulsars shown. The symbols are color coded according to the discovery team: red led by Scott Ransom (NRAO) using NRAO's Green Bank Telescope (GBT), cyan led by Mallory Roberts (Eureka Scientific/GMU/NRL) also using the GBT, green led by Fernando Camilo (Columbia University) using Australia's CSIRO Parkes Observatory, white led by Mike Keith (ATNF) also using Parkes, and yellow led by Ismael Cognard (CNRS) using France's Nançay Radio Telescope. (Credit: NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 6, 2010) — Radio astronomers have uncovered 17 millisecond pulsars in our galaxy by studying unknown high-energy sources detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The astronomers made the discovery in less than three months. Such a jump in the pace of locating these hard-to-find objects holds the promise of using them as a kind of "galactic GPS" to detect gravitational waves passing near Earth.

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All Creatures' Calls Are Somewhat Alike

An analysis of over 500 animal species shows that the sounds they make are pretty similar.
Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

Mother Nature offers up a cacophony of diverse sounds. But after examining the calls of hundreds of species from cricket chirps to chimp hoots, scientists have found they aren't so different from one another.

Their research on the calls made by nearly 500 animal species has led to simple mathematical models that can predict an animal's sounds based on the rate at which that individual takes up and uses energy.

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Astronomers Predict Discovery Of Avatar Moon

Avatar has become the fastest movie yet to break box office records for hitting US$1 billion in ticket sales. Now astronomers says it could be possible to find an Earth-like world as depicted in the film. Credit: 20th Century Fox

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: Habitable alien moons such as 'Pandora' – the world featured in the blockbuster film Avatar – could be detectable within a decade, says a new study.

In that movie, the fictional, life-harbouring moon is found orbiting a gas giant called Polyphemus, which itself orbits the star Alpha Centauri A.

NASA's Kepler Mission has already shown the potential to detect Earth-sized planets within the Milky Way (see "Kepler telescope finds five new exoplanets").

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Kepler Telescope Spots 'Styrofoam' Planet

NASA's Kepler telescope has discovered five giant planets that whip around their stars on tight orbits (Illustration: NASA/JPL)

From New Scientist:

A giant planet with the density of Styrofoam is one of a clutch of new exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler telescope. The planets are too hot to support life as we know it, but the discoveries, made during the telescope's first few weeks of operation, suggest Kepler is on the right track to find Earth's twins, researchers say.

More than 400 planets have now been found orbiting other stars, but Earth-sized planets – which may be the best habitats for life – have remained elusive.

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Where Is El Niño When We Need Him?

From Discovery News:

Just when we might be expecting the influence of unusually high Pacific ocean temperatures to warm us up -- or for global warming to bring relief -- along comes another wave of incredibly cold storms. How the season finally turns out is still up in the air, so to speak, but clearly, that weather patterns that are typical of El Niño have not taken hold across the United States.

And it's easy to forget that global warming is a long-term climate trend that has little to do with individual seasons in one part of the world or another. In fact, it might be hard to appreciate just now, but the year just ended -- 2009 is a single data point -- actually came in a little warmer than the two years before and is fairly close to the middle range of model simulations of the long-term trend that has provoked international scientific concern about global warming.

Read more ....

Google Unveils Nexus One Smartphone

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News/CNET:

(CNET) You've read all the exhaustive coverage of Google's Nexus One phone over the last month. The Android-based device emerged at a company holiday party and has been the talk of the smartphone industry ever since. And at an event here at its headquarters on Tuesday, Google unveiled the Nexus One and announced a plan to sell it directly to consumers. The following is a live blog from the event.

9:52 a.m.: We're awaiting the start of Google's Android event here in Building 43 at Google's headquarters in Mountain View. The event is expected to start in about 10 minutes, and the requisite pounding get-excited music is blaring inside a large conference room. There's maybe 100 people crammed into the room, and Google executives Vic Gundotra and Andy Rubin have already been spotted.

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Pi Calculated To 'Record Number' Of Digits

From The BBC:

A computer scientist claims to have computed the mathematical constant pi to nearly 2.7 trillion digits, some 123 billion more than the previous record.

Fabrice Bellard used a desktop computer to perform the calculation, taking a total of 131 days to complete and check the result.

This version of pi takes over a terabyte of hard disk space to store.

Previous records were established using supercomputers, but Mr Bellard claims his method is 20 times more efficient.

The prior record of about 2.6 trillion digits, set in August 2009 by Daisuke Takahashi at the University of Tsukuba in Japan, took just 29 hours.

However, that work employed a supercomputer 2,000 times faster and thousands of times more expensive than the desktop Mr Bellard employed.

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The Moment Comet Was Eaten Up After Orbiting Too Close To The Sun

From The Daily Mail:

A comet has been captured by Nasa being 'eaten' as it flies too close to the sun.

The space agency's solar-focused agency - Solar and Helioscopic Observatory (SOHO) - captured footage of the Kreutz Sungrazer as it made its fateful approach.

The footage has proven popular on YouTube and scientific and astronomical websites and blogs.

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C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists

A satellite image of East Siberian Sea from 1999-2008. This image has been degraded
to hide the satellite’s true capabilities. USGS

From The New York Times:

The nation’s top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government’s intelligence assets — including spy satellites and other classified sensors — to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests.

The collaboration restarts an effort the Bush administration shut down and has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In the last year, as part of the effort, the collaborators have scrutinized images of Arctic sea ice from reconnaissance satellites in an effort to distinguish things like summer melts from climate trends, and they have had images of the ice pack declassified to speed the scientific analysis.

Read more ....

My Comment: The CIA has some great equipment .... I cannot blame the scientists who want to get their hands on this data.

Can Full-Body Airport Scanners Harm You?

The scanners are supposed to be the high-tech version of a physical pat-down.
(Credit: TSA)

From CNET:

Since explosive materials were sneaked onto a U.S. domestic flight on Christmas Day, full-body scanning machines are far more likely to make their way to security lines at your local airport, even though they might not have detected said materials.

While the Transportation Security Administration already has 40 such devices in place, it just bought 150 to be placed in U.S. airports and says it plans to buy 300 more (they go for $170,000 apiece). On Wednesday, the Netherlands announced that these scanners would be used on passengers for all flights out of Amsterdam to the U.S., and there is talk of scanners in Nigeria as well.

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My Comment: They better find the answers soon before we start spending billions of dollars for this tech.

Apple To Unveil Tablet In January, Ship In March - WSJ

From Apple Insider:

Apple later this month will preview its long-awaited touch-screen tablet before shipping the device to consumers two months later, the Wall Street Journal is reporting.

Echoing claims of an early 2010 launch of the 10-inch device first reported by AppleInsider last July, the financial paper cited "people briefed on the matter" as saying that Apple has been experimenting with "two different material finishes" for the hardware.

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New Exoplanet Hunter Makes First 5 Discoveries

From Wired Science:

The Kepler Space Telescope, a designated planet-hunting satellite, has found its first five planets, among them an odd, massive world only as dense as Styrofoam.

The number of planets now known outside the solar system has risen to more than 400, but none is yet Earth-like enough to harbor life. Right now, Kepler can only detect large planets orbiting close to their stars, which means that these first planets are too hot to hold liquid water, a requirement for life as we know it.

But over the next year, the mission’s scientists will be homing in on ever more life-friendly places.

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Precious Metals That Could Save The Planet

The Rare Earth Research Institute is in Baotou City, above,
in the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, China

From The Independent:

Rare earth elements are driving a revolution in low-carbon technology. Cahal Milmo reports on the commodity that has become the new oil.

Baotou was of little interest to the outside world for millennia. When one of the first visitors reached its walls in 1925, it was described as "a little husk of a town in a great hollow shell of mud ramparts". Some 84 years later, this once barren outpost of Inner Mongolia has been transformed into the powerhouse of China's dominance of the market in some of the globe's most sought-after minerals.

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The Real Frankenstein Experiment: One Man's Mission To Create A Living Mind Inside A Machine

Professor Markram believes that if his 'Blue Brain' project is successful,
it will render vivisection obsolete

From The Daily Mail:

His words staggered the erudite audience gathered at a technology conference in Oxford last summer.

Professor Henry Markram, a doctor-turned-computer engineer, announced that his team would create the world's first artificial conscious and intelligent mind by 2018.

And that is exactly what he is doing.

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Microorganisms Cited As Missing Factor In Climate Change Equation

The research incorporates into global computer models the significant impact an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, has on the chemical form of carbon dioxide released from the soil and reduces uncertainties in estimates of CO2 taken up and released in terrestrial ecosystems. (Credit: iStockphoto/Stefan Klein)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 4, 2010) — Those seeking to understand and predict climate change can now use an additional tool to calculate carbon dioxide exchanges on land, according to a scientific journal article publishing this week.

The research, publishing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, incorporates into global computer models the significant impact an enzyme, carbonic anhydrase, has on the chemical form of carbon dioxide released from the soil and reduces uncertainties in estimates of CO2 taken up and released in terrestrial ecosystems.

Read more ....

Diet Demystified: Why We Overeat

From Live Science:

As Americans begin the process of breaking their New Year's resolutions — sure, one king-sized Kit Kat won’t hurt anyone — they can forgive themselves with a consolation: Hormones may be to blame.

In a new study, which was published online Dec 24 in the journal in the future] published online in the journal Biological Psychiatry, researchers have found that the hormone ghrelin causes mice to search out food — even when they weren’t hungry.

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Dubai Set To Open World's Tallest Building

From CBS News:

Security Tight at Unveiling of Tower More Than 160 Stories Tall.

(AP) Dubai is set to open the world's tallest building amid tight security on Monday, celebrating the tower as a bold feat on the world stage despite the city state's shaky financial footing.

But the final height of the Burj Dubai - Arabic for Dubai Tower - remained a closely guarded secret on the eve of its opening. At more than 2,625 feet, it long ago vanquished its nearest rival, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan.

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Sex And Shopping – It's A Guy Thing

It's not what you give, it's what your gift says about you that counts
(Image: George Eastmant House/Hulton/Getty)

From New Scientist:

PEOPLE have radically diverse responses to the very idea of conspicuous consumption. Some folks consider it blindingly obvious that most economic behaviour is driven by status seeking, social signalling and sexual solicitation. These include most Marxists, marketers, working-class fundamentalists and divorced women. Other folks consider this an outrageously cynical view, and argue that most consumption is for individual pleasure ("utility") and family prosperity ("security"). Those folks include most capitalists, economists, upper-class fundamentalists, and soon-to-be-divorced men.

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2009’s Sleepy Sun Finally Woke Up In December

From Wired Science:

2009 will go down as the sun’s third quietest year on record, under-shone only by 1913 and 2008.

Two hundred-sixty of the year’s 365 days (71 percent) were sunspotless. Last year saw 266 sunspotless days, while the sun had no spots on 311 of the days in 1913. It was only a very active December that kept 2009 from falling below last year’s mark.

Sunspot activity waxes and wanes in a roughly 11-year cycle, so hitting solar minima isn’t surprising. But what the numbers underscore is that we spent much of the year still in the midst of the deepest, longest solar minimum in a long time.

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Slim, Large Screen E-Reader Skiff To Debut On Sprint

From Gadget Lab:

E-readers are likely to get hotter with the next generation of devices sporting color screens and large displays expected to launch through the year.

One of the first products to announce its arrival is the Skiff e-reader, a lightweight device with a 11.5-inch full flexible touchscreen that makes it the largest e-reader on the market, beating the 9.7-inch display Kindle DX.

Read more ....

Children Reaching Age 3 Without Being Able To Say A Word, Survey Finds

From Times Online:

Children are reaching the age of 3 without being able to say a word, according to a survey that also found boys are almost twice as likely to struggle to learn to speak as girls.

The average age for a baby to speak their first word is 10 to 11 months. However, a significant minority (4 per cent) of parents reported that their child said nothing until they were 3.

Toddlers between the ages of 2 and 3 should be able to use up to 300 words, including adjectives, and be able to link words together, according to I CAN, the children’s communication charity. Late speech development can lead to problems, such as low achievement at school or mental health problems.

Read more ....

Deadly Animal Diseases Poised To Infect Humans

Health workers culling poultry at Shoilpur village near the Indian city of Kolkata. The H5N1 bird flu pandemic spread across the world in 2003 causing widespread panic and has so far killed 260 people. Reuters

From The Independent:

Environmental disruption set to trigger new pandemics, scientists warn.

The world is facing a growing threat from new diseases that are jumping the human-animal species barrier as a result of environmental disruption, global warming and the progressive urbanisation of the planet, scientists have warned.

At least 45 diseases that have passed from animals to humans have been reported to UN agencies in the last two decades, with the number expected to escalate in the coming years.

Read more ....

New Images Show Evidence Of Lakes On Mars, Say Scientists

A Nasa image of depressions interpreted as ancient lake basins. Photograph: NASA/PA

From The Guardian:

Nasa pictures suggest existence of 12 mile-wide lakes of melted ice on Martian equator 3bn years ago.

Lakes of liquid water existed on Mars at a time when the planet was previously thought to be a frozen desert, new satellite images have shown.

A team of British-led scientists now believes 12 mile-wide lakes of melted ice were dotted around parts of the Martian equator 3bn years ago.

No one had expected to find evidence of a warm, wet climate capable of sustaining surface water on Mars during this period of the planet's history, known as the Hesperian epoch.

Read more ....

G-Day Is Tomorrow: Google To unveil 'iPhone Killer' Nexus One... With An Online Price Tag Of £300

Calling the future: How Google's new Nexus One phone will look, according to an internet preview

From The Daily Mail:

Google will finally reveal its first mobile phone tomorrow after months of frenzied speculation about its arrival.

The Nexus One handset, which uses software designed by the internet giant, has been developed to take on the dominant iPhone, which is used by 25million people worldwide.

Full details of the Google-branded touchscreen device - manufactured by Taiwanese company HTC - have mostly been kept under wraps despite occasional leaks.

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Hitachi Reportedly Develops Brain-Powered Remote Control

From Market Watch:

TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Hitachi Ltd. has developed a prototype remote control that allows users to operate electronic devices telepathically -- simply willing the television channel to change or the air-conditioning to turn on -- according to a report Monday.

Hitachi's (TSE:JP:6501) (NYSE:HIT) "brain-machine interface system" features a headset that measures slight changes in blood flow in the brain, specifically by scanning it with near-infrared rays, business daily Nikkei reported in its Monday evening edition.

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Using Modern Sequencing Techniques To Study Ancient Humans

New research shows how it is possible to directly analyze DNA from a member of our own species who lived around 30,000 years ago. (Credit: iStockphoto/Andrey Prokhorov)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2010) — DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals, or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution. So far, studies of this kind on ancestral members of our own species have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish the ancient DNA from modern-day human DNA contamination.

Read more ....

Future Robots Will Run Like Cockroaches

Researchers at Oregon State University are using studies of guinea hens and other animals such as cockroaches to learn more about the mechanics of their running ability, with the goal of developing robots that can run easily over rough terrain. Credit: Oregon State University

From Live Science:

Most people find cockroaches repulsive, but not John Schmitt. A mechanical engineer at Oregon State University, Schmitt is using the leggy pests as a model for futuristic robots that can run effortlessly over rough terrain.

Current robots require too much computing power to get around, Schmitt explained. "We are trying to create robots that are more stable and take less energy," he said.

Read more ....

Mankind's Greatest Explorations And Adventures

Corbis

From Time Magazine:

From the Moon to Mount Everest, our list of the greatest leaps and highest climbs in human history.

The crew of Apollo 11 faced risks that were literally out of this world. Engine failure could have left them stranded on the lunar surface or forever lost in space. Solar radiation and re-entry heat could have cooked them alive. A space-suit failure could have suffocated them in the most gruesome way. By today's standards, Apollo 11's technology was primitive — the onboard navigation computer contained only 74 kilobytes of memory, not enough to store a single MP3 music file. But as soon as Neil Armstrong took his first tentative step on the lunar surface, the risks were forgotten. For an all-too-brief moment, everyone on the planet was caught up in the thrill of human achievement, of a millennia-old fantasy come to life. Other lunar explorers would follow, but Apollo 11 was the first to take the giant leap for mankind.

Read more ....

Fin Whales, Once Rare, Crowd Calif. Coast

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News:

(CBS) Tracking a mystery, Alisa Schulman-Janiger and other marine biologists follow an ocean footprint looking for the second largest mammal in the world, the fin whale.

Sightings of the fin whale - part of the family that includes the humpback and big blue whales - used to be a rarity in the Santa Monica Bay but not anymore. They're everywhere, reports CBS News Correspondent Sandra Hughes.

Read more ....

Gene Rice On Its Way In China

GM crops have been cleared for commercial cultivation (Image: Jeff Hutchens/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Genetically modified rice cleared for commercial sale could be growing on Chinese farms as early as next year, making China the first country to allow commercial cultivation of GM strains. The field trials required for any new variety are now under way, following official safety clearance November.

Two varieties, called Huahui 1 and Bt Shanyou 63, received clearance and should be launched within the next two years. Both contain "Bt" proteins from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium to protect them against the rice stem borer, the most serious rice pest in China.

Read more ....

10 Sci-Fi Weapons That Actually Exist

Behold the Laser Avenger, a cannon that could be used to take down incoming aircraft. Boeing was able to shoot a drone out of the sky with the hummer-mounted laser, even though it’s not particularly high-powered. It cooked the remote-controlled aircraft using a somewhat feeble 1-kilowatt beam. More recently, the company shot down another UAV using a low-power laser paired with its Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments, or Matrix, system during a test in White Sands, New Mexico.

From The Danger Room:

Sure, the gear may look like it came straight out of Avatar or Battlestar Galactica. But all of the laser weapons, robots, sonic blasters and puke rays pictured here are real. Some of these weapons have already found their way onto the battlefield. If the rest of this sci-fi arsenal follows, war may soon be unrecognizable.

Read on for a look at some of these futuristic weapons being tested today.

Read more ....

The Year In Robotics

Photo: Talking to me?: This robot, called Robovie, uses gaze cues to manage a conversation. Credit: Bilge Mutlu

From Technology Review:

During the past 12 months, robots got better at grasping, smiling, and avoiding angry humans.

In the past year, researchers have developed new robots to tackle a variety of tasks: helping with medical rehabilitation, aiding military maneuvers, mimicking social skills, and grasping the unknown. Here are the highlights.

Read more ....

Bacteria 'Could Tackle Cocaine Addiction'

The discovery has been hailed as possible method of helping addicts get off Cocaine and could prevent deaths from overdose. Photo: PA

From The Telegraph:

A bacteria could be used to reduce the addictiveness of cocaine, scientists have found.

The naturally-occurring bacterial enzyme Cocaine esterase, CocE, breaks down cocaine which reduced its addictive properties.

The discovery has been hailed as possible method of helping addicts get off the drug and could prevent deaths from overdose.

Read more ....

A History Of Walking On Water

From New Scientist:

On the afternoon of 22 January 1907, a wailing chorus of steamboat whistles sent the residents of Memphis, Tennessee, running to the banks of the Mississippi river. "A great crowd assembled on the riverside, thinking some great disaster was taking place on the water," reported the Memphis News-Scimitar. Instead, the swelling crowd was greeted by the sight of a man calmly walking on water. This was no miracle. Gliding along on a pontoon-like pair of "water shoes" was "Professor" Charles W. Oldrieve, the world's pre-eminent "aquatic pedestrian".

Read more ....

Great Balls Of Fire! Embers 10,000 Times Hotter Than Our Sun Left Behind By Supernova

Suzaku detected X-rays from fully ionized silicon and sulfur - which
indicates temperatures of 17million celsius

From The Daily Mail:

The glowing embers left behind by one of the most powerful type of explosions in the Universe have been revealed for the first time.

Remnants from giant fireballs unleashed by a supernova are still glowing at temperatures 10,000 times hotter than the Sun thousands of years after the event.

Read more ....

Looking Back in Time 12 Billion Years With New Instruments On Herschel Space Observatory

This is the Herschel Space Observatory. (Credit: European Space Agency)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 1, 2010) — An instrument package developed in part by the University of Colorado at Boulder for the $2.2 billion orbiting Herschel Space Observatory launched in May by the European Space Agency has provided one of the most detailed views yet of space up to 12 billion years back in time.

Read more ....

Popular Treatment For Low-Back Pain Doesn't Work

From Live Science:

Mild electric shocks supplied by a portable device, a process called TENS, have been used for years to treat chronic low-back pain.

Problem is, it doesn't work, a new study concludes.

Anyone currently getting transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) treatments should consult with their doctor about the new findings, researchers said.

"The strongest evidence showed that there is no benefit for people using TENS for chronic low-back pain," said Dr. Richard M. Dubinsky of the Kansas University Medical Center.

Read more ....

Africa-wide "Great Green Wall" To Halt Sahara's Spread?

Acacia trees line an African landscape in an undated picture. Picture by Tim Laman, NGS

From National Geographic:

China built its famous Great Wall to keep out marauders. Now, millennia later, a "Great Green Wall" may rise in Africa to deter another, equally relentless invader: sand.

The proposed wall of trees would stretch from Senegal to Djibouti as part of a plan to thwart the southward spread of the Sahara, Senegalese officials said earlier this month at the UN's Copenhagen climate conference.

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As Britain Told To Expect Snow For 'Next 10 Days', How Is The Rest Of The World Is Coping With This Arctic Weather?

Paramilitary policemen stand guard in front of the late
Chairman Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square, Beijing

From The Daily Mail:

When Britain woke up on the first day of the New Year it was met with freezing cold temperatures, feet of snow in places and the promise of travel chaos.

And now, three days into 2010, forecasters have warned to expect continued snowfall for the next 10 days - bringing with it added stress for commuters heading back to work after a festive break and children returning to school tomorrow.

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2010: The Year Of The Mobile

From Times Online:

The trend to smaller connected devices will continue this year, as the likes of Nokia, Google and Apple deliver their new products.

Desktop computers are so last decade. 2010 is shaping up to be the year when internet users move decisively away from bulky machines to the mobile web.

The trend towards portable, mini-laptops and devices that allow you to surf the web on the go will accelerate in 2010 as companies slug it out in the key battleground of smartphones, analysts predict.

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How To Find Hidden Explosives At Airports

These images were recorded with millimeter wave technology.
Credit: TSA

From Technology Review:

We already have the technology for discovering hidden explosives, but it could lead to long lines.

The bomb that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab reportedly tried to set off as his flight neared Detroit on Christmas could have been detected using existing screening technologies, had they only been used. Not only could the explosives have been spotted using back-scatter X-rays or millimeter wave technology--which can see through clothes--invisible traces of the explosive could have been detected using chemical sensors. But both technologies, if used to screen all passengers, would lead to long lines at airport security checkpoints.

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Cancer Risk Increases With Blood Sugar

From The Telegraph:

Up to one in six Britons with high blood-sugar levels faces a greater danger of developing cancer, according to new research.

Excess blood sugar means someone could be more likely both to develop cancer and also to die from it, according to research in the Public Library of Science journal.

Women were more vulnerable than men and high blood sugar is linked o a range of different cancers for each gender, it found.

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Invading Beetles Mummified By Stingless Bees

From New Scientist:

It's not so much eternal life, more a case of instant death. Parasitic beetles that dare to invade the hive of certain stingless bees end up entombed forever in resin. "They're stopped in their tracks and they dehydrate and shrivel up like a mummy," says Mark Greco, an entomologist at the Swiss Bee Research Centre in Bern who discovered the practice in a species of Australian stingless bees, Trigona carbonaria, living in the wild.

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