How A Hobbit Is Rewriting The History Of The Human Race

A painting of what researchers believe Homo floresiensis may have looked like.
Illustration: Peter Schouten

From The Guardian:

The discovery of the bones of tiny primitive people on an Indonesian island six years ago stunned scientists. Now, further research suggests that the little apemen, not Homo erectus, were the first to leave Africa and colonise other parts of the world, reports Robin McKie.

It remains one of the greatest human fossil discoveries of all time. The bones of a race of tiny primitive people, who used stone tools to hunt pony-sized elephants and battle huge Komodo dragons, were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004.

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Found: 'Jurassic Parkette' – The Prehistoric Island Ruled By Dwarf Dinosaurs

Zalmoxes Photo: Natural History Museum

From The Telegraph:

A prehistoric "lost world" ruled by miniature dinosaurs has been discovered by palaeontologists.

The creatures lived on an island – a kind of pigmy Jurassic Park – and were up to eight times smaller than some of their mainland cousins.

One of the island-dwelling dinosaurs, named Magyarosaurus, was little bigger than a horse, but was related to some of the largest creatures to ever walk the Earth – gigantic titanosaurs such as Argentinosaurus, which reached up to 100 feet long and weighed around 80 tons.

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Ecstasy Damages Complex Memory: Study

The researchers found ecstasy takers performed worse than other groups as tasks became harder or more complex (Source: Getty Images/)

From ABC News (Australia):

Ecstasy users have more trouble with difficult memory tasks than non-drug takers and even cannabis users, according to new Australian research.

The study provides further evidence that the 'party drug' causes brain damage in regions relating to memory and suggests it also affects learning.

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Singing 'Rewires' Damaged Brain

From The BBC:

Teaching stroke patients to sing "rewires" their brains, helping them recover their speech, say scientists.

By singing, patients use a different area of the brain from the area involved in speech.

If a person's "speech centre" is damaged by a stroke, they can learn to use their "singing centre" instead.

Researchers presented these findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in San Diego.

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PleaseRobMe Website Highlights Dangers Of Telling World Your Location

From Times Online:

A website called PleaseRobMe has been launched to highlight the dangers of sharing too much information on the internet about your location.

The site pulls together updates on Twitter from people who publicly broadcast where they are at any given time, making the point that if they are in the pub, for instance, they are not at home and could be burgled.

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Saliva DNA Test Could Determine Future Health

A new DNA test uses saliva to determine whether someone is
prone to developing a life-threatening illness.

From The Guardian:

Quick, low-cost test being developed at Edinburgh University could determine whether a person is prone to disease.

A fast, low-cost DNA test which can determine a person's chances of developing certain inherited diseases could soon be a reality, scientists said today.

A drop of saliva will be enough to allow medics to pinpoint variations in patients' genetic code in a test being formulated by scientists at Edinburgh University.

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Chocolate Bar That Can Be Eaten During Lent

Experts said the breakthrough could help tackle Britain?s obesity crisis by producing a 'new generation of low-fat foods'. Photo: Cathal McNaughton

From The Telegraph:

A "healthy" chocolate bar which can be eaten during Lent has been invented by scientists who replaced the fat with water.

The low-fat chocolate containing almost two thirds water is said to taste identical to regular bars and could pave the way for a new generation of “healthy” foods.

Researchers are also developing a low-fat mayonnaise and porridge which prevents people from feeling hungry by staying in their stomach longer.

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Visionary Who Designed World's Biggest Radio Telescope, Dies Aged 92

Dr Gordon's 1,000ft radio telescope has been the forefront of scientific discovery

From The Daily Mail:

An engineer who designed the telescope that discovered the first planets beyond our solar system has died aged 92.

William Gordon was a visionary whose atmospheric work laid the foundation for current studies of satellite communication, space weather, and GPS.

He is probably best known for his role in getting the Arecibo Observatory up and running in the late 1950s.

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Scientists Image Brain At Point When Vocal Learning Begins

High resolution in vivo images of neurons and associated dendritic spines in the brain of a juvenile songbird during the initial stages of song learning. Images taken by Todd Roberts. (Credit: Todd Roberts/Duke University Medical Center)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 19, 2010) — Duke University Medical Center scientists crowded around a laser-powered microscope in a darkened room to peer into the brain of an anesthetized juvenile songbird right after he heard an adult tutors' song for the first time.

Specifically, they wanted to see what happened to the connections between nerve cells, or synapses, in a part of the brain where the motor commands for song are thought to originate.

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Altitude Could Limit Some Olympic Performances

From Live Science:

For the athletes competing now in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, altitude can be an important factor in making it to the medal stand, but not for the reasons you might think.

And the impact of altitude in the Vancouver Olympics could mean we won't see many records set in sports such as speed skating.

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How Scientific Are Superheroes?

From CNN:

You've probably had moments watching science fiction films when you thought, "Naw, that couldn't happen." And it's true - sci-fi movies often contain elements that don't conform to the laws of physics.

But modern science can say a lot about the plausibility of such things as stopping an asteroid from destroying the planet, and these are teachable moments, experts said today at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science in San Diego, California.

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Makeshift Shelter Of Future: Sewer Pipes, Balloons?

Michael DiTullo submitted a shelter design based on a giant umbrella. "It could ship easily in planes, trucks, or trains," he says. Click on the above image to see more contest submissions. (Credit: Michael DiTullo)

From CNET:

Picture a tent that could be dropped from a helicopter and kept aloft by balloons with computer-controlled rotors attached. It might sound like some kind of offbeat interactive media installation, but Canadian designer Richard Kuchinsky imagines his structure more practically: as a cheap, easy-to-deploy emergency shelter.

Kuchinksy's "balloon tent pop-up shelter" is just one submission to a contest by design site Core 77, which, in light of last month's Haiti earthquake, has tasked designers with creating innovative short-term shelters. Submissions for the site's latest "one-hour design challenge" will be accepted through February 28, but the Core 77 online submission forum is already hopping with some highly creative solutions to a pressing problem.

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Microsoft Offers Web Browser Choice To IE Users

From The BBC News:

Millions of European Internet Explorer (IE) users will have the option to choose an alternative browser from 1 March, Microsoft has announced.

It follows a legal agreement between Microsoft and Europe's Competition Commission in December 2009.

Microsoft committed to letting Windows PC users across Europe install the web browser of their choice, rather than having Microsoft IE as a default.

Figures suggest that over half the world's internet users have IE.

Testing for the update is already underway in the UK, Belgium and France.

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1st Medical Studies on Pot in 20 Years Find It Does Relieve Pain

From Discover Magazine:

Even as California sinks under a massive budget crisis, the $8.7 million the state used to research the use of marijuana for medical purposes now seems money well spent. The state-funded Center for Medical Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego has confirmed that pot is effective in reducing muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis and pain caused by certain neurological injuries or illnesses, according to a report issued Wednesday [The New York Times].

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Even In The Virtual World, Men Judge Women On Looks

Pleading for empathy (Image: Indianna University School of Informatics)

From New Scientist:

HOW is a female avatar supposed to get a fair treatment in the virtual world? They should rely on human females - men can't help but be swayed by looks.

Thanks to video games and blockbuster movies, people are increasingly engaging with avatars and robots. So Karl MacDorman of Indiana University in Indianapolis, Indiana, decided to find out how people treated avatars when faced with an ethical dilemma. Does an avatar's lack of humanity mean people fail to empathise with them? The answer seems to depend on gender.

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Stray Hydrogen Atoms Become Deadly For Starships Traveling At Light Speed

USS Enterprise Watch out for stray hydrogen atoms Paramount Pictures

From Popular Science:

Science fiction writers may have to rethink how their starship crews survive travel near or beyond the speed of light. Even the occasional hydrogen atom floating in the interstellar void would become a lethal radiation beam that would kill human crews in mere seconds and destroy a spacecraft's electronics, New Scientist reports.

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America’s Wind Energy Potential Triples In New Estimate

From Wired Science:

The amount of wind power that theoretically could be generated in the United States tripled in the newest assessment of the nation’s wind resources.

Current wind technology deployed in nonenvironmentally protected areas could generate 37,000,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, according to the new analysis conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and consulting firm AWS Truewind. The last comprehensive estimate came out in 1993, when Pacific Northwest National Laboratory pegged the wind energy potential of the United States at 10,777,000 gigawatt-hours.

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Great White Sharks Now More Endangered Than Tigers ith Just 3,500 Left In The Oceas

Great White Sharks were made infamous by the film Jaws,
but they rarely attack people and usually do by accident.

From The Daily Mail:

They are known as one of the deadliest creatures on Earth.

But according to a shocking new study, great white sharks are also one of the most endangered.

Wildlife experts say there are now fewer than 3,500 great whites left in the oceans, making them rarer than tigers.

Yesterday, marine biologists called for an end to mankind's long battle with sharks and demanded urgent action to prevent them going extinct.

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Dolphins Can Turn Diabetes On … And Off

Bottlenose dolphins may gives scientists clues into how to shut off diabetes type II, and provide an insight into a range of other human ailments. Credit: U.S. National Parks Service

From Cosmos:

SAN DIEGO: Healthy bottlenose dolphins appear to turn on and off a diabetes-like state: a trick that may open to door to a treatment for the disease in humans.

The ‘switch’ mechanism, discovered by researchers at the non-profit National Marine Mammal Foundation, is likely driven by the dolphins’ high-protein, low-carbohydrate fish diet.

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Scientists Unlock Mystery In Important Photosynthesis Step

This is Kevin Redding in his lab at Arizona State University. Together with coworkers from the Max Plank Institute, he has taken a significant step closer to unlocking the secrets of photosynthesis. (Credit: Mary Zhu)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 20, 2010) — An international team of scientists, including two from Arizona State University, has taken a significant step closer to unlocking the secrets of photosynthesis, and possibly to cleaner fuels.

Plants and algae, as well as cyanobacteria, use photosynthesis to produce oxygen and "fuels," the latter being oxidizable substances like carbohydrates and hydrogen. There are two pigment-protein complexes that orchestrate the primary reactions of light in oxygenic photosynthesis: photosystem I (PSI) and photosystem II (PSII). Understanding how these photosystems work their magic is one of the long-sought goals of biochemistry.

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U.S. Bobsled Team Gets High-Tech Edge

Computer simulations of airflow and turbulence helped scientists redesign the U.S. bobsled.
Credit: Exa Corp.

From Live Science:

In Olympic bobsledding, hundredths of a second can mean the difference between winning and losing.

For the Vancouver Winter Olympics, the U.S. team might be just that much faster thanks to new sled designs based on complex models of airflow and turbulence.

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Shuttle Leaves Station As NASA Plans Last Flights

British born astronaut Nicholas Patrick, who is a former Harrow school boy, waves as he works on the Cupola far above Earth. Photo from the Daily Mail

From Reuters:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The space shuttle Endeavour sailed away from the International Space Station on Friday after delivering a final connecting hub and an observation deck, completing U.S. assembly of the orbital complex.

Four more shuttle missions remain to stock the station and deliver science experiments before NASA retires its three-ship fleet later this year. The station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations, has been under construction 220 miles above Earth since 1998.

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Cashing In On Internet Censorship

Photo: Scaling the wall: Firewall-breaching tools are booming in countries that are clamping down on Internet freedom.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- A growing number of software companies are capitalizing on an unexpected business opportunity: Internet censorship.

In countries where governments continue to ramp up Web filtering systems, more people are searching for tools that will allow them to access inaccessible information -- and they are willing to pay for them.

Such tools include virtual private networks (VPN), proxy servers and other workarounds that enable users to breach barriers to blocked information online.

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Pay For Hulu On The iPad? It May Be Your Only Choice

(Credit: All Things Digital)

From CNET:

Will Hulu come to the iPad? Probably. One day. But you had better get ready to pay for it.

Hulu and its owners, three of the big broadcast TV networks, want to bring some version of the Web video service to Apple's device.

But the most likely scenario is one in which access to Hulu on the iPad comes as part of a subscription package, multiple people familiar with the company tell me.

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Science Damaged By Climate Row Says NAS Chief Cicerone

Photo: NAS chief Ralph Cicerone says crisis is a 'wake-up call' for researchers

From The BBC:

Leading scientists say that the recent controversies surrounding climate research have damaged the image of science as a whole.

President of the US National Academy of Sciences, Ralph Cicerone, said scandals including the "climategate" e-mail row had eroded public trust in scientists.

His comment came at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego.

Dr Cicerone joined other renowned scientists on a panel at the event.

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Olympic Tech: Bobsled Aerodynamics, Curling Science, and More

From Discover Magazine:

We’re a week into the Vancouver Olympics, and if you haven’t had your fill of world-class athletes frolicking on the ice in frilly clothing, playing ice shuffleboard with 4o-plus-pound stones, or hurtling downhill at terrifying speed, don’t worry: There’s more than a week left to go. And there will be feats of dizzying daring and velocity, since Olympians don’t settle for just terrifying speed when there’s a chance to attain ridiculous speed, or even ludicrous speed. Thankfully, the Olympics are a bastion of technology, not just sport.

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Long-Promised Cancer Revolution Begins

From New Scientist:

A personalised blood test that can identify tumour DNA could be the first step towards a long-promised revolution in the way cancer is treated.

In the short term, the test - reported by Victor Velculescu of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore, Maryland, and his colleagues in Science Translational Medicine - could be used to spot cancer recurrence before tumour growth shows up on scans, meaning that treatment could be started earlier.

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Video: Half-Kilometer-Long Explosive Whip Clears IEDs The Explode-y Way

From Popular Science:

Clearing battlefield obstacles has pitted trapper against sapper since Roman times. But whereas the minefields and dragon teeth of previous conflicts merely slowed advancing armies, the IEDs favored by today's insurgents have become the number one killer in the Long War. Now, to ensure safe passage through trap laden Afghan paths, the British Army is fighting fire with even bigger fire in the form of their newly developed Python explosive whip.

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My Comment: Expect more "boom-booms" when this mine clearing platform is used.

Did Apple Just Undercut Amazon On E-Books?

From PC World:

The $10 bestseller e-book might not be dead yet: Apple reportedly can sell e-books on the iPad for the same prices Amazon once offered.

The New York Times reports that Apple worked a provision into its agreement with publishers, requiring them to occasionally sell bestselling books at a discount, possibly as low as $10 per book.

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Photosynthesis: A New Source of Electrical Energy? Biofuel Cell Works in Cactus

Photo: Biofuel cell inserted in a cactus and graph showing the course of electrical current as a function of illumination of the cactus (black: glucose, red: O2).

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — Scientists in France have transformed the chemical energy generated by photosynthesis into electrical energy by developing a novel biofuel cell. The advance offers a new strategy to convert solar energy into electrical energy in an environmentally-friendly and renewable manner. In addition, the biofuel cell could have important medical applications.

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Memory-Erasing Drugs Could Result From New Brain Discovery

From Live Science:

A newfound brain mechanism erases memories on purpose to help make way for new ones. Scientists suggest it could lead to the development of memory-erasing drugs that make a person forget certain things.

Researchers have often debated about the reasons we forget — for instance, why newly acquired short-term memories are fleeting. One theory suggests that such memories are simply unstable, fading over time. Others contend interference causes short-term memories to be overridden as new data comes in.

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WHO: Combine H1N1, Regular Flu Vaccines

Natalie Matutschovsky for TIME.com

From Time Magazine:

(LONDON) — The World Health Organization is recommending that swine flu be added to regular flu vaccines next season.

The swine flu pandemic virus, or H1N1, emerged too late last year to be added to the regular flu vaccine, and a separate vaccine was needed.

For this year's northern hemisphere flu season, however, the two vaccines should be combined, WHO flu chief Keiji Fukuda said Thursday after the agency met this week to decide which strains should be recommended to drug makers for vaccines.

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Astronomers Discover Secret Of The Supernova

Supernovas are often used by astronomers as 'cosmic mile markers' to measure the expansion of the universe Photo: AFP/GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Nasa astronomers may have finally discovered what initially sparks a cosmic explosion, according to new research.

Scientists used Nasa's Chandra X-Ray laboratory to study supernovas in five nearby elliptical galaxies and the central region of the Andromeda galaxy, a spiral galaxy closest to our own, the Milky Way.

Marat Gilfanov of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany said: "It was a major embarrassment that we did not know how they worked. Now we are beginning to understand what lights the fuse of these explosions."

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Half The Planet's Primates In Peril Due To The Destruction Of Their Habitat And Trade In Bushmeat

From The Daily Mail:

Half the world's species of monkey, gorilla and chimpanzee could soon disappear, experts have warned.

The destruction of their habitats and a thriving trade in bushmeat have pushed many to the brink of extinction, according to a report spearheaded by Bristol Zoo.

In parts of the Far East the proportion of primates at risk is as high as 90 per cent.

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Coming Without Warning

From Discovery News:

Since the recent discovery of abrupt climate change -- that big changes can come quickly -- researchers have been looking for "warning signs" to help us avert "regime shifts" that could suddenly alter things we take for granted, such as storm tracks and weather patterns, sea levels and water supplies.

Greenland temperature profile, from Climate Crash: Abrupt Climate Change and What It Means for Our Future, Joseph Henry Press, 2005. Recognizing a warning sign is tricky, though, because in a system that is subject to abrupt change, small variations can lead to impacts that are all out of proportion. A widely recognized warning sign or "tipping point" is the recent unexpectedly high loss of Arctic sea ice, which could trigger major reorganizations of ocean and atmospheric circulation. This temperature profile derived from ice cores in Greenland (taken from a book I wrote on the subject), shows numerous abrupt climate changes during the past 100,000 years.

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Inside The Olympics' 'Mission Control'

Magnus Alvarsson, chief integrator for technology consultant Atos Origin, says that he is practically bored with all the computer systems running so smoothly. Photo by Ina Fried/CNET

From CNET:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--While the Winter Olympics have brought many headaches for organizers, the computing systems haven't been one of them.

In fact, things have been pretty quiet inside the low-rise building in east Vancouver where the technology operations are headquartered.

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Moon Dreams The Americans May Still Go To The Moon Before The Chinese

From The Economist:

WHEN America’s space agency, NASA, announced its spending plans in February, some people worried that its cancellation of the Constellation moon programme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rocky satellite. The next footprints on the lunar regolith were therefore thought likely to be Chinese. Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending plan actually makes it more likely America will return to the moon.

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What Happens At Absolute Zero?

The Boomerang Nebula is the coldest natural object known in the universe, seen here by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image: ESA/NASA)

From The New Scientist:

The curious things that happen at low temperatures keep on throwing up surprises. Last week, scientists reported that molecules in an ultra-cold gas can chemically react at distances up to 100 times greater than they can at room temperature.

In experiments closer to room temperature, chemical reactions tend to slow down as the temperature decreases. But scientists found that molecules at frigid temperatures just a few hundred billionths of a degree above absolute zero (−273.15°C or 0 kelvin) can still exchange atoms, forging new chemical bonds in the process, thanks to weird quantum effects that extend their reach at low temperatures.

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The Amazing View From The International Space Station's Brand New Window

Sahara from Space: The world beneath your feet Soichi Noguchi

From Popular Science:

Twitpics from space just got even more interesting with the addition of a brand new cupola window aboard the International Space Station. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has accordingly updated his Twitter feed with a fresh Twitpic of the Sahara desert framed within the cupola.

"Let there be light! Cupola windows open toward Sahara desert. Priceless!" Noguchi tweeted.

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New Type of Genetic Variation Could Strengthen Natural Selection

Scanning electrograph image of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (Credit: Image courtesy of NASA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection -- the force that drives evolution -- is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought.

"We have discovered that natural selection can act not only on whole organisms and individual genes, but also on gene networks," says Antonis Rokas, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the paper reporting the discovery that was published in the February 18 issue of the journal Nature.

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Tiger Woods And Sex Addiction: Real Disease Or Easy Excuse?

From Live Science:

Tiger Woods is scheduled to break his months-long silence about the sex scandal that has plagued the world's most famous athlete. It's not clear how he will explain himself, though according to some reports Woods has been attending a private rehabilitation clinic in Mississippi that treats addictions — including sex addiction.

Infidelity is not uncommon among men (and women) all over the world. Plenty of people cheat on their spouses: according to one survey, 25 percent of men and 17 percent of women have been unfaithful. That, of course, doesn't make them sex addicts.

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Origin Of Cosmic Explosions Discovered

This is from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and shows evidence from Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Magellan telescopes suggesting a star has been torn apart by an intermediate mass black hole in a globular cluster. Photo: AFP/Getty

From The Telegraph:

Astronomers who have long used supernovas as cosmic markers to help measure the expansion of the universe now have an answer to the nagging question of what causes the massive stellar explosions.

"These are such critical objects in understanding the universe," said Marat Gilfanov of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, describing his team's study.

"It was a major embarrassment that we did not know how they worked. Now we are beginning to understand what lights the fuse of these explosions."

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The Secret Of A Film's Success Is All Down To Mathematics, Claim Scientists

Formulaic: A scene from Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith, which fits the mathematical formula perfectly

From The Daily Mail:

Ever left the cinema feeling the film you have just seen is more than a little formulaic? You could be right.

Research shows that many modern blockbusters follow a mathematical formula that ensures they grab our attention.

It seems that they key to their success is not a stunning lead actor or a tear-jerking strip, but ensuring that camera shots of a certain length regularly recur.

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Extreme Breath-Holding: How It's Possible

Photo: Peter Colat, a Swiss freediver, held his breath underwater for 19 minutes and 21 seconds, breaking the world record in breath-holding. AP

From Discovery News:

The new record in breath-holding recently went to a Swiss man who didn't breathe for nearly 20 minutes. Scientists explain how he did it.

THE GIST:

* The new record for breath-holding is 19 minutes and 21 seconds.
* There are tricks to holding your breath for long periods of time, but the practice can be dangerous.
* There may be long-lasting health consequences to extreme breath-holding.

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Yahoo, Microsoft Make Search Pact Official (FAQ)

Yahoo is ready to turn over the indexing and ranking of search results (on the left) to Microsoft, emphasizing its work on presenting those results (on the right). (Credit: Yahoo)

From CNET:

It took eight months, but the search strategy that Microsoft and Yahoo settled on after years of flirting is about to get started.

The U.S. Department of Justice and European Union gave their blessing to the deal early on Thursday, paving the way for Microsoft to take over the business of providing search results to Yahoo while Yahoo will get to sell search ads on both Yahoo and Bing. Yahoo is busy reminding anyone who will listen that it will still control the way search results are presented on its pages, while Microsoft thinks it can improve its search algorithms with access to Yahoo's massive audience.

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New Role For Robot Warriors

Airmen roll out a Predator unmanned aircraft in Indian Springs, Nev. Such aircraft are tightly controlled by remote human operators. Some artificial-intelligence proponents believe next-generation robots could function more autonomously. Tony Avelar/The Christian Science Monitor/File

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Drones are just part of a bid to automate combat. Can virtual ethics make machines decisionmakers?

Science fiction sometimes depicts robot soldiers as killing machines without conscience or remorse. But at least one robotics expert today says that someday machines may make the best and most humane decisions on the battlefield.

Guided by virtual emotions, robots could not only make better decisions about their own actions but also act as ethical advisers to human soldiers or even as observers who report back on the battlefield conduct of humans and whether they followed international law.

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The Writing On The Cave Wall

Time to look around the paintings (Image: Dozier Marc/Photolibrary)

From New Scientist:

THE first intrepid explorers to brave the 7-metre crawl through a perilously narrow tunnel leading to the Chauvet caves in southern France were rewarded with magnificent artwork to rival any modern composition. Stretching a full 3 metres in height, the paintings depict a troupe of majestic horses in deep colours, above a pair of boisterous rhinos in the midst of a fight. To the left, they found the beautiful rendering of a herd of prehistoric cows. "The horse heads just seem to leap out of the wall towards you," says Jean Clottes, former director of scientific research at the caves and one of the few people to see the paintings with his own eyes.

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The World's 18 Strangest Airports

(Photograph by Tdk)

From Popular Mechanics:

Engineers tasked with building an airport are faced with countless challenges: The ideal location needs ample space, endless flat ground, favorable winds and great visibility. But spots in the real world are rarely ideal, and engineers are forced to work with what they have, making sure that the end product is the safest possible structure for pilots. A survey of airports around the world turns up a mixed bag, ranging from dangerous and rugged landing strips to mega-size facilities that operate like small cities. Here, PM explores the world's most remarkable airports and why they stand out.

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Robots To Clear Baltic Seabed Of WWII Mines

Retro Sea Mine via Bactec

From Popular Science:

In a dangerous legacy of the world's deadliest conflict, 150,000 World War Two-era sea mines litter the Baltic Sea. The danger these bombs pose to a proposed gas pipeline has prompted Russia to hire the British firm Bactec International to clear the sea of unexploded ordnance. And for Bactec, that means it's time to bring out the robots.

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Google Digital Library Faces Outcry At NYC Hearing

From My Way News:

NEW YORK (AP) - Google's effort to create the world's largest library by scanning millions of books for use on the Internet faces a courtroom fight as authors, foreign governments, corporate rivals and even the U.S. Department of Justice line up to challenge it.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin already has read more than 500 submissions about a $125 million settlement aimed at ending a pair of 2005 lawsuits brought by authors and publishers and clearing legal obstacles to a gigantic online home for digital books.

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Upside-Down Answer For Deep Mystery: What Caused Earth To Hold Its Last Breath?

Volcano eruption (Reunion island, Indian Ocean).
(Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — When Earth was young, it exhaled the atmosphere. During a period of intense volcanic activity, lava carried light elements from the planet's molten interior and released them into the sky. However, some light elements got trapped inside the planet. In the journal Nature, a Rice University-based team of scientists is offering a new answer to a longstanding mystery: What caused Earth to hold its last breath?

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