Has USA Hit Its Final Frontier In Human Space Exploration?

Gravitating toward the International Space Station: If it continues to get the government's support, which space experts say is likely, that will limit the money needed to send humans to the moon or Mars. NASA via AP

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — Still hoping for that Jetsons future?

Ruh-roh, as the Jetsons' dog, Astro, might put it.

Just six years ago, President Bush laid out a vision of space exploration that harked back to NASA's halcyon days built on astronauts as explorers. Bush wanted to sling them from low Earth orbit to a base on the moon and then, perhaps, on to a first manned landing on another planet, Mars.

But that was before huge federal deficits arrived, public support failed to show, and unmanned explorers scored successes — namely the Hubble telescope and Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which are still sending back signals years after they were expected to expire.

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Apple ‘Tablets’ Sniffed By Analytics Are More Likely iPhones

From Gadget Lab:

A mobile analytics company has come forward with what it touts as evidence that Apple tablet prototypes are being tested — without offering any solid details suggesting the mystery devices are tablets at all.

Analytics firm Flurry has tracked down 50 devices that it believes are Apple’s expected tablet. The devices’ IPs and GPS data give away they have not left Apple’s Cupertino campus, according to Flurry, which raises the firm’s suspicion that these are prototypes in testing. Flurry goes on to say its app tracking matches the “characteristics of Apple’s rumored tablet device” even though the analytics don’t provide any data about the characteristics of the prototypes.

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Stone Age Surgery Discovered After 7,000-Year-Old Man Found With Expertly Amputated Arm

From The Daily Mail:

Evidence of surgery carried out nearly 7,000 year ago has emerged – suggesting our Stone Age ancestors were more medically advanced than first thought.

Early Neolithic surgeons used a sharpened flint to amputate the left forearm of an elderly man, scientists have discovered.

And, more remarkable yet, they ensured the patient was anaesthetised and the limb cut off cleanly while the wound was treated afterwards in sterile conditions.

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Global Warming: 'Cooling' Forests Can Heat Too

Pine forest. The simple formula we've learned in recent years -- forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming -- may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. (Credit: iStockphoto/Jeremy Sterk)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 25, 2010) — The simple formula we've learned in recent years -- forests remove the greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere; therefore forests prevent global warming -- may not be quite as simple as we thought. Forests can directly absorb and retain heat, and, in at least one type of forest, these effects may be strong enough to cancel out a good part of the benefit in lowered CO2. This is a conclusion of a paper that will be published on January 22, in Science by scientists in the Weizmann Institute's Faculty of Chemistry.

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Good And Bad Angels In Hollywood And The Bible

Polls have indicated that nearly 70 percent of Americans think angels exist.
Credit: Screen Gems

From Live Science:

The new film "Legion" is about the final days of mankind, as a group of angels make a last stand in a small diner in New Mexico to protect a woman pregnant with humanity's new savior.

The archangel Michael is played by Paul Bettany, who portrays Charles Darwin in the new film "Creation," also released this Friday. The film poster shows Michael with a hunting knife in one hand and a machine gun in the other. This ain't your grandmother's angel.

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Gates, The Philanthropist, On Lessons Learned (Q&A)

Last year marked Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates' first year working full time as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In an interview with CNET, done in conjunction with the release of his annual foundation letter, he shared his insights into his philanthropy work, as well as some highlights of his travels. Gates talks with employees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle last month. Photo by Courtesy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

From CNET News:

SEATTLE--Bill Gates thought that coming up with vaccines would be the hard part and that delivering vaccines would be the easy part.

It turns out they are both hard.

That's one of the lessons that Gates tells CNET he has learned in his new role as full-time philanthropist. In travels to Africa, he saw firsthand the challenges of delivering vaccines, many of which have to be kept cold to be effective and are needed in places with no refrigeration.

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The Intricate Beauty Of The Solar Corona

(Click Image to Enlarge)

From Discovery News:

The solar corona is the magnetically dominated atmosphere of the sun, reaching millions of miles into space. Paradoxically, the corona is many times hotter than the solar 'surface' (the photosphere) and solar physicists are currently trying to understand why this is the case.

The photosphere has an average temperature of approximately 6000 degrees Celsius, whereas the corona can be millions of degrees Celsius. This is analogous to the air surrounding a hot light bulb being hotter than the bulb itself; in reality, the air surrounding the bulb is cooler than the bulb's glass surface, and it gets cooler the further you move your hand away.

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Prions 'May Keep Nerves Healthy'

Photo: Removing prion proteins led to a breakdown of the myelin sheath surrounding the nerve.

From BBC:

Experiments on mice may help scientists understand the workings of the prion protein linked to brain disease vCJD.

Swiss researchers say there is evidence that prions play a vital role in the maintenance of the sheath surrounding our nerves.

They say it is possible that an absence of prions causes diseases of the peripheral nervous system.

One expert said there was growing evidence that the prion had a number of important roles in the body.

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China Scientists Lead World In Research Growth

From The Financial Times:

China has experienced the strongest growth in scientific research over the past three decades of any country, according to figures compiled for the Financial Times, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.

Jonathan Adams, research evaluation director at Thomson Reuters, said China’s “awe-inspiring” growth had put it in second place to the US – and if it continues on its trajectory it will be the largest producer of scientific knowledge by 2020.

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Climate Change's Latest Storm -- A Commentary

From The Wall Street Journal:

Good news for the Earth, bad news for the IPCC.

It's been a good week for the future of Life as We Know It. First the keepers of the climate-science consensus admitted that the Himalayan glaciers are not on the verge of disappearing, as these columns pointed out last month. Now we've learned that there wasn't much science behind the claim, also trumpeted in the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2007 report, that rising temperatures were leading to more-intense storms and more-expensive natural catastrophes.

This is good news for everyone, except perhaps the IPCC itself.

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The Internet War -- A Commentary

Countries armed with "cyberweapons," according to McAfee.
(Credit: McAfee)

The Internet War -- An Editorial From The Washington Post

THE INTERNET has produced a vast expansion of free speech and access to information around the world. But for China and Russia, it has also become a means for waging a covert war against other nations, including the United States -- a brazen effort to steal secrets and plant malware. For those countries and for a host of other authoritarian regimes, Internet freedom is a threat, to be countered by censorship, the imprisonment of bloggers and domestic spying.

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Update: China Ups the Ante in Internet Row With U.S. -- Wall Street Journal editorial

My Comment: Two must read editorials on how both Russia and China are now using the world wide web to target us.

Are Bing And WolframAlpha Catching Up With Google In Search Engine Battle?

From The Guardian:

Panel hears how Google's competitors are looking at different ways of searching the internet.

The front of the pack isn't always the best place to be. In a panel of search engine representatives at the Munich DLD conference, Google's Ben Gomes was the most reluctant to give anything away. Alsio on the panel were Conrad Alpha, of WolframAlpha, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, the architect of Microsoft Visual Earth, and Ilya Segalovich, of Yandex – Russia's largest search engine.

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The Digital Revolution Is Making Earth Harder To Detect by Inquisitive Aliens, World's Leading ET Hunter Says

Out of reach? E.T. touches his friend Elliot in the film 'E.T The Extra Terrestrial'. Dr Frank Drake believes the digital revolution is making us harder for other life forms to detect

From The Daily Mail:

Satellite TV and the digital revolution is making humanity more and more invisible to inquisitive aliens on other planets, the world's leading ET hunter said today.

That might be good news for anyone who fears an 'Independence Day' - style invasion by little green men.

But it is also likely to make the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence by Earthly scientists harder, Dr Frank Drake believes.

Read more ....

More Cyber Attacks From China?

Iraq's Rumaila oil field: A key target of 2008 cyberattacks on US oil and gas companies ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and Marathon was exploration 'bid data' that provides critical details about new energy discoveries. Atef Hassan/Reuters

US Oil Industry Hit By Cyberattacks: Was China Involved? -- Christian Science Monitor

MONITOR EXCLUSIVE: Breaches show how sophisticated industrial espionage is becoming. The big question: Who’s behind them?

At least three US oil companies were the target of a series of previously undisclosed cyberattacks that may have originated in China and that experts say highlight a new level of sophistication in the growing global war of Internet espionage.

The oil and gas industry breaches, the mere existence of which has been a closely guarded secret of oil companies and federal authorities, were focused on one of the crown jewels of the industry: valuable “bid data” detailing the quantity, value, and location of oil discoveries worldwide, sources familiar with the attacks say and documents obtained by the Monitor show.

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More News On China And Cyber Attacks

Google cyberattacks stoke fears of stealth hackers -- Seattle Times/New York Times
Hack Attacks Test Google's Link to China -- CBS News
Chinese Government Denies Involvement In Google Attack -- The Atlantic
Google negotiating ways to keep presence in China -- Washington Post
Google: China Dispute Could Be Resolved in Weeks -- ABC News
Chinese Sites Report Cyber Attacks -- Wall Street Journal
China rights groups hit by cyberattacks: activists -- AFP
Microsoft beefs up security due to China hack -- National Business Review
Internet Explorer 'hit with new set of security flaws' -- The Telegraph
China Hacks Inspire Copycats -- PC World
Cybercriminals use China attacks on Google as lure -- Computer Weekly
The top 10 Chinese cyber attacks (that we know of) -- The Cable/Foreign Policy
What's really at stake in Google vs. China -- Fareed Zakaria, CNN opinion

Stroke's 'Death Signal' Can Be Blocked; Discovery May Aid Drug Development

Dr. Sic Chan is an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. (Credit: UCF/Jacque Brund)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 25, 2010) — Biomedical scientists from the University of Central Florida and Louisiana State University have identified a way to block a "cell death signal" that they believe triggers brain damage during strokes.

Strokes, also known as cerebral ischemia, are caused by inadequate blood flow to the brain and are the third-leading cause of death in the United States.

Read more ....

Breeding Has Made Dogs' Heads Incredibly Diverse

A cocker spaniel mix puppy. Credit: stock.xchng

From Live Science:

To get a sense of the not-so-subtle ways humans have influenced the course evolution, one wouldn't need to look further than Fido.

A new study reveals that the variety of skull shapes among domestic dogs has become just as diverse as the variety between other mammal species, such as bears, weasels, and seals. In fact some dog breeds’ heads vary in shape by more than the variation between cats and walruses.

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Dino Extinction Brought Birds Back To Earth

Flightless birds owe their success to the demise of the dinosaurs. Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: Large, flightless birds such as ostriches and emus, originated in the northern hemisphere, according to an Australian study that suggests they became grounded after dinosaurs went extinct.

Reconstructed migration patterns have raised questions about whether flightless birds could have their evolutionary origins in the planet's north.

Until now, most scientists thought these birds originated in the southern behemoth Gondwanaland, according to the study published in Systematic Biology.

Read more ....

Rivals Will Vie With Apple For Tablet Spotlight

Intel demonstrates OpenPeak tablet at 2010 CES.
(Credit: Intel)

From CNET:

Technology from Intel, Marvell, and Nvidia is powering some intriguing alternatives to the imminent Apple tablet.

News about the Apple tablet, when it emerges, will likely blanket the Internet for some time after the device is announced, obscuring tablet efforts from rivals. Nevertheless, there will be at least a few designs that should warrant some attention. Here are some potential high-profile alternatives:

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Scientists Create Model of Monster 'Frankenstorm'

A high-storm surf pounds the beach in front of an oil rig at Seal Beach, Calif.
AP Photo/Nick Ut

From Discovery News:

The recent California storms left the state battered and bruised, but that could just be a taster of things to come.

Think the recent wild weather that hammered California was bad? Experts are imagining far worse.

As torrential rains pelted wildfire-stripped hillsides and flooded highways, a team of scientists hunkered down at the California Institute of Technology to work on a "Frankenstorm" scenario -- a mother lode wintry blast that could potentially sock the Golden State.

Read more ....

China Rejects Claims Of Cyber Attacks On Google

From The BBC:

China has denied any state involvement in alleged cyber attacks on Google and accused the US of double standards.

A Chinese industry ministry spokesman told the state-run Xinhua news agency that claims that Beijing was behind recent cyber attacks were "groundless".

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has asked China to investigate claims by Google that it had been targeted by China-based hackers.

The US search giant has threatened to withdraw from China.

Read more ....

Is This The Apple Tablet In Action? (Video)

Video is from Zideo.

A Cannon For Shooting Supplies Into Space

How the Space Cannon Works John MacNeill

From Popular Science:

John Hunter wants to shoot stuff into space with a 3,600-foot gun. And he’s dead serious—he’s done the math. Making deliveries to an orbital outpost on a rocket costs $5,000 per pound, but using a space gun would cost just $250 per pound.

Read more ....

Comet Storm Split Destiny Of Jupiter's Twin Moons

Comet strikes may have warmed Ganymede enough for its
ice and rock to fully separate (Image: NASA/JPL)

From New Scientist:

Heavy pummelling by icy comets could explain why Jupiter's two biggest moons – apparently close kin – look so different inside.

At first glance, Ganymede and Callisto are virtually twins. The colossal moons are similar in size and mass, and are a roughly 50:50 mixture of ice and rock.

However, visits by the Galileo spacecraft beginning in 1996 tell a different story. Ganymede's interior boasts a solid rock core surrounded by a thick layer of ice, while ice and rock are still mingled in parts of Callisto. That suggests Callisto was never warm enough for its ice to melt and allow all of its rock to fall to the centre and form a core.

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If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe

From New York Times:

Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was “12345.”

Today, it’s one digit longer but hardly safer: “123456.”

Despite all the reports of Internet security breaches over the years, including the recent attacks on Google’s e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug.

According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like “abc123,” “iloveyou” or even “password” to protect their data.

“I guess it’s just a genetic flaw in humans,” said Amichai Shulman, the chief technology officer at Imperva, which makes software for blocking hackers. “We’ve been following the same patterns since the 1990s.”

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Neurons Developed From Stem Cells Successfully Wired With Other Brain Regions In Animals

This is a single stem cell-derived neuron that has migrated away from the transplantation site in the cortex and grown into a mature neuron. The blue stain shows the nuclei of the endogenous neural cells in this part of the brain. (Credit: Courtesy, with permission: Weimann et al. The Journal of Neuroscience 2010.)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 24, 2010) — Transplanted neurons grown from embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into the brains of young animals, according to new research in the Jan. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Healthy brains have stable and precise connections between cells that are necessary for normal behavior. This new finding is the first to show that stem cells can be directed not only to become specific brain cells, but to link correctly.

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Why Human Blood Drives Mosquitoes Wild

Image of the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito, an insect that is attracted to the sent of human blood. Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey, UC Davis Department of Entomology 

From Live Science:

When the time came for chemical ecologist Walter Leal to test whether humans make a natural odor that attracts mosquitoes, Leal himself was the first to volunteer.

"I measured my own levels," Leal said. "I thought I would set a good example. If you do it first, then others won't be scared."

In truth, there was little if any reason to be frightened. The scientists were looking only for the substance itself, not trying to find out whether the compound would lure the insects into a blood meal. And they found it — nonanal, a substance made by humans and birds that creates a powerful scent that Culex mosquitoes find irresistible.

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For £17.7m ($28.2 million), Shuttle Is A Gift That's Out Of This World

The price of Nasa's Space Shuttle fleet has just been slashed from £25.8m. Getty

From The Independent:

It flew faster and higher than any machine in history and was the was the ultimate boy's toy, but at $42 million (£25.8 m) it was beyond most budgets. But now the price of Nasa's soon-to-be redundant space shuttles has plummeted to something more down-to-earth: a new analysis of the costs of hauling the monster from the Kennedy Space Centre to a major US airport has led the space agency to slash the price to $28.2 m (£17.7m) .

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My Technology Predictions For 2010

I'm not forecasting flying cars this year - but will we have them by 2015?

From The Guardian:

It's prediction time again! Yes, I know that January is half-over already, but that gives me less time to make it all happen, doesn't it?

And remember, fully two-thirds of these should be correct, going by past performance. Although please remember that your home may be at risk if you bet it on any single one of these things happening.

So without further ado, let's get under way …

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Scientists Announce The End Of The Mid-Life Crisis: Life Really Does Begin At 40, They Say

Life's a beach: Over-40s are 'free to enjoy life' according to a psychologist

From The Daily Telegraph:

Life really can begin at 40, an expert claimed yesterday.

Improvements in healthcare, education and life expectancy have made the mid-life crisis a thing of the past, according to psychologist Dr Carlo Strenger.

'Somehow this line has been drawn around the mid and late 40s as a time for a mid-life crisis in our society,' he said.

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Prairie Dogs Most 'Chatty'

Prairie dogs are highly social and live in large colonies that can span hundreds of acres of the grasslands of North America Photo: ALAMY

From The Telegraph:

On first appearances they seem to be little more than a kind of nervous ground squirrel with a loud squeak, but new research is revealing that prairie dogs are in fact some of nature's most talkative creatures.

Biologists studying the burrowing rodents have found that they have one of the most sophisticated languages in the animal kingdom – second only to humans.

The findings have surprised many wildlife experts as it was assumed that mankind's closest relatives, primates, or intelligent mammals such as dolphins were likely to be the most talkative species after humans.

Read more ....

Show And Sell: The Secret To Apple's Magic

From Popular Science:

Flash an exotic prototype, then—Presto!—get people to buy your more boring stuff. That kind of thinking still rules at most electronics companies. Apple under Steve Jobs only shows off actual products. The difference? Apple's arcane secret to success.

A specter harrows the consumer electronics industry: malaise. Like washed-up Catskill magicians unable to let go of old routines while a brash upstart steals their audience, nearly every maker of consumer electronics in the world clings to a quaint song-and-dance about prototypes.

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Quartz Rods Could Provide Instant Bomb Detector

Destroyed by a TATP bomb (Image: Dylan Martinez/PA archive/PA)

From New Scientist:

A CHEAP artificial nose promises to make it much easier to detect the explosive triacetone triperoxide. The device could be installed in the doorways of buses, trains and airports to sound an alarm if someone carrying TATP crosses the threshold.

Attention started to focus on TATP following its use in the 7 July 2005 bus and tube bombings in London, and the attacks on trains the previous year in Madrid, Spain. The explosive can be made using easily obtainable domestic chemicals and has explosive power similar to TNT.

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Back In Fashion: The Mother Of All Computers No Longer Looks That Old

From The Economist:

GEEKS may roll their eyes at the news that Namibia is only now getting its first mainframe—a technology that most consider obsolete. Yet the First National Bank of Namibia, which bought the computer, is at the leading edge of a trend. Comeback is too strong a word, but mainframes no longer look that outdated.

Until the 1980s mainframes, so called because the processing unit was originally housed in a huge metal frame, ruled supreme in corporate data centres. Since then, these big, tightly laced bundles of software and hardware have been dethroned by “distributed systems”, meaning networks of smaller and cheaper machines, usually not based on proprietary technology. But many large companies still run crucial applications on the “big iron”: there are still about 10,000 in use worldwide. Withdraw money or buy insurance, and in most cases mainframes are handling the transaction.

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The First Tweet From Space And Other Twitter Firsts

From PC World:

Tweeting is no longer only an earthly phenomenon.

A NASA astronaut made Twitter history on Friday by sending the first tweet from outer space. Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer broadcast the following message directly from the International Space Station:

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s"

Take that, Neil Armstrong.

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Mississippi Delta Earthquake: America's Haiti Waiting to Happen?

A CAMP FOR THOUSANDS - As many as 50,000 Haitians sleep in this earthquake survivor camp in the Del Mas area in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 21, 2010. It has grown by thousands since the U.S. Army 82nd Division's 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Squadron started distributing food and water there last week. DoD photo by Fred W. Baker III

From ABC News:

Scientists Predict Haiti-Magnitude Quake Along Fault Under Miss. Delta.

One of the strongest series of earthquakes ever to hit the United States happened not in Alaska or along California's San Andreas fault, but in southeast Missouri along the Mississippi River.

In 1811 and 1812, the New Madrid fault zone that zig zags through five states shook so violently that it shifted furniture in Washington, D.C., and rang church bells in Boston. The series of temblors changed the course of the Mississippi River near Memphis, and historical accounts claim the river even flowed backward briefly.

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Spectacular X-Ray Tails Surprise Astronomers

MSU's Megan Donahue was part of an international team of astronomers that viewed this rare double-tailed gas cloud. (Credit: Photo courtesy of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2010) — Astronomer were surprised to find two distinct "tails" found on a long tail of gas that is believed to be forming stars where few stars have been formed before.

"The double tail is very cool -- that is, interesting -- and ridiculously hard to explain," said Donahue, a professor in MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy. "It could be two different sources of gas or something to do with magnetic fields. We just don't know."

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Canned Beer Turns 75

From Live Science:

Be sure to crack open a cold one on Jan. 24, the day canned beer celebrates its 75th birthday.

New Jersey's Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company churned out the world's first beer can in 1935, stocking select shelves in Richmond, Va., as a market test. The experiment took off and American drinkers haven't looked back since, nowadays choosing cans over bottles for the majority of the 22 gallons of beer they each drink per year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Sanity check: 2008 & 2009 Were The Coolest Years Since 1998 In The USA

From Watts Up With That?

While the press is hyperventilating over NASA GISS recent announcement of the “Hottest Decade Ever“, it pays to keep in mind what happened the last two years of the past decade.

According to NCDC, 2009 temperatures in the US (53.13F) were the 33rd warmest and very close to the long term mean of 52.86F.

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Top Ten Passions Of Ancient Rome

Getty Images

From The Independent:

From sex, binge drinking, and the culture of pleasure Ray Laurence looks at Roman passion.

By the time of the emperors, the Romans had created the world’s first global empire stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Egypt in the south.

Around this empire flowed a treasure trove of goods from far flung lands: slaves, spices, precious stones, and coloured marble, as well as an exotic array of foods and wine.

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Animal Research Study Shows Many Tests Are Full Of Flaws

Marmoset monkeys used in animal research are given marshmallows at a testing centre. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

From The Guardian:

Whether you support or detest such experiments, it's important to know if they are well conducted.

Like many people, you're possibly afraid to share your views on animal experiments, because you don't want anyone digging up your grandmother's grave, or setting fire to your house, or stuff like that. Animal experiments are necessary, they need to be properly regulated, and we have some of the tightest regulation in the world.

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Humans 'Could One Day Be Capable Of Running Up To 40mph'

Humans could be capable of running up to 40mph,
12 miles faster than the world's fastest man Usain Bolt

From The Daily Mail:

A new study suggests humans could one day run at speeds of up to 40mph - more than 10 miles faster than the world's fastest runner Usain Bolt.

Researchers investigating the factors that limit human speed found that the top speed humans are capable of may be determined by how quickly muscles in the body can move.

Previous studies have suggested the main hindrance to speed is that limbs can only take a certain amount of force.

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Aliens Might Not Be Friendly, Warns Astronomer

Do aliens exist? And would they be friendly? Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Scientists searching for alien life should get governments and the UN involved lest we unwittingly contact hostile extraterrestrials, a British astronomer has warned.

The caution comes as more experts argue that the search for intelligent life should be stepped up.

Mr Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, said: "Part of me is with the enthusiasts and I would like us to try to make proactive contact with a wiser, more peaceful civilisation."

Read more ....

Is Rice Domestication To Blame For Red-Faced Asians?

Red in the face. An Asian man having an alcohol flush reaction. Credit: Wikipedia

From Science Magazine:

If your face turns red after drinking just one glass of wine, blame ancient Chinese farmers. Researchers are reporting that the "Asian Flush" mutation cropped up just as rice was first being domesticated, and it may have protected early farmers from the harms of drinking too much. But some other scientists urge caution, saying that the dates may not match up.

Read more ....

Last Decade Was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years, NASA Research Finds

The map shows temperature changes for the last decade--January 2000 to December 2009--relative to the 1951-1980 mean. Warmer areas are in red, cooler areas in blue. The largest temperature increases occurred in the Arctic and a portion of Antarctica. (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2010) — A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

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Study: Large Earthquake Could Strike New York City

All known quakes, greater New York-Philadelphia area, 1677-2004, graded by magnitude (M). Peekskill, NY, near Indian Point nuclear power plant, is denoted as Pe. Credit: Sykes et al.

From Live Science:

The New York City area is at "substantially greater" risk of earthquakes than previously thought, scientists said Thursday.

Damage could range from minor to major, with a rare but potentially powerful event killing people and costing billions of dollars in damage.

A pattern of subtle but active faults is known to exist in the region, and now new faults have been found. The scientists say that among other things, the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones.

Read more ....

UN Climate Panel Blunders Again Over Himalayan Glaciers

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images)

From Times Online:

The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers.

It means that EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognise as bogus. The revelation comes just a week after The Sunday Times highlighted serious scientific flaws in the IPCC's 2007 benchmark report on the likely impacts of global warming.

Read more ....

Daredevil Space Diver To Leap Toward World's First Supersonic Free-Fall From 120,000 Feet

Felix Baumgartner: Sven Hoffmann / Red Bull

From Popular Science:

Here’s Felix Baumgartner’s plan: Float a balloon to 120,000 feet. Jump out. Break the sound barrier. Don’t die. Simple, right?

If Baumgartner, a world famous base jumper and skydiver, pulls off the feat, he’ll set the record for the world’s highest jump and become the first person to break the sound barrier with his body alone. During the jump, he’ll also collect data on how the human body reacts to a fall from such heights, which could be useful for planning orbital escape plans for future space tourists and astronauts.

Read more ....

Scientists Launch Search To Find 'Sean Connery Lookalike'

1963 Bond film, which starred Sean Connery as 007

From The Telegraph:

Scientists have launched a search for an 80-year-old man who looks like James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery.

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) said Sir Sean who turns 80 this summer, was internationally admired for his undimmed appeal in old age.

It is aiming to find another ''equally imposing gentlemen who should share the octogenarian limelight''.

Read more ....

Empathy With Robots Depends On Exposure

From New Scientist:

Exposure to robots in the movies and television could affect our ability to empathise with synthetic beings, suggests a study of the brain regions thought to be responsible for our ability to relate to each other.

In humans and monkeys, the mirror neuron system (MNS) – a collection of neurons in various parts of the brain, including the premotor cortex and the primary motor cortex – fires both when you perform an action and when you watch someone else perform a similar action.

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Online Music Piracy 'Destroys Local Music'

Photo: Lady Gaga topped the digital download chart of 2009.

From The BBC:

Countries like Spain run the risk of becoming "cultural deserts" because of online file-sharing, the music industry has claimed.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) says that global government legislation is essential to the sector's survival.

It cited Spain as an example of a country which does not have laws in place to prevent illegal downloads.

The sales of albums by local artists there have fallen by 65% in five years.

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China Details Homemade Supercomputer Plans

Photo: Enter China: A prototype four-core Loongson 3 will be produced at commercial scale by STMicro starting this year. Credit: Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

From Technology Review:

The machine will use an unfashionable chip design.

It's official: China's next supercomputer, the petascale Dawning 6000, will be constructed exclusively with home-grown microprocessors. Weiwu Hu, chief architect of the Loongson (also known as "Godson") family of CPUs at the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also confirms that the supercomputer will run Linux. This is a sharp departure from China's last supercomputer, the Dawning 5000a, which debuted at number 11 on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers in 2008, and was built with AMD chips and ran Windows HPC Server.

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Q & A: Is There Life After Death?

ERproductions Ltd / Blend Images / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Is there life after death? Theologians can debate all they want, but radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long argues that if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade's worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. Medicine, Long says, cannot account for the consistencies in the accounts reported by people all over the world. He talked to TIME about the nature of near-death experience, the intersection between religion and science and the Oprah effect.

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