Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Dark Matter 'Beach Ball' Unveiled

Image: The trail of matter left by an orbiting galaxy hints at the dark matter's shape

From The BBC:

The giant halo of dark matter that surrounds our galaxy is shaped like a flattened beach ball, researchers say.

It is the first definitive measure of the scope of the dark matter that makes up the majority of galaxies' masses.

The shape of this "dark matter halo" was inferred from the path of debris left behind as the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy slowly orbits the Milky Way.

Read more ....

'Earth-Like' Exoplanet Is Intensely Volcanic

The planet, called Corot-7b, was detected by French astronomers in 2009. Credit: ESO

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: The first rocky planet found outside of our Solar System is likely to be a volcanic wasteland inhospitable to life, scientists have found.

The planet, called Corot-7b, was detected by French astronomers in 2009. It has a similar density to Earth and has a diameter around 70% larger.

Last week astronomers led by Rory Barnes at the University of Washington in Seattle, presented new data on Corot-7b's orbit to a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington DC.

Read more ....

SpoofCard Phone Case: Messing With Caller ID Isn't Always Funny

Newscom

From Christian Science Monitor:

Prosecutors pursue New York case alleging illegal phone tampering via SpoofCard.

The service has a fun name – SpoofCard – but it can land its users in hot water if they employ it for purposes that aren't funny.

New Yorker Ali Wise appeared in court in New York City this week on charges stemming from alleged misuse of the SpoofCard service may be the latest case in point. Ms. Wise, a former publicity director for fashion house Dolce & Gabbana, is alleged to have used the service to invade and tamper with the phone accounts of four women who dated her ex-boyfriends.

Read more ....

On The Street: Future of Dating: CBS News


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Mystery Object On Course To Whiz Past Earth

The near-Earth object known as 2010 AL30 appears as a spot against the background streaks of stars in this image from the Skylive-Grove Creek Observatory in Australia. E. Guido and G. Sostero / AFAM / CARA

From MSNBC/Discovery News:

It will not hit the planet, but scientists aren't sure what it is, exactly.

A near-Earth object that could be human-made has just been discovered hurtling toward us. On Wednesday, the object called 2010 AL30 will fly by Earth at a distance of just 80,000 miles (130,000 kilometers). That's only one-third of the way from here to the moon — that is, very close.

It will miss us, and if it did hit us, it wouldn't do any damage anyway, but I managed to pick up on some chatter between planetary scientists and found out that the "asteroid," or whatever it is, gives us a new standard: A 10-meter-wide (33-foot-wide) asteroid can be detected two days before it potentially hits Earth. A pretty useful warning, if you ask me.

Read more ....

Tombs Of The Pyramid Builders Discovered In Giza, Egypt

Bones and pottery inside one of the tomb shafts. Images courtesy the SCA
(Supreme Council of Antiquities)


From The Independent:

An archaeological team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass has discovered several new tombs that belong to the workers who built the pyramids of Khufu and Khafre. “This is the first time to uncover tombs like the ones that were found during the 1990s, which belong to the late 4th and 5th Dynasties (2649-2374 BC),” said Dr. Hawass.

Read more ....

Stonehenge On 'Most Threatened' World Wonders List

Traffic at Stonehenge has put Britain's most famous prehistoric monument on a list of the world's most threatened sites. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett /Reuters

From The Guardian:

Britain's failure to deal with road traffic around the prehistoric stone circle is condemned as 'a national disgrace'.

The traffic-choked roads still roaring past Stonehenge in Wiltshire have earned the world's most famous prehistoric monument a place on a list of the world's most threatened sites.

The government's decision to abandon, on cost grounds, a plan to bury roads around Stonehenge in a tunnel underground and the consequent collapse of the plans for a new visitor centre, have put the site on the Threatened Wonders list of Wanderlust magazine, along with the 4x4-scarred Wadi Rum in Jordan, and the tourist-eroded paths and steps of the great Inca site at Machu Picchu in Peru.

Read more ....

Brain 'Entanglement' Could Explain Memories

Mirror image: neurons in the brain begin to clone after reaching a
'tipping point' of activity (Image: Stone/Getty)


From The New Scientist:

Subatomic particles do it. Now the observation that groups of brain cells seem to have their own version of quantum entanglement, or "spooky action at a distance", could help explain how our minds combine experiences from many different senses into one memory.

Previous experiments have shown that the electrical activity of neurons in separate parts of the brain can oscillate simultaneously at the same frequency – a process known as phase lockingMovie Camera. The frequency seems to be a signature that marks out neurons working on the same task, allowing them to identify each other.

Read more ....

Antarctic Sea Water Shows ‘No Sign’ Of Warming

(Click Image to Enlarge)

From Watts Up With That?

From the Australian: SEA water under an East Antarctic ice shelf showed no sign of higher temperatures despite fears of a thaw linked to global warming that could bring higher world ocean levels, first tests showed yesterday.

Sensors lowered through three holes drilled in the Fimbul Ice Shelf showed the sea water is still around freezing and not at higher temperatures widely blamed for the break-up of 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula, the most northerly part of the frozen continent in West Antarctica.

Read more
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Ongoing Human Evolution Could Explain Recent Rise In Certain Disorders

New research suggests that certain adaptations that once benefited humans may now be helping such ailments persist in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- advancements in modern culture and medicine. (Credit: iStockphoto/Mads Abildgaard)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 11, 2010) — The subtle but ongoing pressures of human evolution could explain the seeming rise of disorders such as autism, autoimmune diseases, and reproductive cancers, researchers write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Certain adaptations that once benefited humans may now be helping such ailments persist in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- advancements in modern culture and medicine.

Read more ....

Study: Running Shoes Could Cause Joint Strain

Running shoes may put more strain on your joints than running barefoot or even walking in high heels, a recent study suggests. Credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

Running shoes, decked out with the latest cushioning, motion control and arch support technologies, may not be as beneficial to your feet and joints as you might think.

A new study finds that running shoes, at least the kind currently on the market, may actually put more of a strain on your joints than if you were to run barefoot or even to walk in high-heeled shoes, and the increased pressure could lead to knee, hip and ankle damage. The scientists don’t recommend ditching your high-tech sneaks, however, as going barefoot on man-made surfaces could also prove harmful,

Read more ....

China's Popular Search Engine Hacked By Iranian Hackers

Image: Visitors to the site were greeted with this message.

Baidu Hacked By 'Iranian Cyber Army' -- The BBC

China's most popular search engine, Baidu, has been targeted by the same hackers that took Twitter offline in December, according to reports.

A group claiming to be the Iranian Cyber Army redirected Baidu users to a site displaying a political message.

The site was down for at least four hours on Tuesday, Chinese media said.

Last year's attack on micro-blogging service Twitter had the same hallmarks, sending users to a page with an Iranian flag and message in Farsi.

Read more ....

Watching TV Shortens Life Span, Study Finds


From The L.A. Times:

Australian researchers find that each hour a day spent in front of television is linked with an 18% greater risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and an 11% greater risk of all causes of death.

Watching television for hour upon hour obviously isn't the best way to spend leisure time -- inactivity has been linked to obesity and heart disease. But a new study quantifies TV viewing's effect on risk of death.

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Next 40 Years Key For Climate Change

Power from renewable sources such as wind farms will be important to fight climate change. Nevertheless, the study says that even if we do everything possible to reduce emissions between now and 2050, keeping overall temperature increases below 2ºC is "barely feasible". Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos/AFP:

WASHINGTON DC: World leaders should focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible over the next 40 years to avoid perilous warming, says a new study.

In the first research of its kind, analysts used a detailed energy system model to analyse the relationship between emissions levels in 2050 and chances of achieving end-of-century targets of 2 to 3ºC above the pre-industrial average.

Read more ....

Camera Showdown: Nexus One Vs. iPhone 3GS

The Nexus One's 5-megapixel camera also has an LED-powered flash.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

From CNET:

Rumors cropped up last week that Apple had put down a big order for LED flashes, something useful for one thing, and one thing only: a digital camera. It doesn't take much to figure that the next iteration of the iPhone is likely to be packing one of these, since many of the latest cell phones--including HTC's recently released Nexus One, now have them included.

Read more ....

Could Extinct Species Make a Comeback?


Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News 60 Minutes:

Lesley Stahl Reports on Research that Could One Day Resurrect Extinct Species and Save Endangered Ones.

(CBS) It's difficult to imagine that 10,000 years ago, right here in North America, there lived giant animals that are now the stuff of legends - mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths and sabretooth cats. They, and thousands of other species, have vanished from the Earth. And today, partly due to the expansion of one species - ours - animals are going extinct faster than ever before.

Read more
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A New Theory On Why The Sun Never Swallowed The Earth

Illustration by Denis Scott / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

When astronomers began spotting planets around distant stars in the mid-1990s, they were baffled. Many of these early discoveries involved worlds as big as Jupiter or even bigger — but they orbited their stars so tightly that their "years" were just days long. Nobody could imagine how a Jupiter or anything like it could form in such a hostile location, where the radiation of the parent star would have pushed the light gas — which makes up most of such a planet's mass — out to the farthest reaches of the solar system before it could ever coalesce.

Read more ....

Breezy Does It: How Wind Turbines Work

The great advantage of wind is that it is a free fuel, unlike gas, coal or oil. Britain is also a windy place, making supply relatively secure. GETTY IMAGES

From The Independent:

Wind farms generate electricity by capturing the kinetic energy of moving air.

The three blades of each turbine turn on a horizontal axis in the wind and the movement of this drive shaft spins an electricity generator, usually via a gearbox, so that power can be fed into the National Grid.

The wind farms being planned for sites off the coast of Britain will include some of the biggest wind generators ever built, with blades up to 60m long. These offshore wind generators will stand in water that is up to 30m deep and will be up to 220m tall from the base of their foundations to the tips of the turbine blades, about 40m taller than the "Gherkin" skyscraper in London.

Read more ....

Quantum Computer Successfully Calculates Exact Energy Of Molecular Hydrogen

Cepheus B, a Molecular Hydrogen Cloud Try modeling the molecular hydrogen in this cloud with a conventional computer. Go ahead, we'll wait. NASA

From Popular Science:

Researchers at Harvard and the University of Queensland have come up with a novel, just-crazy-enough-to-work method for modeling and simulating quantum systems: use a quantum computer. Employing the superior computing power of a custom-built quantum computing system, the researchers were able to determine the precise energy of molecular hydrogen for the first time, an impossible feat using classical computing methods. By doing so, they've opened the box on what could be a computing breakthrough stretching across disciplines.

Read more ....

Monday, January 11, 2010

More Evidence That Autism Is a Brain 'Connectivity' Disorder

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 11, 2010) — Studying a rare disorder known as tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), researchers at Children's Hospital Boston add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that autism spectrum disorders, which affect 25 to 50 percent of TSC patients, result from a miswiring of connections in the developing brain, leading to improper information flow. The finding may also help explain why many people with TSC have seizures and intellectual disabilities.

Read more ....

Global Trade Fuels Invasive Species

Rose-ringed Parakeet is currently expanding its range across Western Europe. It can be a serious agricultural pest and competes with native birds for nesting cavities. Credit: Oregon State University

From Live Science:

The expansion of world trade has long been blamed for the rise of invasive species and the environmental havoc such hitchhikers have dealt to delicate ecosystems. Now new evidence may bolster the case for new policies to combat the problem.

A new study found a significant decline in the number of bird species introduced into Eastern Europe during the Cold War, a time when much of the trade and travel between the region and its western counterparts ceased.

Read more ....

Google 'Censors Its Website So Anti-Islam Searches Fail To Appear'

Google has been accused of censoring offensive searches relating to Islam

From The Daily Mail:

Search engine Google has been accused of censoring its results after users discovered it never suggests search terms when it comes to Islam.

In a time-saving feature the internet phenomenon, whose motto is 'don't be evil', helpfully suggests common searches as people type in what they are looking for.

For example, if you type in 'Christianity is' in the search bar a whole range of options flash up including controversial suggestions such as 'Christianity is fake' and 'Christianity is a cult'.

Read more ....

Artificial Leaf Could Make Green Hydrogen

Harnessing plant power (Image: Pasieka/SPL)

From New Scientist:

HIDDEN detail in the natural world could hold the key to future sources of clean energy. So say materials scientists who have created an artificial leaf that can harness light to split water and generate hydrogen.

Plant leaves have evolved over millions of years to catch the energy in the sun's rays very efficiently. They use the energy to produce food, and the central step in the process involves splitting water molecules and creating hydrogen ions.

Read more ....

More Abundance by Owning Less

From Discovery News:

Less is more; let the music show you how. We've witnessed the progression: albums to compact discs to digital files a la iTunes, where each step takes less material and less effort to get the music to the listener. Now, internet radio (places like SOMA FM and Pandora) draws the material piece down to nothing (although maybe there's a greater bandwidth component if you're continuously piping music across the airwaves, instead of just once at purchase, as is the case with digital files).

Read more ....

The 2010s: Freakin' Awesome-With Lasers


From CBS News:

Scientists Predict Some Uncertainty, Some Unbridled Optimism, and Some Warnings to the World to Make a Course Correction.

(CBS) This article was written by Discover's Andrew Moseman and Brett Israel.

There's nothing like the round number at the start of a new decade to get everyone prognosticating (yes, we know some of you are in the crowd that says the new decade doesn't begin until 2011; OK, fine). To predict what the scientific scene will be like in 2020, the journal Nature brought in experts from 18 fields. Though the collection doesn't encapsulate the "world of tomorrow" feel of, say, the old Omni magazine, it's still packed with sunny (and scary) forecasts. Some show lingering uncertainty, some unbridled optimism, and some give warnings to the world to make a much-needed course correction. Here are five we thought were particularly telling.

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Microsoft Word And Office 'Sales Ban' Begins

From BBC News:

A ban on Microsoft selling certain versions of its flagship products Word and Office has begun.

The software firm was made to change elements of the software by US courts after a patent dispute with Canadian firm i4i.

Microsoft said that it had complied with the court's ruling and would now offer "revised software" in the US.

The court ruling means that Microsoft must also pay i4i damages of $290m (£182m).

Read more ....

Remembering The First Hydrogen Bomb Test



From Wired Science:

The long-distance scientific recordings of the blast wave from the first hydrogen bomb test have been rediscovered in a formerly classified safe at Columbia University.

On November 1, 1952, physicists created the second fusion explosion the solar system has ever known. The first occurred around 4.5 billion years ago and ignited the ongoing fusion reaction in the sun. The second, the Ivy Mike experiment, was shorter lived and detonated on an atoll in the South Pacific. This 10-megaton blast was five times more powerful than all the explosives used in World War II combined, including the nuclear-fission bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Read more ....

Yearlong Star Eclipse May Help Solve Space Mystery

Artist's conception of the dusty disk thought to eclipse the star Epsilon Aurigae. Illustration by Nico Camargo and courtesy www.citizensky.org

From The National Geographic:

While relatively few people were looking, an unusual eclipse darkened New Year's Day.

On January 1 a giant space object blotted out our view of Epsilon Aurigae, a yellow supergiant star about 2,000 light-years from Earth. Based on studies of Epsilon Aurigae's previous eclipses, astronomers expect the star won't fully regain its bright shine until early 2011.

Read more ....

Overwhelmed With Data Feeds, Military Turns To NFL Broadcast Tricks For Highlighting Drone Targets

Analyzing Targets Keeping watch on imagery intelligence.
U.S. Air Force/Tech. Sgt. Erik Gudmundson


From Popular Science:

War is no game, but it could learn a trick or two from football.

A growing swarm of drones keep watch on the battlefield, but military analysts struggle to watch every second of live surveillance footage so that they can quickly pass on warnings about ambushes or possible targets to warfighters. Now the U.S. military has turned to ESPN and Fox Sports to learn how to quickly identify and transmit the video highlights, the New York Times reports.

Read more ....

The Coming Water Wars?

"Water: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, And Civilization:" Water As The New Oil -- Seattle Times

Author Steven Solomon's "Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization" documents the hunt throughout history to find sources of clean water, a task likely to become more fraught with conflict in the coming age of water scarcity.

There's a slick catchphrase in the air these days — "Water is the new oil" — that author Steven Solomon and others use when referencing water's newfound significance on today's geopolitical stage.

But if Solomon's outstanding survey, "Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization," reveals anything, it is that oil, for maybe a century or so, was actually the new water, and now water has simply returned to the primacy it has always held throughout history.

In detailed but highly readable fashion, economics journalist Solomon ("Confidence Game," 1995) works through each major civilization — the Mesopotamians, the Egyptians, the early Romans, China, India, Islam, northern Europe, the New World — and shows the profound water challenges each faced and overcame in advancing human aspirations.

Read more ....

My Comment: This book is on my "to read" list. For the past few years I have been commenting in this blog on the history of wars over water, and on how future wars may revolve on the scarcity of clean water. From what I have read in the preamble to this book .... author Steven Solomon is hitting all the bases.

'Fossil' Fireballs from Supernovae Discovere By Suzaku Observatory

In the supernova remnant W49B, Suzaku found another fossil fireball. It detected X-rays produced when heavily ionized iron atoms recapture an electron. This view combines infrared images from the ground (red, green) with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory (blue). (Credit: JAXA/NASA/Suzaku, Tom Bash and John Fox/Adam Block/NOAO/AURA/NSF)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — Studies of two supernova remnants using the Japan-U.S. Suzaku observatory have revealed never-before-seen embers of the high-temperature fireballs that immediately followed the explosions. Even after thousands of years, gas within these stellar wrecks retain the imprint of temperatures 10,000 times hotter than the sun's surface.

Read more ....

Why Bright Light Worsens Migraine Headache Pain

Nearly 85 percent of people who suffer migraine headaches are extremely sensitive to light, a condition known as photophobia. Scientists have now found the nerves involved in this light sensitivity, pointing to future possible migraine treatments. Image credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

When a migraine hits, many sufferers hide out in a dark room, away from the painful light. Now scientists think they know why light makes migraines worse.

New research on humans and rats has revealed a visual pathway in the brain that underlies this light sensitivity during migraines in blind individuals and in individuals with normal eyesight.

Read more ....

Google News Puts Experiments On Front Page – And Stops Adding AP Stories

Google integrated two of its news experiments, Fast Flip and Living Stories,
into the US homepage of Google News today.


From The Guardian:

Google gives its visual news experiments greater prominence, while quietly ceasing to update its AP content.

Living Stories, a project developed with the New York Times and the Washington Post, is on the upper right next to Top Stories, while Fast Flip (picture above) is right down at the bottom of the page. Both experiments should now see their audiences widen considerably.

"Encouraged by the positive feedback we've received from users and partners, we decided to expose the service to more potential readers by integrating it with the US English version of Google News," software engineers Jack Hebert, Matthew Watson and Corrie Scalisi wrote about Fast Flip on the Google news blog.

Read more ....

Our Guide To The Top Ebook Readers

Going digital: The Amazon Kindle (far left), 2Iriver Story (top left), Cool-er eReader, Sony Reader Pocket Edition (top right), Cybook Opus (bottom right), Sony Reader Touch Edition

From The Daily Mail:

They may look newfangled, but ebook readers sold in their millions last year because they are, in effect, hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers in one portable package.

And they're no mere novelty items: on Christmas Day Amazon.com sold more ebooks than physical books. So, which device should you try?

All the models here have broadly similar greyscale screens, and each works in the same way - you go to an ebook website, download ebooks onto the reader, and that's it.

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At The Edge Of Thought

From New Scientist:

I know that the New Year has officially arrived when John Brockman publishes the responses to his Annual Question over at the Edge website.

This year, Brockman asked his crew of intellectual heavy-hitters, "How is the internet changing the way you think?"

The answers range from "It's not" to "Everything's going to hell" to "The internet is making us smarter, more social and more evolved" to "Who the hell knows?", with a dose of everything in between.

Read more ....

Laminated Linen Protected Alexander The Great

Image: This mosaic of Alexander the Great shows the king wearing linothorax -- an armor made from laminated linen. Martin Beckmann

From Discovery News:


Alexander's men wore linothorax, a highly effective type of body armor created by laminating together layers of linen, research finds.


A Kevlar-like armor might have helped Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.) conquer nearly the entirety of the known world in little more than two decades, according to new reconstructive archaeology research.

Presented at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Anaheim, Calif., the study suggests that Alexander and his soldiers protected themselves with linothorax, a type of body armor made by laminating together layers of linen.

Read more ....

How e-Books Are Changing The Printed Word

Photo: The printed word, from Gutenberg's Bible to the Kindle. (CBS/AP)

From CBS News:

As Sales of Physical Books Decline, Digital Books Are Expected to Soon Be a Billion-Dollar Business.

When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the mid-1400s, he built a system - moveable type that worked, and worked very well (with incremental advances) for more than 500 years.

The system STILL works. But in this new decade, the book business is undergoing its biggest change since, well, forever.

When asked about the status of books as we enter 2010, literary agent and former publishing house CEO Larry Kirshbaum says, "We are at the crossroads in terms of this new technology."

Read more ....

Neanderthal 'Make-Up' Containers Discovered

Photo: The shells were coated with residues of mixed pigments

From The BBC:

Scientists claim to have the first persuasive evidence that Neanderthals wore "body paint" 50,000 years ago.

The team report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that shells containing pigment residues were Neanderthal make-up containers.

Scientists unearthed the shells at two archaeological sites in the Murcia province of southern Spain.

The team says its find buries "the view of Neanderthals as half-wits" and shows they were capable of symbolic thinking.

Read more ....

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Egypt Tombs Suggest Pyramids Not Built By Slaves

An Egyptian antiquities worker walks past a newly discovered ancient site in this June 6, 2002 file photo. New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday. REUTERS/Aladin Abdel Naby/Files

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

CAIRO (Reuters) – New tombs found in Giza support the view that the Great Pyramids were built by free workers and not slaves, as widely believed, Egypt's chief archaeologist said on Sunday.

Films and media have long depicted slaves toiling away in the desert to build the mammoth pyramids only to meet a miserable death at the end of their efforts.

Read more ....

From High School Robotics To The White House


From Geek Dad:

A few months ago, President Obama launched the “Educate to Innovate” campaign to strengthen competency in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. During this event, some students were invited to demonstrate their robot they built as part of the 2009 FIRST Robotics competition. One of those students, Steven Harris, commented on the importance of high school robotics teams and his experience with his own team:

“I have been a part of FIRST Robotics for eight years. My first exposure to FIRST Robotics was in fourth grade. On Saturdays, when my brother was a member of the team at Oakton High School, I got to go to the team meetings because my father was a parent mentor for the team, helping the members of the team build and design the robots…

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The Mini Ice Age Starts Here


From The Daily Mail:

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in
summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

Read more ....

Get Ready For China's Domination Of Science

Science goes east (Image: Guang Niu/Getty)

From The New Scientist:

SINCE its economic reform began in 1978, China has gone from being a poor developing country to the second-largest economy in the world. China has also emerged from isolation to become a political superpower. Its meteoric rise has been one of the most important global changes of recent years: the rise of China was the most-read news story of the decade, surpassing even 9/11 and the Iraq war.

Yet when it comes to science and technology, most people still think of China as being stuck in the past and only visualise a country with massive steelworks and vast smoking factories.

Read more ....

Most Earth-Like Exoplanet Ever Found Started Out As A Gas Giant

This artist's impression shows sunrise over CoRoT-7b, the smallest-known exoplanet. The world is about 70 percent larger than Earth. Now, a team led by Brian Jackson at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center finds that the planet may be the rocky remains of a gas giant planet whose atmosphere was evaporated by close proximity to the star. (Credit: ESO/L. Calçada)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 10, 2010) — The most earthlike planet yet found around another star may be the rocky remains of a Saturn-sized gas giant, according to research presented January 6 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington.

"The first planets detected outside our solar system 15 years ago turned out to be enormous gas-giants in very tight orbits around their stars. We call them 'hot Jupiters,' and they weren't what astronomers expected to find," said Brian Jackson at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Now, we're beginning to see Earth-sized objects in similar orbits. Could there be a connection?"

Read more ....

Fish Punish Fish For Bad Manners

Male cleaner fish will punish females when the females misbehave at mealtime, a new study finds. Here, the cleaner fish Labroides dimidiatus cleans the larger N. nigrosis. Credit: Richard Smith.

From Live Science:

Fish may dine underwater, but they still need to remember their manners at mealtime.

Males of a certain fish species will punish females when they misbehave while eating, a new study finds.

And the chastisement occurs even though the males are not directly affected by the female's trouble-making, indicating that these fish may exhibit a form of human social behavior known as third-party punishment, the researchers say.

Read more
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Plastic Logic Aims New Que E-Reader At Business Users


From Gadget Lab:

LAS VEGAS — After months of offering tantalizing bits of information, Plastic Logic has finally launched its new e-reader Que.

The Que proReader has an 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen display and the ability to handle a range of documents such as Microsoft Word files, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, digital books, PDFs, magazines and newspapers.

Read more ....

Washington Area Students Enter Robotics Competition

Jerry Skene, right, of Chantilly Robotics mentors a group from Anacostia High School participating in the FIRST Robotics Competition. (Jahi Chikwendiu - Washington Post)

From The Washington Post:

Tyler Saunders, a sophomore at Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School, says she should really be devoting her Saturdays to the algebra that she finds so vexing.

But she and a group of other students from the District school find something compelling about the challenge they received Saturday: in just six weeks, turn two big boxes of bolts, gears, hydraulics and electronic components into a robot that can maneuver with a soccer ball.

Read more
....

Record 232-Digit Number From Cryptography Challenge Factored

From Scientific American:

A team of researchers has successfully factored a 232-digit number into its two composite prime-number factors, but too late to claim a $50,000 prize once attached to the achievement. The number, RSA-768, was part of a cryptography challenge that technically ended in 2007 that had been sponsored by RSA Laboratories, a prominent computer-security firm. RSA-768, so named because its binary representation is 768 bits long, is the largest number from the now-defunct challenge to be cracked.

Read more ....

Trio Of NASA Craft Will Boost Climate Data

Endeavour, part of the retiring shuttle fleet, rolls to the launch pad in Florida. NASA will also launch crafts to aid the study of sea salinity, the sun and aerosols. (Matt Stroshane / Getty Images / January 6, 2010)

From the L.A. Times:

Reporting from Washington - NASA heads into 2010 with the bittersweet assignment of retiring the space shuttle after nearly three decades. But the agency also plans to launch three new satellites aimed at better understanding the sun and Earth's climate and oceans.

Two satellites will examine Earth -- specifically, the concentration of salt in the world's oceans and the presence of aerosols, or minute particles, such as dust or ash, in the atmosphere. A third satellite mission will study the sun and its effect on space weather, including solar flares that can disrupt communication on Earth.

Read more ....

Hands-On: Twin Screens Pack Potential In eDGe Netbook, E-Reader Combo


From Gadget Lab:

LAS VEGAS — The enTourage eDGe is an unusual device. With two screens that fold together like a book, the eDGe promises to be an electronic book reader and a netbook at the same time so users can switch from reading on the black-and-white E Ink screen to the adjacent LCD screen to send e-mails, browse and watch videos.

The eDGe, which was announced in October, made its debut Tuesday at a preview event for the Consumer Electronics Show here.

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High-Tech Sex? Porn Flirts With The Cutting Edge

An adult entertainer dances at the 2010 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nev., Friday Dec. 8, 2010. It's no accident that each year as the Consumer Electronics Show winds down in Las Vegas, the Adult Entertainment Expo heats up. (Zuma Press/Newscom)

From ABC News:

The porn industry peddles a product as old as Adam and Eve, and it's always found the most cutting edge ways to do it.

It's no accident that each year as the Consumer Electronics Show winds down in Las Vegas, the Adult Entertainment Expo heats up. Bespectacled techies cross paths with corseted porn stars selling high-tech sex toys and tools of all shapes and sizes.

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How To Make A Liquid Invisibility Cloak

Hiding behind water (Image: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty)

From New Scientist:

When J. K. Rowling described Harry Potter's invisibility cloak as "fluid and silvery", she probably wasn't thinking specifically about silver-plated nanoparticles suspended in water. But a team of theorists believe that using such a set-up would make the first soft, tunable metamaterial – the "active ingredient" in an invisibility device.

The fluid proposed by Ji-Ping Huang of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and colleagues, contains magnetite balls 10 nanometres in diameter, coated with a 5-nanometre-thick layer of silver, possibly with polymer chains attached to keep them from clumping.

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CES: Apple Looms Over CES From Afar

Photo: Steve Ballmer shows off a slate PC during his opening keynote at CES 2010. (Credit: James Martin/CNET)

From CNET:

LAS VEGAS--The most buzzed-about device at CES 2010 wasn't even on display here.

A tablet or slate computer from Apple was basically all anyone wanted to talk about, and it's not even a confirmed product yet. As a result, Lady Gaga might be the only thing that was actually at CES 2010 that could even be described as generating large-scale buzz.

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