Thieves Use Google Earth To Find And Plunder Wineries' Solar Panels

Solar-Powered Vineyards "Just leave me in peace to tend to my wine" Langetwins Winery and Vineyards

From Popular Science:

Google's "do no evil" motto fails to halt heartless bandits.

Hot on the heels of news about Google's new energy venture comes this sorrowful tale about renewable energy. NPR reports on enterprising thieves who used Google Earth to do evil, and specifically to find California wineries with solar panels for the taking.

Yes, even the criminal underworld has embraced clean tech in the 21st century. Many thieves have reportedly used trucks to simply crash winery gates and steal up to 70 panels at a time. Local sheriff deputies speculate that online tools such as Google Earth might make it particularly easy to locate possible targets -- more than 400 panels worth over $1,000 each were stolen from Napa Valley vineyards in 2009.

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Coral Reefs Are Evolution Hotspot

The reefs are centres of evolution as well as biodiversity.

From The BBC:

Coral reefs give rise to many more new species than other tropical marine habitats, according to a new study.

Scientists used fossil records stretching back 540 million years to work out the evolution rate at reefs.

They report in the journal Science that new species originate 50% faster in coral reefs than in other habitats.

The team says its findings show that the loss of these evolution hotspots could mean "losing an opportunity to create new species" in the future.

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Greatest Finds Of The Year

From The Independent:

It’s been another fascinating and prolific 12 months in archaeology, with discoveries - ranging from a multi-million pound medieval gold hoard to a lost Roman city, a “missing link” in human evolution and a prehistoric erotic figurine - coming thick and fast from the four corners of the globe.

They’ve been made by all from hard-working heritage experts, after years of slaving at the archaeological coal-face, to fluky amateurs on their very first treasure hunt.

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How Earth Survived Its Birth: New Simulation Reveals Planet Migration Prevents Plunge Into Sun

New simulations show that variations in temperature can lead to regions of outward and inward migration that safely trap planets on orbits around their sun. (Credit: iStockphoto/Kirill Putchenko)

From Live Science:

Science Daily (Jan. 8, 2010) — For the last 20 years, the best models of planet formation -- or how planets grow from dust in a gas disk -- have contradicted the very existence of Earth. These models assumed locally constant temperatures within a disk, and the planets plunge into the Sun. Now, new simulations from researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and the University of Cambridge show that variations in temperature can lead to regions of outward and inward migration that safely trap planets on orbits.

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Polar Bears Forced To Land And Water

Polar bears depend on sea ice for hunting, breeding and denning. The bears wait for seals to pop up through breathing holes in the ice, but since the ice is melting earlier and earlier in the year, polar bears are shifting there habitat to land and water, and may be missing out on hunting opportunities. Credit: USGS

From Live Science:

As Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are changing their habitat, shifting from their preferred ice hunting grounds to land and open water, according to a new long-term study.

The findings have implications for people as well as polar bears, since the shift makes it more likely that humans will encounter these large animals on land, the researchers say.

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Dark Roasted Blend: Weird & Wonderful Things in 2009

From The Dark Roasted Blend:

Promoting "sense of wonder" and intense exploration of our world and beyond, shamelessly cynicism- and nihilism- free, "Dark Roasted Blend" is happy to serve our readers since 2006. As a sort of overview, but mostly trying to highlight the themes and articles of 2009 that you might have missed, here is a roundup of the most popular and interesting posts on DRB (arranged by months):

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Top 10 Places You Can’t Go

#1: RAF Menwith Hill

RAF Menwith Hill is a British military base with connections to the global ECHELON spy network. The site contains an extensive satellite ground station and is a communications intercept and missile warning site and has been described as the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. The site acts as a ground station for a number of satellites operated by the US National Reconnaissance Office, on behalf of the US National Security Agency, with antennae contained in a large number of highly distinctive white radomes, and is alleged to be an element of the ECHELON system. ECHELON was reportedly created to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies during the Cold War in the early 1960s, but since the end of the Cold War it is believed to search also for hints of terrorist plots, drug dealers’ plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence. It has also been involved in reports of commercial espionage and is believed to filter all telephone and radio communications in the nations which host it – an extreme violation of privacy.

From List Verse:

The world is full of secret and exclusive places that we either don’t know about, or simply couldn’t visit if we wanted to. This list takes a look at ten of the most significant places around the world that are closed to the general public or are virtually impossible for the general public to visit.

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100 Quotes Every Geek Should Know

Image by Wikimedia user Xander.

From Geekdad:

One thing that every geek can do is quote their favorite geek-culture media, whether it’s movies, books, television, theater or music. The GeekDads have tried to compile a list of such quotes for your enjoyment. This list is certainly not definitive. Indeed, it’s only the beginning! Feel free to add your own (clean) ones in the comments below.

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Aboriginal Folklore Leads To Meteorite Crater

Researchers are using Aboriginal dreaming stories and Google Maps to
find new meteorite impact craters. Credit: Google Maps

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: An Australian Aboriginal 'Dreaming' story has helped experts uncover a meteorite impact crater in the outback of the Northern Territory.

Duane Hamacher, an astrophysicist studying Aboriginal astronomy at Sydney's Macquarie University, used Google Maps to search for the signs of impact craters in areas related to Aboriginal stories of stars or stones falling from the sky.

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Samsung 9000 Series 3-D TV Is No Thicker Than a Pencil

Samsung LED9000: It's a bit slim

From Popular Science:

Samsung is going whole hog into 3-D with their newly announced TV lineup, but at the top is the 9000 series: an LED-backlit panel that's just 0.3 inches thin. And on its remote. a color touchscreen that can carry broadcast TV while you watch a Blu-ray disc.

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China Threatens To Slam Brakes On Price Of Lead

E-bikes were a feature of the Beijing Olympic Games last year, but reclassifying some of them as motorcycles will have an impact far beyond sales figures

From Times Online:

After a surge of more than 125 per cent, the price of lead ends the year in limbo — its future at the mercy of Chinese bureaucracy, the stroke of a pen and the legal status of 100 million electric bicycles.

The cycles in question, known as “e-bikes”, are battery-enhanced machines that are the darlings of the modern, urban Chinese. More than 20 million were sold this year, putting a vast army of commuters, unable to afford cars or motorcycles — and without licences — on the roads at a sedate maximum speed of 12 km/h (7½ mph).

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Whistleblower Web Site Goes Dark, Seeks Funding

From FOX News:

A Web site that for years has let anonymous whistleblowers break stories of corruption and government malfeasance has gone dark and is expected to remain offline until it finds funds to support its operations and fend off lawsuits.

A Web site that for years has let anonymous whistleblowers break stories of corruption and government malfeasance has gone dark and is expected to remain offline until it finds funds to support its operations and fend off lawsuits.

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Hubble Telescope Captures Earliest Images Of Universe - When It Was Just A 'Baby' At 600 Million Years

Deep space time: the Hubble picture shows the earliest ever seen galaxies which are circled in the boxes in the inset images on the left

From The Daily Mail:

The Hubble telescope has captured the earliest image yet of the universe - just 600 million years after the Big Bang.

It is the most complete picture taken in near-infrared light of the early universe, showing the first infant star clusters.

To give some perspective, the light left these galaxies 8billion years before our own Sun and Earth had even formed.

Scientists released the 'baby pictures' at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

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First Earth-Like Planet Spotted Outside Solar System Likely A Volcanic Wasteland

How similar is exoplanet CoRoT-7b to Earth? The newly discovered extra-solar planet (depicted in the above artist's illustration) is the closest physical match yet, with a mass about five Earths and a radius of about 1.7 Earths. Also, the home star to CoRoT-7b, although 500 light years distant, is very similar to our Sun. Unfortunately, the similarities likely end there, as CoRoT-7b orbits its home star well inside the orbit of Mercury, making its year last only 20 hours, and making its peak temperature much hotter than humans might find comfortable. (Credit: ESO/L. Calcada)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 7, 2010) — When scientists confirmed in October that they had detected the first rocky planet outside our solar system, it advanced the longtime quest to find an Earth-like planet hospitable to life.

Rocky planets -- Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars -- make up half the planets in our solar system. Rocky planets are considered better environments to support life than planets that are mainly gaseous, like the other half of the planets in our system: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

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Vampires Among Us: From Bats To Psychics

Films such as Daybreakers are examples of the
public's fascination with vampires. Credit: Lionsgate

From Live Science:

The new film "Daybreakers," which opens Friday, is set in 2019, after a global virus outbreak has transformed most of the world's population into vampires. This is not good news for the small remaining population of humans, who become the sole source of blood. Vampires are of course very popular in books and on the silver screen, especially recently. But are they real?

The answer depends on how literally you define "vampire."

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What An Anti-Climax: G-Spot Is A Myth

While 56% of women overall claimed to have a G-spot,
they tended to be younger and more sexually active.

From Times Online:

A sexual quest that has for years baffled millions of women — and men — may have been in vain. A study by British scientists has found that the mysterious G-spot, the sexual pleasure zone said to be possessed by some women but denied to others, may not exist at all.

The scientists at King’s College London who carried out the study claim there is no evidence for the existence of the G-spot — supposedly a cluster of internal nerve endings — outside the imagination of women influenced by magazines and sex therapists. They reached their conclusions after a survey of more than 1,800 British women.

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The Rise Of Robodoc

The Acrobot Robot, which helps orthopaedic surgeons
to carry out computer navigated partial knee replacements

From The Independent:

Many operations are becoming less invasive and more efficient due to the growth of cyber-surgery. Nina Lakhani on a British medical success story.

While surgeons are often criticised for their brusque bedside manner, few could accurately be described as robots. This is going to change as surgical consultations increasingly involve robotic systems to help diagnose, plan operations and reassure patients.

The development of robotic systems, both active and passive, is enabling surgeons to use keyhole techniques in hard-to-reach areas not previously thought possible. Britain is at the forefront of many advances. Collaborations between NHS surgeons, universities and private companies enable Britain to develop robotics more quickly and cheaply than North American and European counterparts.

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Using A Mobile Phone May Improve Memory And Stave Off Alzheimer's Disease

Mobile phones may stave off Alzheimer's Disease Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Talking on a mobile telephone can improve memory and protect the mind from Alzheimer's disease, according to new research.

Tests suggested that exposure to radiation from the devices had a beneficial effect on the mind and could even reverse the effects of Alzheimer's.

The surprise findings contradict some previous studies that have suggested mobiles can cause Alzheimer's and brain cancer.

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Solar System May Be More Compact Than Thought

A cloud of comets surrounds the main disc of the solar system - new research suggests the cloud may be more compact than previously thought (Illustration: T Pyle/SSC/JPL-Caltech/NASA)

From The New Scientist:

The solar system may be significantly more compact than previously thought, according to a new computer simulation of the cloud of comets that enshrouds the solar system. The work suggests the cloud may not contain as much material as once suspected, which could resolve a long-standing problem in models of how the planets formed.

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Galileo Space Navigation System To Be Ready In 2014

Photo: Use of basic Galileo services will be free,
while high-accuracy capabilities will be restricted to paying users

From Deutsche Welle:

After much delay, the European Commission has awarded contracts for work to start on building the highly-anticipated Galileo space navigation system. The first 14 satellites will be built by a German company.

The European Commission announced on Thursday that the long-delayed Galileo project, the European alternative to the American GPS satellite navigation system, will begin operation in 2014.

The Commission has awarded the German company OHB System AG a 566 million euro (813 million dollar) contract to build the first 14 satellites for the EU's new space-based navigation system.

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Skiff E-Reader Has Some New Tricks

From Popular Mechanics:

LAS VEGAS—The barrage of new products from CES includes a number of e-Ink devices, all lining up to dislodge the Kindle from its perch at the top of the market. Among the double fistful of readers for sale in 2010 will be the Skiff Reader, a sleek 11.5-inch device that has received a healthy share of buzz in the past few days. We've refrained from writing about Skiff until now because it's backed by Hearst, Popular Mechanics' own parent company, and because over the past year we've been sharing ideas on the device with the company's development team. (As you can see from the photo, we've created sample content for Skiff that will be shown this week in Las Vegas.)

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Tripping The Light Fantastic: 66 Black Holes Found 'Dancing' The Galactic Night Away

Hubble Space Telescope images of two small galaxies colliding to form one

From The Daily Mail:

It is the ultimate dance routine but get too close and it may be your last.

A team of astronomers have discovered 33 pairs of 'waltzing' black holes in distant galaxies which will eventually combine to form one.

Nearly every galaxy has a central super-massive black hole with a mass up to a billion times the mass of the Sun and galaxies often collide.

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97 Reasons To Quit Smoking

Image: (FOTOLIA/ISTOCKPHOTO)

From Health.com:

1. You won't have to pay more and more and more and more each year.
Yup, taxes will almost certainly continue to go up. New Jersey, Vermont, and Connecticut are among the states leaning harder on smokers for revenue, but even some tobacco-growing states are beginning to milk the coffin-nail cash cow. Lawmakers' reasoning: There is evidence that price increases cause smokers to reduce consumption. And the medical costs of smoking are astronomical—a huge burden to the states.

2. You'll inhale fewer germs.
New research suggests cigarettes are crawling with germs, which can be inhaled along with the smoke. It’s not clear if the germs can make you sick, but the yuck factor is undeniable.

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Physicists Beginning To See Data From The Large Hadron Collider

Last month the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider began recording proton-proton collisions at a record energy of 2.36 trillion electron volts. Image courtesy of the ATLAS experiment. (Credit: Image courtesy of Iowa State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 7, 2010) — Three Iowa State University physicists who took winter trips to the Large Hadron Collider for meetings and experimental work are starting to see real data from the planet's biggest science experiment.

Finally.

The multibillion-dollar collider made international news on Sept. 10, 2008, when it sent its first beam of protons around 17 miles of underground tunnel near Geneva, Switzerland. But breakdowns in the machine's high-current electrical connections forced a complete shutdown for more than a year of repairs and tests.

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Can A Person Freeze To Death?

From Live Science:

Extremely cold weather has descended upon most of the nation this week, and this frigid air may have you feeling like you could "freeze to death." Paranoia aside, when temperatures dip, frostbite and other health risks are real concerns. And death strikes long before the body actually freezes.

Yet our bodies are pretty hardy, as we have two built-in mechanisms to protect us from the cold.

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Free Flipper! Argues Scientist

Studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future. Photo: JASON HELLER / BARCROFT MEDIA

From The Telegraph:

Dolphins should be treated as “non-human persons” and merit special rights above other animals because they are so bright, scientists claim.

Researchers argue that it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in captivity or to kill them for food.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children.

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Landmark DNA Study Of 3,000 People To Unlock Mystery Of Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes, characterised by insulin resistance, can cause blindness and impotence

From Times Online:

The genetic roots of type 2 diabetes are to be explored in unprecedented depth to help to find better ways to diagnose and treat a disease that affects more than 2 million people in Britain.

A £15 million study is to read the complete DNA of 3,000 people, more than ten times more than have so far had their genomes sequenced, The Times has learnt.

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The World In 2020: Thrift, Hard Work – And No Smoking

'Labelling on all alcohol drinks was altered to proclaim 'drinking kills''. Matt Murphy

From The Independent:

What will our lives be like a decade from now? In the second part of our series, Independent writers glimpse the future.

By 2020 the people of Britain had grown accustomed to the "nanny state" telling them what to do. Smoking had been totally unacceptable for several years, after the smoking ban had been extended to outdoor public spaces such as parks, beaches and playgrounds. There was even talk of banning smoking in blocks of flats.

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One In Ten Stars 'Have Solar Systems Like Ours'

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the
American Astronomical Society in Washington DC Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

One in ten stars in the universe may host solar systems like the Sun's family of planets, astronomers believe.

Potentially hundreds of millions of stars may have solar systems that could harbour life-supporting Earth-like planets.

Our solar system has far-flung gas-giant planets with small rocky worlds such as the Earth and Mars nearer the parent star.

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Chilling Out In The Coldest Place on Earth

Just when you think it can't get any colder (Image: Michael Studinger/Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory/Columbia University)

From New Scientist:

VOSTOK Station in Antarctica currently holds the crown for the coldest place on the planet. It recorded -89.2 °C on 21 July 1983. But it could get even colder, with temperatures dropping to about -96 °C, if "perfect" cold-weather conditions prevail.

John Turner of the British Antarctic Survey and colleagues analysed the weather conditions that brought about the record chill and found it was caused by an unusual, near-stationary atmospheric vortex. "This isolated Vostok and prevented the waves of warm air that normally come up from the ocean," says Turner. After that big chill, the temperature bounced up by over 20 °C in one day (Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, DOI: 10.1029/2009JD012104).

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The Top 4 Sites To Land On Mars And Their Biggest Mysteries

Holden Crater

From Popular Mechanics:

The Spirit Rover is nearly history, stuck deep in sand, and while Opportunity travels on, it's not likely that it will travel much farther. Now, scientists are building the next rover to be sent to Mars. But before they fuel the rockets, researchers have to pick a spot to explore. Here are NASA's frontrunners.

Call it the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's version of the Final Four. Scientists at the Pasadena, Calif.–based NASA research center will decide within the next two years where to send the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover after it launches in the fall of 2011. MSL's mission is to scour the Red Planet for environments that may once have harbored, or may still harbor, microbial organisms. Such an environment would have to contain the basic ingredients of life—including water, organic carbon and a source of energy to sustain the microbes' metabolism.

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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

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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.

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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.