Suspected Asteroid Collision Leaves Odd X-Pattern Of Trailing Debris

This is a NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture a comet-like object called P/2010 A2, which was first discovered by the LINEAR (Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program) sky survey on January 6. The object appears so unusual in ground-based telescopic images that discretionary time on Hubble was used to take a close-up look. This picture, from the January 29 observation, shows a bizarre X-pattern of filamentary structures near the point-like nucleus of the object and trailing streamers of dust. The inset picture shows a complex structure that suggests the object is not a comet but instead the product of a head-on collision between two asteroids traveling five times faster than a rifle bullet (5 kilometers per second). Astronomers have long thought that the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never before been seen. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA))

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 2, 2010) — NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has observed a mysterious X-shaped debris pattern and trailing streamers of dust that suggest a head-on collision between two asteroids. Astronomers have long thought the asteroid belt is being ground down through collisions, but such a smashup has never been seen before.

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The 'New' NASA Will Look Back At Earth

An artist's concept of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory. Credit: NASA

From Live Science:

NASA's new proposed budget will in part shift the space agency's focus from landing people on the moon back to Earth, with more money slated to go to projects that will help us understand our planet's climate and even plans to re-launch the carbon observatory that failed to launch last year.

The 2011 proposed budget for NASA, announced on Monday, cancels the Constellation program to build new rockets and spacecraft optimized for the moon, but increases NASA's overall budget by $6 billion over the next five years. Of that $6 billion, about $2 billion will be funneled into new and existing science missions, particularly those aimed at investigating the Earth sciences, particularly climate.

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Paper Linking Vaccine To Autism Retracted

There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

PARIS: Medical journal The Lancet has withdrawn a 1998 study linking autism with inoculation against three childhood illnesses, a paper that caused an uproar and an enduring backlash against vaccination.

"We fully retract this paper from the published record," The Lancet's editors said in a statement published online.

The 1998 paper suggested there might be a connection between autism and a triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

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"Twitteros" Are Mexico's Latest Outlaws

From CBS News:

GlobalPost: From Drug Cartels to Breathalyzer Tipsters, Twitter Users Are Fast Becoming Public Enemy No. 1.

Mexico has racked up its fair share of menacingly named outlaws in a three-year drug war: the Zetas, Aztecas and even a band of female assassins called the Panthers.

Now, if the government gets its way, another name will also make the wanted list: los Twitteros.

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iPad Rattles The E-Bookshelves

Bestseller: The iPad features iBook, an application for buying and reading books.
Credit: Apple

From Technology Review:

But Amazon's e-book dominance may be hard to change.

Over the weekend, a massive disappearing act took place on the virtual shelves of Amazon.com. In a dispute over e-book pricing, the online retailer blocked customers from buying titles--e-book or print--from Macmillan, a publisher whose imprints include Nature Publishing Group, the literary line of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, and the science fiction and fantasy line Tor.

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Google Shows Off Chrome OS Tablet Ideas

A mock-up of a Chrome OS tablet from Google's Chromium developer site.
(Credit: Google)

From CNET News:

Who could resist the months of hype that paved the way for Apple's iPad debut last week? Apparently not Google, which has shown its interest in tablet computing with its browser-based Chrome OS.

On Monday, Glen Murphy, a user interface designer for Google's Chrome browser and the Chrome operating system based on it, pointed to image and video concepts of a Chrome OS-based tablet that went live two days before the iPad launch. Apparently nobody noticed initially, because only now did Murphy tweet, "Apparently our tablet mocks have been unearthed."

The site also shows the array of devices Google envisions for Chrome OS.

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The Pursuit Of Intelligence In Computer Science

What actually constitutes an objective pattern of cognition in machines that we will recognize as intelligent is extremely vague and constantly being rewritten. Steve Dunning/Getty Images

From Discovery News:

We can’t give machines intelligence until we can figure out what roles creativity, inspiration and curiosity should play.

Since the dawn of high tech electronics and robotics, we’ve heard an awful lot about artificial intelligence and countless tales about how it may just decide to enslave us all one of these days, or fuse with humanity into an unrecognizable homunculus of men, women, children and machines as in the end of Isaac Asimov’s classic short story The Last Question, which is probably my favorite science fiction tale for it’s amazing scope and it’s bizarre climax. But when we actually drill down to the actual requirements for making machines endowed with the kind of computing abilities we’d call intelligence, we’ll find that the definition of what actually constitutes an objective pattern of cognition we will recognize as intelligent is extremely vague and constantly being rewritten.

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NASA Budget Creates Uncertainty In Clear Lake

From Houston Chronicle:

Change came to Washington a year ago with the election of President Barack Obama, and one year later it is thundering through Houston's space community like a shuttle's sonic boom.

The totality of impacts from Obama's proposed NASA budget for Houston, the Clear Lake community surrounding Johnson Space Center and even for the astronauts themselves is still far from certain.

Space agency officials declined Tuesday to even confirm that NASA's astronaut corps would continue after the space shuttle retires within the next year.

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China's Power Boom Means West May Swap Oil Dependency For Green Tech Dependency

A Wind Power Field Near Xinxiang, China Chris Lim

From Popular Science:

President Obama made it clear in his State of the Union Address last week that he fears the American economy is on the brink of missing out on a green tech boom that could propel us out of our current financial mess and into the coming century, and it appears his concern is well-placed. China leapfrogged Denmark, Germany, Spain and the U.S. to become the world's largest maker of wind turbines last year, and 2010 is shaping up to be another banner year. For China that is, not for the West.

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Apologies Go Down Better Through Right Ear, Study Finds

Saying sorry into someone's right ear offers more chance of getting your message across, research shows Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Saying sorry isn’t always enough to earn forgiveness but you have more chance of getting your message across if you speak into someone’s right ear, research indicates.

Scientists found that when we are angry, the right ear becomes more receptive to sound than the left.

The discovery has led to the theory that by targeting the right ear, the penitent are more likely to succeed in talking someone round.

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'Broad Spectrum' Antiviral Fights Multitude Of Viruses

Ebola virus. A small-molecule "broad spectrum" antiviral may be able to fight a host of viruses by attacking them through some feature common to an entire class of viruses. (Credit: Frederick Murphy)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 2, 2010) — The development of antibiotics gave physicians seemingly miraculous weapons against infectious disease. Effective cures for terrible afflictions like pneumonia, syphilis and tuberculosis were suddenly at hand. Moreover, many of the drugs that made them possible were versatile enough to knock out a wide range of deadly bacterial threats.

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Future Soldiers May Get Brain Boosters And Digital Buddies

Caption: The Future Soldier Initiative. Credit: U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research Design and Engineering Center in Massachusetts.

From Live Science:

The soldiers of the future might controversially boost their brains with drugs and prosthetics, augment their strength with mechanical exoskeletons, and have artificially intelligent "digital buddies" at their beck and call, according to the U.S. Army's Future Soldier Initiative.

The project is the latest attempt from the U.S. Army research lab in Natick, Mass., to brainstorm what soldiers might carry into the battlefield of tomorrow. A special emphasis of its concept is augmenting mental performance.

Read more ....

My Comment: An interesting look at what "super soldiers" may look like in the future.

Neuron Breakthrough Offers Hope On Alzheimer’s And Parkinson’s

From Times Online:

Neurons have been created directly from skin cells for the first time, in a remarkable study that suggests that our biological makeup is far more versatile than previously thought.

If confirmed, the discovery that one tissue type can be genetically reprogrammed to become another, could revolutionise treatments for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, opening up the possibility of turning a patient’s own skin cells into the neurons that they need.

Read more ....

Apple iPad May Ship With Webcam

From Wired Science:

Close scrutiny of the iPad which Steve Jobs presented at Apple’s special event last week shows what may be webcam, tucked away in the black screen bezel just like it is on the MacBook Pro.

A screen-grab from the official video of the event shows nothing but a small dot above the screen, opposite the home button. Taken alone, this isn’t much, but compare this with the picture of the iPad leaked just hours before the event (below). If you remember, these showed an iPad locked down in a security frame, and you could clearly see the camera in the bezel. I even pointed out the cutout in the frame that let us see the webcam.

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Save the Ozone Layer, Give Global Warming A Boost?

Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory

From The National Geographic:

While most of the world has warmed, parts of the southern hemisphere have remained stubbornly cold—oddly enough because of a gaping hole in the ozone layer. Now new research shows that all the efforts made by scientists and environmental advocates to close the hole may actually increase warming throughout the entire southern hemisphere.

That's because, for decades, brighter summertime clouds, created by the hole, have reflected more of the sun's rays, acting as a shield against global warming.

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Digital Doomsday: The End Of Knowledge

Information is stored in many forms, but will it be readable in the future?
(Image:WesternWolf/Flickr/Getty)

From The New Scientist:

"IN MONTH XI, 15th day, Venus in the west disappeared, 3 days in the sky it stayed away. In month XI, 18th day, Venus in the east became visible."

What's remarkable about these observations of Venus is that they were made about 3500 years ago, by Babylonian astrologers. We know about them because a clay tablet bearing a record of these ancient observations, called the Venus Tablet of Ammisaduqa, was made 1000 years later and has survived largely intact. Today, it can be viewed at the British Museum in London.

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DARPA Gives $32 Million For A Bigger Big Dog From Boston Dynamics

LS3- The Bigger Dog via Boston Dynamics

Popular Science:

After years of development and several creepy videos, Boston Dynamics' Big Dog robot is scheduled to get bigger. Working off a $32 million request from DARPA and the Marine Corps, Boston Dynamics has developed a supped-up version of the quadrupedal Big Dog robot called the the Legged Squad Support System (LS3). This new robot will have a longer range, heavier carrying capacity, and more agility than its predecessor.

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Spray-On Miracle Could Revolutionise Manufacturing

Fantasy becomes reality: Alec Guinness starred in the 1951 satire
The Man in the White Suit. GETTY

From The Independent:

Liquid glass sounds like the stuff of sci-fi. But can it really live up to the hype?

It sounds too good to be true: a non-toxic spray invisible to the human eye that protects almost any surface against dirt and bacteria, whether it is hospital equipment and medical bandages or ancient stone monuments and expensive fabrics.

But true it is. The spray is a form of "liquid glass" and is harmless to living things and the wider environment. It is being touted as one of the most important, environmentally-friendly products to emerge from the field of nanotechnology, which deals in objects at the molecular end of the size scale.

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Cat Predicts 50 Deaths In RI Nursing Home

The tortoiseshell and white cat spends its days pacing from room to room, rarely spending any time with patients except those with just hours to live Photo: AP

From The Telegraph:

A cat with an uncanny ability to detect when nursing home patients are about to die has proven itself in around 50 cases by curling up with them in their final hours, according to a new book.

Dr David Dosa, a geriatrician and assistant professor at Brown University, said that five years of records showed Oscar rarely erring, sometimes proving medical staff at the New England nursing home wrong in their predictions over which patients were close to death.

The cat, now five and generally unsociable, was adopted as a kitten at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre in Providence, Rhode Island, which specialises in caring for people with severe dementia.

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So All These Climate Revelations Were A Dastardly Foreign Plot -- A Commentary

Matt Murphy

From The Independent:

It hasn't occurred to King that the emails might have been leaked by an insider

It was the Russians. Or possibly the Chinese. No, wait, it was the Americans. Yes, our very own version of Inspector Clouseau is on the case of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.

Yesterday Sir David King, Tony Blair's former chief scientific advisor, told this newspaper: "It was an extraordinarily sophisticated operation. There are several bodies of people who could do this sort of work. These are national intelligence agencies... there is the possibility that it could be the Russian intelligence agency." However, King goes on to suggest that the expense of such an operation would be too great for the entire Russian state to undertake: "In terms of the expense, there is the American lobby system, which is a very likely source of finance, so the finger must point to them."

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Stratospheric Water Vapor Is A Global Warming Wild Card

Water vapor and radiative processes. (Credit: Image courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 1, 2010) — A 10 percent drop in water vapor ten miles above Earth's surface has had a big impact on global warming, say researchers in a study published online January 28 in the journal Science. The findings might help explain why global surface temperatures have not risen as fast in the last ten years as they did in the 1980s and 1990s.

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Trees Growing Faster As Planet Warms

Parker uses diameter tape or 'd-tape' to measure the trees. The tape is calibrated to convert the tree's circumference, the measurement used to determine a tree's biomass. Photo: Kirsten Bauer.

From Live Science:

Trees in the Eastern United States are growing faster than they have in the last two centuries in response to Earth's warming climate, a new study finds.

For more than 20 years forest ecologist Geoffrey Parker, based at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center outside Washington, D.C., has tracked the growth of 55 stands of mixed hardwood forest plots in Maryland.

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How To Fall 35,000 Feet—And Survive

From Popular Mechanics:

You're six miles up, alone and falling without a parachute. Though the odds are long, a small number of people have found themselves in similar situations—and lived to tell the tale. Here's PM's 120-mph, 35,000-ft, 3-minutes-to-impact survival guide.

You have a late night and an early flight. Not long after takeoff, you drift to sleep. Suddenly, you’re wide awake. There’s cold air rushing everywhere, and sound. Intense, horrible sound. Where am I?, you think. Where’s the plane?

You’re 6 miles up. You’re alone. You’re falling.

Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news. (Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.

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The Brain: What Is The Speed Of Thought?

iStockphoto

From Discover Magazine:

Faster than a bird and slower than sound. But that may be besides the point: Efficiency and timing seem to be more important anyway.

When Samuel Morse established the first commercial telegraph, in 1844, he dramatically changed our expectations about the pace of life. One of the first telegraph messages came from that year’s Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, where the delegates had picked Senator Silas Wright as their vice presidential nominee. The president of the convention telegraphed Wright in Washington, D.C., to see if he would accept. Wright immediately wired back: No. Incredulous that a message could fly almost instantly down a wire, the delegates adjourned and sent a flesh-and-blood committee by train to confirm Wright’s response—which was, of course, the same. From such beginnings came today’s high-speed, networked society.

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Charting The Winners And Losers In Obama’s Science Budget

From Wired Science:

President Obama’s administration revealed its new budget Monday, and it increases funding for nearly all areas of science.

The largest raise went to the National Institutes of Health, which added $1 billion dollars to an already hefty budget. With the boost, the NIH would receive $32.1 billion in total funding. Only the Centers for Disease Control would receive less money than last year, although the cut is small. NASA, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Science Foundation, as well as smaller research efforts at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and Department of Agriculture, would also get bumps.

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Volcanoes 'Destroyed Ancient Ocean Life'

Volcanic activity led to marine life being wiped out millions of years ago,
a study suggests Photo: Reuters

From The Telegraph:

Volcanic activity may have led to nearly a third of marine life being wiped out around 100 million years ago, research suggests.

It is thought that sulphur produced by volcanoes erupting led to oxygen disappearing from large areas of the oceans.

This caused up to 27 per cent of ocean life being destroyed, according to a report published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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IE8 Is Now The World's Top Browser, Says NetApps, As XP Falls

NetApps' chart for browser trends to January 2010

From The Guardian:

IE8 has just taken the "most used" spot from IE6, which has been hit by the decline in the use of Windows XP, on Net Applications' market share figures for January 2010. Meanwhile, Windows 7 use has just hit 10%.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 has finally become the world's most-used browser, according to Net Applications' figures based on monitoring website usage. IE8 has taken over from IE6, which has been hit by the decline in the use of Windows XP.

Read more ....

Amazon Capitulates In E-Books Battle As It Gives In To Macmillan's Pricing Demands

'Does this make me cool?': Political satirist Stephen Colbert whips out an Apple iPad during his opening speech at the Grammy Awards last night

From The Daily Mail:

Amazon has given in to publisher Macmillan's pricing demands that will lead to the online retailer raising prices on some of its e-books.

Following Apple's iPad launch last week, Amazon's Kindle has entered into a battle of supremacy with the new gadget.

Apple has said publishers can set their own price for e-books - although it will take 30 per cent, while Amazon currently charges $9.99 for the e-book version of most new releases and bestsellers.

Macmillan wants Amazon to increase their charges to nearer $15.

Read more ....

NASA Budget: Constellation Officially Canned, But The Deep-Space Future Is Bright

The Ares I-X The Constellation Program rockets will fly no more, but "aggressive" research into heavy-lift rockets should take us closer to manned missions in deep space. NASA

From Popular Science:

Rumors circulated last week, but now it’s official: NASA won’t be sending manned missions back to the moon any time soon. But in what may seem like a gutting of NASA moon- and Mars-based ambitions there is a silver lining: a $6 billion investment in helping private industry bring their space launch vehicles up to human-rated capacity and a smattering of modest robotic precursor missions to the moon, Mars, Martian moons or the Lagrange points that should set the stage for later manned missions far beyond low-earth orbit.

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Google Phases Out Support For IE6

From BBC News:

Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6, the browser identified as the weak link in a cyber attack on the search engine.

The firm said from 1 March some of its services, such as Google Docs, would not work "properly" with the browser.

It recommended individuals and firms upgrade "as soon as possible".

Google threatened to withdraw from the Chinese market following the "sophisticated and targeted" attacks, which it said originated in China.

Hackers used a flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser to target the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

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Sea Level In Israel Has Been Rising And Falling Over The Last 2,500 Years

Rising and falling sea levels over relatively short periods do not indicate long-term trends. An assessment of hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems an irregular phenomenon today is in fact nothing new," explains Dr. Dorit Sivan, who supervised the research. The Templar palace in Acre, seen here, is one of the sites where this study was carried out. (Credit: Amir Yurman, Director of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies Maritime Workshop at the University of Haifa; Courtesy of the University of Haifa)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 1, 2010) — The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter difference between the highest and lowest levels, most of the time below the present-day level. This has been shown in a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. "Rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend. It is early yet to conclude from the short-term increases in sea level that this is a set course that will not take a change in direction," explains Dr. Sivan.

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Fight, Fight, Fight: The History Of Human Aggression And Weapon Development

From Live Science:

The use of weapons may date back well before the rise of humanity, given evidence that even our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, can use spears to hunt other primates. To see how fighting evolved from hand-to-hand combat to world war, here are 10 major innovations that revolutionized combat.

--Charles Q. Choi

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Two More Steps Toward Quantum Computing

The first solid state quantum processor, developed at Yale University, can perform simple algorithms. Blake Johnson/Yale University

From Discover Magazine:

Quantum computing—using individual atoms as information carriers—could transform the way we study the world, solving problems that would take many human lifetimes for today’s supercomputers in a matter of days. Unlike conventional computers, which store each piece of data as a single value (either zero or one), quantum processors can take on multiple values simultaneously, which is why they are so efficient. Or rather why they would be, if we could figure out how to build them. So engineers in the field are abuzz about two major advances toward the creation of a practical quantum computer.

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What The iPad Means For The Future Of Computing

From Gadget Lab:

When I picked up my iPhone over the weekend, I had an epiphany. I was using the LinkedIn app to confirm an invitation to connect, and it hit me: This is the future of mobile computing, the mobile web — the mobile experience.

No, I’m not saying the LinkedIn app is the future per se (that’d be silly), but rather the overall concept of it. The LinkedIn iPhone app is, in my opinion, better than the actual LinkedIn.com website. Same goes for the Facebook app compared to Facebook.com.

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World's Most Powerful Laser To Trigger Fusion Reaction This Year

From The Telegraph:

A pivotal step in the march towards fusion power, the ''holy grail'' of sustainable clean energy, could be taken this year.

Scientists in the US are preparing for the dramatic moment when the world's most powerful laser unleashes the nuclear force that lights up the sun and achieves ''ignition''.

At that moment, 192 laser beams housed in a building the size of three football pitches will focus on a target the size of a peppercorn to trigger a self-sustaining fusion reaction.

Read more ....

Apple iPad Will Choke Innovation, Say Open Internet Advocates

Cutting off the next chapter? Steve Jobs flicks through an ebook on the Apple iPad. Photograph: Kimberly White/Reuters

From The Guardian:

The Apple iPad's closed, iPhone-like environment could shut out the next computing revolution, say industry veterans.

Apple's new iPad tablet computer could hamper innovation and cause long-term damage if it becomes a hit, according to experts.

Just as Steve Jobs tries to wow the world with the "magical" new device - unveiled on Wednesday at a media-saturated launch event in San Francisco – leading industry figures have told the Guardian that the machine marks a fundamental shift in the way the computer industry works.

Read more ....

Obama To Scrap Nasa Moon Mission In Favour Of Private 'Space Taxis'

Farewell Orion? The Contellation space programme looks set to be scrapped. There had been plans to use the Orion module to ferry astronauts to the ISS, like in this artist's impression

From The Daily Mail:

American dreams of putting another man on the Moon were dashed last night as President Obama announced a spending freeze to help combat a £1trillion U.S. budget deficit.

NASA's plan to launch a series of new manned Moon missions was one of 120 government-funded programmes shelved.

The Constellation Project, started by George Bush, was supposed to restore America's reputation as a pioneer in human exploration and anticipated landings on Mars by the middle of the century.

Read more ....

New Infographic Visualizes The Space Debris Cloud Surrounding Earth

Space Debris Circles Michael Paukner (See it bigger)

From Popular Science:

My debris field is bigger than yours.

Space debris remains one of the biggest challenges for a space-faring humanity in the 21st century, as even the smallest pieces can pose a serious threat to satellites, manned spacecraft and the International Space Station. Now our friends at Fast Company have stumbled on a nifty infographic by Austrian designer Michael Paukner that lays out the space clutter situation more clearly.

Read more ....

No Moon Program For NASA

Obama's Proposed Budget For NASA Starts Moon War On Earth -- Washington Post

The battle over space has begun. And it's likely to be brutal.

The Obama administration is attempting to kill NASA's ambitious back-to-the moon program, an effort that carried the imprimatur of George W. Bush. The Constellation program had already run through about $9 billion to develop a new crew capsule, Orion, and a new rocket, the Ares 1. Both are vaporized by Obama's new NASA strategy.

Read more ....

Update: Obama Calls for End to NASA’s Moon Program -- New York Times

WikiLeaks Whistleblower Site In Temporary Shutdown

From BBC News:

WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website that allows people to publish uncensored information anonymously, has suspended operations owing to financial problems.

Its running costs including staff payments are $600,000 (£377,000), but so far this year it has raised just $130,000 (£81,000).

WikiLeaks has established a reputation for publishing information that traditional media cannot.

The website claims to be non-profit and relies on donations.

A statement on its front page says it is funded by "human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public".

Read more ....

Spies And Climate Change

'Climate Emails Hacked By Spies' -- The Independent

Interception bore hallmarks of foreign intelligence agency, says expert.

A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government's former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit's emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation – especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

Read more ....

My Comment: What a strange way to defend the indefensible. The people who hacked and released these emails should be awarded and praised .... not condemned and threatened by the likes of Sir David King.

If an intelligence agency did this .... kudos to them for revealing the truth to all of us.

Effects of Forest Fire On Carbon Emissions, Climate Impacts Often Overestimated

This stand replacement fire on Cache Mountain burned in the central Oregon Cascade Range in 2002, killing nearly all the overstory trees. By 2007 other non-tree vegetation began to grow back, however, somewhat offsetting the carbon releases from dead wood decomposition. (Credit: Photo by Garrett Meigs, Oregon State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 1, 2010) — A recent study at Oregon State University indicates that some past approaches to calculating the impacts of forest fires have grossly overestimated the number of live trees that burn up and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result.

Read more ....

Punxsutawney Phil: The Groundhog Behind The Myth

From Live Science:

On Tuesday, Punxsutawney Phil will emerge from a little enclosure under an outdoor stump in the Pennsylvania town that bears his name to let us know if he sees his shadow, which will doom us to six more weeks of winter.

While this groundhog gets plenty of attention each Feb. 2, the other 364 days of the year America's most famous furry forecaster spends his time not in the ground but in an enclosure next to the children's section of the Punxsutawney Memorial Library with his "wife" Phyllis and a couple of other groundhogs.

Read more ....

China Leading Global Race To Make Clean Energy

As China takes the lead on wind turbines, above, and solar panels, President Obama is calling for American industry to step up. Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

TIANJIN, China — China vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and the United States last year to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines, and is poised to expand even further this year.

China has also leapfrogged the West in the last two years to emerge as the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels. And the country is pushing equally hard to build nuclear reactors and the most efficient types of coal power plants.

These efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.

Read more ....

All Things Bright And Beautiful: What Photographer Found In One Cubic Foot

'It was like finding little gems' - just some of the creatures photographed by David Liittschwager for National Geographic. Photograph: David Liittschwager/National Geographic

From The Guardian:

David Liittschwager's amazing images – featured in next month's National Geographic magazine – capture Earth's ecosystems as never before.

Just how much life can you find in an ecosystem of one cubic foot? That is the question photographer David L­iittschwager set out to answer when he took a 12-inch metal frame to a range of different environments on land and in water, in tropical climes and temperate regions and began to chart the living organisms.

Read more ....

Benevolent Hackers Poke Holes In E-Banking

Security could be lacking (Image: Frazer Hudson)

From New Scientist:

ONLINE banking fraud doesn't just affect the naive. Last year, Robert Mueller, a director at the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, admitted he'd come within a mouse-click of being a victim himself. Now the extent of the problem has been brought into sharp relief, with computer scientists warning that banking culture is increasing the likelihood that customers are using vulnerable systems.

Read more ....

Yes, Yes, Yes, No, Yes! In Search Of The G-Spot

The yes-no G-spot debate might lose British males... but the French know where they're going. REX

From The Independent:

The Germans first stumbled on it; the Italians fervently tried to explain it; this month, the Brits poured cold water on it... now, the hot-blooded French have revived it, as only they can. Katy Guest examines the quest for the ultimate erogenous zone.

Sacre bleu – as they're all apparently panting over the Channel. Just when you thought it was safe to go back between the sheets, a group of researchers claim that they have found the G-spot – in France.

Read more ....

Young Blood Reverses Signs Of Aging In Old Mice

Photo: Blood rebirth: Over time, blood stem cells (shown in green) lose their ability to replenish blood. Researchers have discovered that exposing old mice to circulating blood from younger mice restores this ability. Credit: Amy Wagers

From Technology Review:

A mysterious substance in blood rejuvenates blood-forming stem cells.

The antiaging power of blood might not be just the stuff of vampire stories. According to new research from Harvard University, an unspecified factor in the blood of young mice can reverse signs of aging in the circulatory system of older ones. It's not yet clear how these changes affect the animals' overall health or longevity. But the research provides hope that some aspects of aging, such as the age-related decline in the ability to fight infection, might be avoidable.

Read more ....

Nasa Mission To Unravel Sun’s Threat To Earth

Scientists have designed a space probe to peer deep beneath the solar surface
and observe how sunlight is generated

From Times Online:

A new probe could help scientists predict the solar storms that cause chaos for us.

NASA is to embark on one of its most ambitious missions in an attempt to unlock the secrets of the sun.

Following its launch in nine days’ time, the US space agency’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will spend five years in orbit trying to discover the causes of extreme solar activity, such as sun spots and solar winds and flares.

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How To Make The iPad A Better Music Device

Photo: The iTunes Music Store looks great on the iPad, but I'd like to see more features for music fans and musicians. (Credit: James Martin/CNET)

From CNET:

I was at Apple's iPad launch on Wednesday, and maybe it was just Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, but I don't quite understand why the haters are piling on. A lot of PC-centric commentators are dismissing the iPad as an overpriced gadget, wondering why it's lacking features that are standard on even the cheapest notebook computers, like Flash support, multitasking, USB inputs to connect peripherals, and video outputs (HDMI would be nice). These are legitimate complaints--for a notebook replacement. But the iPad isn't a notebook replacement, and I don't think users will carry it with them on business trips. (Apple's iWork demo confused matters, admittedly.)

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