Facebook Bans UK Inmates After Taunts

From CBS News:

Prisoners Were Using the Site to Make Threats and Even Plan Future Crimes.

(AP) The criminals are behind bars but their victims are still feeling their reach - through the Internet.

The British government said Thursday that Facebook had removed the profiles of 30 U.K. inmates at its request after several incidents in which prisoners reportedly used the social networking site to organize crime or taunt others.

Read more ....

How Roman Gladiators Died

Death Of A Gladiator -- Mind Hacks

Roman gladiators took part in one of the most brutal sports in history, many dying by traumatic brain injury during their matches. A medical study published in Forensic Science International examined the skulls of deceased fighters, discovered in a gladiator graveyard from Turkey, and reveals exactly how they died and even what weapons delivered the fatal brain injury.

The graveyard was discovered by archaeologists in 1993 but this study is the result of applying modern forensic medicine, which more typically attempts to discover the cause of death by looking at human remains after a crime, to the ancient bones.

Read more ....

Climate 'Tipping Points' May Arrive Without Warning, Says Top Forecaster

Icebergs breaking off from the Dawes Glacier in the Endicott Arm.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Joseph Gareri)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 10, 2010) — A new University of California, Davis, study by a top ecological forecaster says it is harder than experts thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur -- a worrisome finding for scientists trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster.

Read more ....

Facebook Data Reveals Secrets Of American Culture

A breakdown of American Facebook communities according to a recent analysis by an ex-Apple engineer. Credit: Pete Warden

From Live Science:

Facebook users in the American West appear to move around a lot, and often have friends throughout the country, while users from Minnesota to Manhattan have connections much closer to home.

And in areas in and around Texas, on the edge of what’s generally thought of as the Bible Belt, the Dallas Cowboys rank higher overall on users’ fan pages than God.

Read more ....

U.S. Government Wants To Track Its Citizens Through Their Cell Phones

Feds Push For Tracking Cell Phones -- CNET

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves.

FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually convicted the duo of multiple bank robbery and weapons charges.

Read more ....

My Comment: Only CNET is carrying this story (Update: Drudge is also carrying this story) on what should be a warning sign on where the US Government wants to go in conducting surveillance on its citizens. Hmmm .... so much for our privacy rights .... and from a Liberal President.

Saturn’s Most Habitable Moon Offers Ice, Water, Killer Views

From Wired Science:

Enceladus has to be one of the most intriguing objects in the solar system. It’s definitely our favorite of Saturn’s 62 moons here at Wired Science, and it’s among the most likely places to find the necessary ingredients for extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

Read more ....

Somali Pirates Hold Science To Ransom

Scourge of the Indian Ocean (Image: Mohamed Dahir/AFP/Getty Images)

From New Scientist:

SOMALI pirates terrorising the Indian Ocean are a hazard to more than shipping and tourists. They are also killing important scientific research and may be indirectly damaging the ocean's ecosystem.

Fishing boats in the Indian Ocean routinely carry scientists who gather data about fish stocks and threatened species while ensuring that boats comply with fishing rules. The piracy threat has put a stop to that. "We can't monitor and we can't do experiments because of the pirates," says Laurent Dagorn of France's Research Institute for Development (IRD).

Read more ....

5 Things You Need To Know About Google Buzz

From Popular Mechanics:

There are two ways to launch a social networking site. The first way: Build one from scratch, and spend years and millions of dollars going up against established giants. The second: Add a couple of key features that turn an already ubiquitous service into a social networking site. With Tuesday's launch of Google Buzz, the search giant has picked the latter path.

Read more ....

On DARPA's List: A Real-Time, 3-D Picture Of The Earth Beneath Our Feet

Peering Inside the Earth DARPA's "Transparent Earth" would give both the military and civil authorities a real-time, 3-D view of processes in the Earth's crust, possibly allowing us to predict natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. NASA

From Popular Science:

DARPA wants to know what's happening in the skies overhead and seeks full situational awareness on the ground, so we suppose it's no surprise that now it wants full, real-time surveillance of what's happening beneath the surface. As part of the agency's fiscal 2011 budget, $4 million will go toward creating a system of sensors and algorithms that will create real-time 3-D maps displaying "the physical, chemical, and dynamic properties of the earth down to 5 km depth, including natural or man-made structures at militarily- relevant spatial scales."

Read more ....

Anticipating Unrest, Iran Disrupts Internet Communications

Anticipating Protests, Iran Disrupts Internet Communications -- New York Times

In an effort to disrupt communications and head off huge opposition demonstrations planned for Thursday, the Iranian authorities on Wednesday drastically slowed Internet service in Iran and shut down text messaging services, and an official said that Gmail, the Google e-mail service, would be blocked.

It was not immediately clear if Gmail would be blocked permanently, but users inside Iran said that because of the extremely slow speed of Internet service, they had been unable to open Gmail or the Yahoo e-mail service for the last week.

Read more ....

Update: Iran to Suspend Google's Email -- Wall Street Journal

My Comment:The message, videos, and the news will still get out.

Another Blizzard: What Happened To Global Warming?

From Time Magazine:

As the blizzard-bound residents of the mid-Atlantic region get ready to dig themselves out of the third major storm of the season, they may stop to wonder two things: Why haven't we bothered to invest in a snow blower, and what happened to climate change? After all, it stands to reason that if the world is getting warmer — and the past decade was the hottest on record — major snowstorms should become a thing of the past, like PalmPilots and majority rule in the Senate. Certainly that's what the Virginia state Republican Party thinks: the GOP aired an ad last weekend that attacked two Democratic members of Congress for supporting the 2009 carbon-cap-and-trade bill, using the recent storms to cast doubt on global warming.

Read more ....

Dramatic Images Of World Trade Centre Collapse On 9/11 Released For First Time

Click Image To Enlarge
The moment one of the World Trade Centre towers begins to crumble in New York

From The Daily Mail:

We have seen the Twin Towers collapse hundreds of times on TV. The steel and glass skyscrapers exploding like a bag of flour, the dust and smoke pluming out across Manhattan. But never like this, from above.

Nine years after the defining moment of the 21st century, a stunning set of photographs taken by New York Police helicopters forces us to look afresh at a catastrophe we assumed we knew so well.

You know but cannot see the 2,752 men, women and children who died at the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. None is visible here.

Read more ....

Thirty-Eight Percent Of World's Surface In Danger Of Desertification

This is the Guadalquivir River as it passes through Seville, one of the areas most at risk of desertification in Spain. (Credit: Nesta Vázquez)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 10, 2010) — Researchers have measured the degradation of the planet's soil using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a scientific methodology that analyses the environmental impact of human activities, and which now for the first time includes indicators on desertification. The results show that 38 percent of the world is made up of arid regions at risk of desertification.

Read more ....

Why Advertised Broadband Speeds Lag Behind Reality

From Live Science:

Downloading music from the Internet, streaming video or even browsing most websites nowadays requires fast broadband Internet connections such as a digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable. But slower-than-advertised connection speeds caused by growing network congestion and artificial restrictions by some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have left broadband consumers frustrated at times, and for good reason.

Read more ....

Hacker 'Mudge' Gets DARPA Job

Photo: Peiter "Mudge" Zatko
(Credit: BBN Technologies)

From CNET:

Peiter Zatko--a respected hacker known as "Mudge"--has been tapped to be a program manager at DARPA, where he will be in charge of funding research designed to help give the U.S. government tools needed to protect against cyberattacks, CNET has learned.

Zatko will become a program manager in mid-March within the Strategic Technologies Office at DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which is the research and development office for the Department of Defense. His focus will be cybersecurity, he said in an interview with CNET on Tuesday.

Read more ....

Genes Reveal 'Biological Ageing'

Photo: Telomeres at the end of chromosomes shorten with age.

From The BBC:

Gene variants that might show how fast people's bodies are actually ageing have been pinpointed by scientists.

Researchers from the University of Leicester and Kings College London say the finding could help spot people at higher risk of age-related illnesses.

People carrying the variant had differences in the "biological clock" within all their cells.

The British Heart Foundation said the findings could offer a clue to ways of preventing heart disease.

Read more ....

Valium 'Works Like Heroin'

From The Telegraph:

Valium, the tranquilliser once known as "mother's little helper", works by boosting the same brain chemical as heroin and cannabis, a study shows.

Diazepam, better known by the defunct brand name Valium, increases "feel good" dopamine levels which are typically targeted by other addictive drugs.

The finding, published in Nature, helps explain why people get hooked on the drug - nick-named "blues" or "vallies" - and may aid the design of safer alternatives.

Read more ....

Google Buzz Launched In Bid To Topple Facebook And Twitter

Google Buzz will enable Gmail users to create status updates and read and comment on the updates posted by their friends

From The Daily Mail:

Google has launched a new social network in a bid to take on community giants Facebook and Twitter.

Called Google Buzz, the new media tool allows users to share messages, web links, photos and videos with friends and colleagues directly within the popular email system Gmail.

The new social networking features are also compatible with smartphones based on Google's Android operating system.

Read more ....

Scientists Seek Better Way To Do Climate Report

REFORM CLIMATE: Is there any need for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to continue its work of assessing the global environmental threat? NASA

From ABC News:

Scientists call for better way to do climate report; errors tarnish Nobel Prize-winning effort.

A steady drip of unsettling errors is exposing what scientists are calling "the weaker link" in the Nobel Peace Prize-winning series of international reports on global warming.

The flaws — and the erosion they've caused in public confidence — have some scientists calling for drastic changes in how future United Nations climate reports are done. A push for reform being published in Thursday's issue of a prestigious scientific journal comes on top of a growing clamor for the resignation of the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Read more ....

Mediterranean Diet May Lower Risk of Brain Damage That Causes Thinking Problems

Click Image to Enlarge

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 9, 2010) — A Mediterranean diet may help people avoid the small areas of brain damage that can lead to problems with thinking and memory, according to a study that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.

Read more ....

Frozen Hair Yields First Ancient Human Genome

A reconstruction of what Inuk, a member of the ancient extinct Saqqaq culture of Greenland, might have looked like, based on DNA sequencing of his hair frozen for thousands of years in the snow. Credit: Nuka Godfredtsen

From Live Science:

A few tufts of hair frozen in the permafrost of Greenland for more than 4,000 years have allowed scientists to sequence the genome of an ancient human for the first time.

The hairs belonged to a member of the ancient Saqqaq culture of Greenland, the first humans known to inhabit the icy island. Scientists have long wondered where the Saqqaq came from and whether or not they were the ancestors of today's modern Inuit and Greenlanders. The new findings, detailed in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Nature, have helped to settle that question.

Read more ....

Apple Has Room To Drop iPad Price, Says iSuppli

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

From Wall Street Journal:

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--The components that make up Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) iPad media tablet cost between $219 and $335 depending on the model, according to research firm iSuppli Corp., which leaves room for Apple to lower the gadget's price if it wants.

LG Display (034220.SE LPL), Broadcom Corp. (BRCM), Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) and Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN) are some of the likely winners in terms of suppliers, iSuppli said.

The firm conducted its analysis without the benefit of actually having an iPad, which goes on sales sometime in March or April.

Read more ....

Google Subsidizing Ultrafast Broadband Test

From CNET:

Google, never satisfied with the pace of change, plans a test that will provide 50,000 to 500,000 people with fiber-optic broadband Internet access with a network speed of a gigabit per second starting as soon as this year.

Read more ....

Strategy To Grow UK Space Sector

From The BBC:

The UK space industry can become a much bigger global player, employing thousands more highly skilled workers and turning over perhaps £40bn a year.

The projection is made in a report prepared jointly by industry, government, and academia.

The Space Innovation Growth Strategy identifies key market opportunities - from the delivery of internet services by satellite to space tourism.

The report says greater investment will position the UK for future success.

Read more ....

Obesity In Kids: Three Lifestyle Changes That Help

Getty

From Time Magazine:

To curb the childhood-obesity epidemic, health experts have long urged parents to make healthy changes to their family's lifestyle — such as eating nutritiously, reducing TV time, exercising and getting a good night's sleep.

Individually, these behaviors have been linked to a lower risk of obesity in kids, but researchers at Ohio State University were interested in learning whether their effect might be cumulative — that is, whether families who adopted not just one but two or more of these behaviors could reduce their children's risk of obesity even further.

Read more ....

Google Takes On Facebook, Twitter With ‘Buzz’

From Epicenter:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Google says there’s already plenty of social networking information out there, and what the world really needs is a way to wrangle Twitter, MySpace and Facebook to tame information overload. If its “solution” guts the existing players, so much the better for the search giant.

Google has largely failed in its attempts to build a social networking site before, so it’s taking a different tack: With the Tuesday launch of Google Buzz, the company is pushing a new way to organize by building on a “destination” that millions of people already visit constantly, every day: Gmail.

Read more ....

Botox May Deaden Not Just Nerves, But Emotions, Too

From Discover Magazine:

Sure, Botox can banish crows feet, smooth those wrinkles, and lift those frown lines, making the client look more youthful–and somewhat expressionless. But the treatment may have effects that are more than skin deep. A new study suggests that by paralyzing the frown muscles that ordinarily are engaged when we feel angry, Botox short-circuits the emotion itself [Newsweek].

Read more ....

U.S. Solar Market To Double In The Next Year

Powering up: Workers help construct a solar power plant built by the Pasadena, CA-based eSolar. The mirrors focus light on a tower, generating heat for producing electricity. Credit: eSolar

From Technology Review:

Government incentives and lower solar prices are starting to pay off.

In a few years, the United States is likely to be the world's largest market for solar power, eclipsing Germany, which has taken the lead as a result of strong government incentives in spite of the relative paucity of sunlight in that country. A number of factors could make growth possible in the United States--especially changes in legislation that give utilities incentives to create large solar farms.

Read more ....

New Armored Wall System Assembles Like Legos, Could Replace Sandbags In Afghanistan

McCurdy's Armor Dynamic Defense Materials

From Popular Science:

Attention recruits. Those of you landing in Afghanistan in coming months may not have to engage in the sandbag stacking and trench digging usually associated with lowly grunt-dom. An $800,000 investment in an armored wall system known as McCurdy’s Armor could have Marines rapidly erecting 6.5-foot-tall mortar-, RPG- and bullet proof fortresses in less than an hour, saving the days it can take to fortify an area by conventional means and making forward-operating units more nimble.

Read more ....

Brain Location for Fear of Losing Money Pinpointed -- The Amygdala

Two patients with rare lesions to the brain have provided direct of evidence of how we make decisions -- and what makes us dislike the thought of losing money. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 9, 2010) — Two patients with rare lesions to the brain have provided direct of evidence of how we make decisions -- and what makes us dislike the thought of losing money.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology studied a phenomenon known as 'loss aversion' in two patients with lesions to the amygdala, a region deep within the brain involved in emotions and decision-making. The results of the study, part-funded by the Wellcome Trust, are published February 8 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Read more ....

The Most Awe-Inspiring Natural Wonders In America

From Live Science:

If Earth is giant natural art gallery, the United States is among its most impressive geologic installations. From sea to shining sea, fascinating geologic oddities abound. But enough words. With apologies to dozens of geologic wonders that could be on this list, here are 10 of the most awe inspiring, both for their raw beauty and for the forces that went into their creation ...

Read more ....

Can Battlefield Robots Take The Place Of Soldiers?

Can battlefield land-robots be made to obey the rules of war?

From The BBC:

Can war be fought by lots of well-behaved machines, making it "safer for humans"? That is the seductive vision, and hope, of those manufacturing and researching the future of military robotics.

With 8,000 robots already in use, they believe they can bring about a military revolution.

Most of the robots currently deployed on land deal with non-combat tasks such as bomb disposal - unlike lethal aerial drones.

But Bob Quinn, who works for the US subsidiary of the British robot manufacturer QinetiQ, says the future promises more armed robots on the battlefield, including driverless vehicles.

Read more ....

Why NASA Picked Stormy Florida

From Christian Science Monitor:

Weather thwarts shuttle launches. But important factors favor this state.

If the space shuttle Endeavour lifts off in the early hours of Feb. 7, it will be the first shuttle launch in more than half a year to leave on time.

Each of the last three missions has been delayed for days or weeks – with one held back by a scheduling conflict and two by stormy weather. Despite its "Sunshine State" moniker, Florida has postponed shuttles due to five hurricanes, two hailstorms, a tropical storm, lightning damage, countless cloudy days, and meddlesome woodpeckers stabbing a fuel tank. And if the temperature goes below 36 degrees F., as it did earlier this month, Cape Canaveral's fickle weather will thwart yet another scheduled blastoff.

Read more ....

The 20 Richest Americans In Tech

From Pingdom:

The tech industry is littered with billionaires. We all enjoy a good income, but some clearly have earned more than others. Much, much more. The question is, how much money do the really big names in tech actually have?

To find out, we went through the Forbes 400, a list of the wealthiest Americans, and filtered out the people who work within the tech field, or more specifically: IT.

So here they are, the 20 richest Americans in tech today.

Read more ....

Boeing’s New 747-8 Continues A Jumbo Tradition

From Autopia:

EVERETT, Washington — Boeing spent more than five years and hundreds of millions of dollars developing its new 747-8, but in the end the decision on whether to send the company’s biggest aircraft ever down the runway and into the air for the first time rested with the man in the cockpit.

The flight window for the 747-8’s maiden flight opened at 10 a.m. Monday, but Mother Nature had other plans. Paine Field was socked in by low clouds, and the clock was ticking. Mark Feuerstein, Boeing’s chief test pilot for the 747 program — the man who has spent years preparing for the day — had to decide whether to proceed.

Read more ....

It Seems That Man Has Been Fighting Man Since The Beginning Of Time

Image: Augusta McMahon/Tell Brak Project

The Dawn Of Civilization: Writing, Urban Life, And Warfare -- Discovery Magazine

An extraordinary ancient Syrian settlement shines a light on one of the most important moments in human history.

Joan Oates’s sharp blue eyes spotted something that was not right. Standing on the windy summit of a vast, human-made mound in northeastern Syria, the wiry 81-year-old archaeologist noticed an ugly scar that had been left by a backhoe on one of the smaller mounds ringing the ancient city of Nagar, where she has excavated for a quarter century. Oates had just arrived to begin her latest season at the site, and this blemish on her cherished landscape annoyed her. Two young men on her team volunteered to investigate the damage. They returned, shaken. Jumping into the trench, one of them had come face-to-face with a skull. “Everywhere we looked, there were human bones,” one recalls. “There were an enormous number of dead people.”

Read more ....

An Early Warning System For Cancer

Image: Immune tracer: This image shows the overexpression of cancer-associated glycan structures (green) on proteins in cancer cells. The cells’ nuclei are stained in blue. Credit: Kirstine Lavrsen

From Technology Review:

Autoantibodies could alert doctors to cancer development.

A new screening tool developed by scientists in Denmark may help detect the earliest stages of cancer by taking advantage of the body's own defenses. The researchers constructed a microarray system that analyzes patients' blood for a specific class of immune agents called autoantibodies. These are agents that attack the body's own tissue, targeting what they perceive as "foreign" cells, such as specific molecules on the surface of tumors.

Read more ....

The MV-22 Osprey Finds Purpose In Disaster Relief

MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit launching from the USS Bataan. (Photograp by Benjamin Chertoff)

From Popular Mechanics:

Can the much-maligned tilt-rotor aircraft earn respect on the job?

USS Bataan—After a couple of days working just under the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan you begin to recognize the signature sounds of various helicopters: The high-pitch rip of an HH-60 Knighthawk, the deep, rapid drum beat of the giant CH-53D Super Stallion or the rhythmic song of a UH-1 Huey. So the crew of the USS Bataan, outside Haiti, knows when something new lands onboard. Seconds after a bass-drum vibration shook the ward-room lounge, an excited Marine officer stuck his head in and announced "The Ospreys are taking off! Let's go up to the top of the island and watch!"

Read more ....

Wonder Material Graphene Becomes Lighting For Future Devices And Homes

Light-emitting Electrochemical cells Lighting the way for a graphene-based future Linkoping University/Umea University/Rutgers University

From Popular Science:

New light-emitting electrochemical cells could replace OLEDs.

Graphene may brighten the future more literally than we had originally anticipated, besides merely revolutionizing electronics and Silicon Valley. Swedish and American researchers have transformed the one-atom-thick carbon material into a new, inexpensive lighting component that could give organic light diodes (OLEDs) a run for their money.

Read more ....

Enceladus: Nasa Discovers New Evidence That Saturn Moon 'May Contain Life'

Saturn's icy Moons visible here, from left to right are: Janus, Enceladus and Epimetheus captured by the Cassini spacecraft wide angle camera Photo: REX

From The Telegraph:

New evidence that liquid water lies beneath the surface on the Saturn moonof Enceladus has been discovered by Nasa scientists, suggesting that life may exist.

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft flew through icy plumes created by ice volcanoes and detected negatively charged water molecules, in a clear sign an underground sea exists.

On Earth this short-lived type of ion is produced where water is moving, such as in waterfalls or crashing ocean waves.

Read more ....

Scientists Identify First Genetic Variant Linked to Biological Aging in Humans

Scientists announced they have identified for the first time definitive variants associated with biological ageing in humans. (Credit: iStockphoto/Anne De Haas)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 8, 2010) — Scientists announced they have identified for the first time definitive variants associated with biological ageing in humans. The team analyzed more than 500,000 genetic variations across the entire human genome to identify the variants which are located near a gene called TERC.

Read more ....

Want Passionate Kids? Leave 'Em Alone

From Live Science:

Parents who want their children to discover a passion for music, sports, or other hobbies should follow a simple plan: Don't pressure them.

By allowing kids to explore activities on their own, parents not only help children pinpoint the pursuit that fits them best, but they can also prevent young minds from obsessing over an activity, a new study finds.

Read more ....

Apple iPad Price Cut: Blunder or Brilliance?

From PC World:

If Apple is really considering price cuts on its just-introduced iPad, the best advice is to make them before launch, not after.

Not today, or tomorrow, but a price drop a week--or even a day--before it goes on sale might give the iPad an incredible boost. I will also describe what other businesses can learn from Apple's troubles.

Read more ....

First Results From Large Hadron Collider Published

Photo: The "extra" particles may make spotting the Higgs boson harder

From The BBC:

The results from the highest-energy particle experiments carried out at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in December have begun to yield their secrets.

Scientists from the LHC's Compact Muon Solenoid detector has now totted up all of the resulting particle interactions.

They wrote in the Journal of High Energy Physics that the run created more particles than theory predicted.

Read more ....

Google Links Up With US Spy-Master To thwart Threats To Cyberspace

Google has threatened to pull out of the Chinese market
unless Beijing can guarantee uncensored searches.

From Times Online:

Google is teaming up with the US National Security Agency to battle cyber-attacks from China in a move that is causing disquiet on the internet.

The alliance of the world’s largest internet search company and the world’s most powerful electronic surveillance agency has provoked concern among privacy advocates. The non-profit Electronic Privacy Information Centre filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking more details yesterday hours after the deal was disclosed by The Washington Post.

Read more ....

Ageing Gene Found By Scientists Could Be Key To Longer Lifespans

Scientists say that by testing for the gene when some one is young could identify whether they have to alter their lifestyle accordingly. Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

A longevity gene has been identified for the first time in a breakthrough that could eventually help people live longer, a new study suggests.

The researchers have located a gene which determines whether or not a person will biologically age quickly or slowly.

They think that by testing for the gene when some one is young could identify whether they have to alter their lifestyle accordingly.

Read more ....

Genetic Disorder Turns Risk-Averse Into Gamblers

The study found that people with a damaged amygdala had a higher inclination to risk losing money as a result of reckless gambling. Alamy

From The Independent:

The brains of people who risk everything when gambling may be wired up differently to those of the naturally cautious, according to a study that appears to have discovered a neurological basis for reckless behaviour.

The research found that people were far more gullible to high-risk gambling when a small but distinct part of their brain had been damaged as a result of a rare genetic disorder. They showed little of the natural aversion to losing something of value that most people are born with.

Read more ....

First Contact: Will We Ever Hear From Aliens?

The Allen Telescope Array in California. Photograph: Ho New/ Reuters

From The Guardian:

It will soon be half a century since the American astronomer Frank Drake first pointed a radio telescope at the star Tau Ceti in the hope of picking up an extraterrestrial broadcast, and we still haven't heard anything. So is there anyone out there?

Fifty years ago Frank Drake – then a young astronomer from Cornell University – began an experiment that would have profound implications for humanity's understanding of its place in the cosmos. He turned the newly constructed Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia towards Tau Ceti, a nearby star that is similar to our own Sun.

Read more ....

Smoking May Pose 'Third-Hand' Cancer Hazard

From New Scientist:

Residues of cigarette smoke deposited on indoor surfaces can turn carcinogenic when they react with airborne chemicals. This "third-hand" exposure could in theory cause health problems, particularly in children, says Hugo Destaillats, a specialist in indoor pollution at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

His team found several chemicals on the inside of the cab of a half-pack-a-day smoker's truck, including a carcinogen called a NNK. Destaillats's team reckon that NNK is produced when nicotine from tobacco smoke reacts with nitrous acid in the air.

Read more ...

Google's Handheld Translator Seeks To Cross Language Barriers

Google Android

From Popular Science:

Google's vision for a better world involves removing those pesky language barriers that keep people apart, and so the Internet search giant has begun development on a voice recognition and automatic translation system for cell phones. Such technology could either herald a new era of fruitful international collaboration or usher in new grievances and conflicts, depending on your viewpoint. The Times makes the obligatory reference to the Babel Fish of Hitchhiker's Guide that spawned bloody interstellar conflicts.

Read more ....