'Terminator' Asteroids Could Re-Form After Nuke

You'll need a big bomb to keep us apart (Image: Adastra/Taxi/Getty)

From New Scientist:

THE regenerating liquid-metal robots in the Terminator movies have a cosmic relation: incoming asteroids that quickly reassemble if blasted by a nuclear bomb.

If a sizeable asteroid is found heading towards Earth, one option is to nuke it. But too small a bomb would cause the fragments to fly apart only slowly, allowing them to clump together under their mutual gravity. Simulations now show this can happen in an alarmingly short time.

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A Lot Is Riding On SpaceX Rocket

NEAR A COUNTDOWN: The Falcon 9 rocket from Space Exploration Technologies stands in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Its first test launch could come in April. (Space Exploration Technologies)

From The L.A. Times:

The Hawthorne firm's Falcon 9 is a major contender to cheaply carry astronauts and cargo into orbit.

A new rocket 18 stories tall and waiting to be launched from a pad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., could determine the fate of a private aerospace venture in Hawthorne -- and even possibly NASA's space program.

The Falcon 9 booster, developed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is going through final preparations for its maiden test flight and could blast off as early as next month.

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Climategate: Three Of The Four Temperature Datasets Now Irrevocably Tainted

From Pajamas Media:

The warmist response to Climategate — the discovery of the thoroughly corrupt practices of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) — was that the tainted CRU dataset was just one of four independent data sets. You know. So really there’s no big deal.

Thanks to a FOIA request, the document production of which I am presently plowing through — and before that, thanks to the great work of Steve McIntyre, and particularly in their recent, comprehensive work, Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts — we know that NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) passed no one’s test for credibility. Not even NASA’s.

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Tricks To Keep Your Device’s Battery Going And Going

Andy Chen/The New York Times

From New York Times:

If you’re a recent convert to smartphones, you’re probably still discovering all the amazing things that your new BlackBerry, Android phone or iPhone can do. But one thing you most likely found out right away: the more you do, the shorter your phone’s battery lasts.

While a standard cellphone’s charge can easily go three days or more, many smartphone owners are dismayed to learn that their new mobile toy requires charging every 24 hours, or even more often. It was great that I could use one device — my iPhone — to check my calendar and respond to multiple incoming calls during January’s Consumer Electronics Show, but I paid the price when its battery died at 2 p.m.

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Early Earth Embroiled In Constant Solar Storm

The larger auroral oval relative to the modern is the result of a weaker dipole magnetic field and stronger solar wind dynamic pressure. The auroral intensity is brighter due to solar wind densities many times greater than those today, and the dominant color reflects greater energies of the precipitating particles and the mildly reducing Paleoarchean atmosphere. Credit: J. Tarduno and R. Cottrell/University of Rochester

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: A weak magnetic field and powerful solar wind stripped water from the early Earth's atmosphere 3.5 billions years ago and created stunning auroras, scientists said.

Scientists have long thought that Mars' small magnetic field left it vulnerable to the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun that interacts with Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, and forms the auroras on Earth.

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Bing Use Inches Up In February

(Credit: ComScore)

From CNET News:

Microsoft's Bing grabbed 11.5 percent of all search queries in the U.S. in February, slightly higher than its 11.3 percent share the prior month, according to the latest figures from ComScore.

Yahoo, which recently won regulatory approval over a search technology and advertising deal with Microsoft, captured 16.8 percent of all queries, a slight decline of 0.2 percent from January. But Google remains the search engine champ, winning 65.5 percent of all the searches run last month, up 0.1 percent from January.

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Smartphones Will Shake Up Paid Content Debate

The new Samsung 'Wave' smartphone is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona February 14, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Albert Gea

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Media companies longing to bring a paid-for culture to the Internet might just get what they want if they pay more attention to the smartphone revolution that is changing the way people access the Web.

Huge numbers now use mobile phones instead of desktop computers to get online -- a development that has spawned whole new business models in China, the world's biggest Internet market.

Paying to read content on the Web, an outlandish idea as recently as a year ago, is slowly but surely establishing itself as the next business model in the Western media mainstream, spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O).

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Professor Predicts Baseball Winners, Uses Baseball to Tout Power of Math

"We've long had a problem convincing US youngsters to embrace mathematics in school," says Bukiet. "Studying how math applies to baseball demonstrates not only that math can be fun, but how it is really a part of things people care about." (Credit: NJIT)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 10, 2010) — With pitchers and catchers having recently reported to spring training, once again Bruce Bukiet, an associate professor at NJIT, has applied mathematical analysis to compute the number of games that Major League Baseball teams should win in 2010. The Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers should all repeat as winners in their divisions, while the Atlanta Braves will take the wild card slot in the National League (NL), says Bukiet.

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Big Generation Gaps In Work Attitudes Revealed

Dedication: Stanley Foxwell and his son Colin have spent a combined 45 years working 16 hours a day, every day, running two newsagents. Photo from The Daily Mail

From Live Science:

Experiences help to shape life, so it's reasonable to think someone who grew up when John F. Kennedy was shot might have a different worldview than a person who witnessed Enron collapse and has been "wired" since just a tot.

New survey research announced today suggests indeed that is the case: Large generational gaps exist, particularly when it comes to work attitudes. The findings reveal young people just entering the workforce, often called GenMe or Millennials, are more likely than their elders to value leisure time over work and to place a premium on rewards such as higher salaries and status.

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The iPad Changes Everything

Apple's iPad, rendered as the monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey," will be
examined and pondered by the rest of the computer industry.

From Forbes:

Will Apple’s tablet usher in a new era of computing, or simply dominate it?

Chipmaker Nvidia is helping invent a slew of cool technologies that hold the potential to change the way we work and play. The company, which makes processors that enhance images and boost the brawn of computers and phones, is pushing 3-D entertainment into homes and high-def video onto handsets. But the gadget Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is most excited about? Touchscreen tablets such as Apple's forthcoming iPad.

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Half Million Seeds Now in "Doomsday" Vault

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News:

Secure Crop Seed Bank on Arctic Island Hits Record Inventory 2 Years after 1st Samples Arrived.

(AP) Two years after receiving Its first deposits, a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island has amassed half a million seed samples, making it the world's most diverse repository of crop seeds, the vault's operators announced Thursday.

Cary Fowler - who heads the trust that oversees the seed collection, which is 620 miles from the North Pole, said the facility now houses at least one-third of the world's crop seeds.

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Safety Issues Loom As Humanoid Invasion Approaches

From New Scientist:

Pressure-sensing skins, smarter limbs and even bemused facial expressions. All these features will be needed to make future humanoid robots safe enough to hang out with humans in our homes, a symposium on humanoid robotics at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in London heard this week.

"We want robots to operate in our human world but they need to be safe," says Chris Melhuish of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK. "It's no good if they fall over on a 2-year-old or poke someone in the eye."

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DARPA Plans Lightning-Based GPS For Underground Warfighters

Lightning Strikes for Navigation So if lightning strikes position a, b and c ... NASA

From Popular Science:

DARPA envisions a future in which U.S. Special Forces or spooks have to assault underground bases. And the Pentagon agency wants to give those warriors an underground navigation system that works on lightning bolts, The Register reports.

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'Minority Report' Digital Billboard 'Watches Consumers Shop'

The billboard's are similar to ones featured in the Tom Cruise film, Minority report.

From The Telegraph:

A “Minority Report” styled digital billboard that targets consumers using customised advertising based on their demographics is being developed by Japanese researchers.

Engineers have developed the billboard, similar to one used in the Tom Cruise blockbuster, that uses in built cameras to instantly identifies a shopper’s age and gender as they walk past.

The facial-recognition system, called the Next Generation Digital Signage Solution, then offers consumers a product it thinks is suited to their demographic.

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Formula Reveals 11am Is The Ideal Time For The Perfect Coffee Break

The perfect coffee break is taken at 11am in a brightly lit room with friends

From The Daily Mail:

A team of university experts have come up with a formula that proves that Elevenses really is the best time for a coffee break.

But the research also shows that a tasty Americano is not the only requirement - lights, music, aroma and good company need to be added to the mix.

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Scientists To Review Climate Body

From The BBC:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the world's science academies to review work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Work will be co-ordinated by the Inter-Academy Council, which brings together bodies such as the UK's Royal Society.

The IPCC has been under pressure over errors in its last major assessment of climate science in 2007.

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Google Maps Rolls Out Trail And Street Directions For Cyclists

A cyclist crosses the Brooklyn Bridge. Starting today, Google Maps will feature a biking layer, where users can plan their route according to the grade of the hills or the level of traffic congestion. Newscom

From The Christian Science Monitor:

A new layer on Google Maps will let cyclists access maps of 150 cities around the US. It's a bike geek's dream come true.

On Wednesday morning, Google added bike directions and trail information to Google Maps – a long-awaited functionality that product manager Shannon Guymon said would "encourage folks to hop on their bikes." By selecting the "Bicycling" layer on Google Maps, cyclists can now see the closest trails and bike lanes in area, or plan around particularly congested urban arteries and calf-busting hill climbs.

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Life Is Shorter For Men, But Sexually Active Life Expectancy Is Longer

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 10, 2010) — At age 55, men can expect another 15 years of sexual activity, but women that age should expect less than 11 years, according to a study by University of Chicago researchers published early online March 10 by the British Medical Journal. Men in good or excellent health at 55 can add 5 to 7 years to that number. Equally healthy women gain slightly less, 3 to 6 years.

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Donating A Kidney Doesn't Shorten Donor's Life

From Live Science:

People who donate one of their kidneys are likely to live just as long as someone with two healthy kidneys, assuming they survive the initial somewhat riskier period.

A new study, which involved more than 80,000 live kidney donors in the United States and looked at survival rates over a 15-year period, is the first to use data from a national level, rather than from single-transplant centers with similar populations.

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Large Hadron Collider To Shut Down, Not Baguette This Time

From Techeye.net:

World record collision energies aren’t enough - it needs more power!!

The Large Hardon Collider (LHC) is to shut down at the end of 2011, just in time to cause the (speculated) end of the world by 2012.

According to reports, the atom smashing machine needs to fix design and safety issues which is stopping it from reaching its potential. Apparently, world record collisions of 7 trillion electron volts isn’t enough - the LHC needs to be made safer before collisions at about twice that level can start.

The LHC is the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator built by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN), with the goal of colliding protons or lead ions at very high energy, recreating the conditions after the Big Bang.

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Music And lyrics: How The Brain Splits Songs

When tunes and lyrics diverge

From The New Scientist:

Your favourite song comes on the radio. You hum the tune; the lyrics remind you of someone you know. Is your brain processing the words and music separately or as one? It's a hotly debated question that may finally have an answer.

People with aphasia, who can't speak, can still hum a tune, suggesting music and lyrics are processed separately. Yet brain scans show that music and language activate the same areas, which might mean the brain treats them as one signal.

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China's Moon Rocket May Take A Cue From The Saturn V

Saturn V A behemoth rocket to reach the moon NASA

From Popular Science:

My rocket is almost as big as your rocket.

China's new moon rocket design is in the class of the old Saturn V that once launched U.S. Apollo astronauts to the moon. The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology says that the proposed rocket would have a thrust of 3,000 metric tons, just shy of the 3,470 metric tons of thrust generated by the Saturn V's first stage, Aviation Week reports.

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Opposites Do Attract As 'Stressed Men Make Odd Sexual Decisions', Study Suggests

The study could explain why some couples end up together for example Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

From The Telegraph:

Opposites really do attract in people, according to scientists who researched the psychology of sexual attraction.

Researchers in Germany discovered that stressed men made unconventional choices in sexual preferences.

Scientists at the University of Trier found that young men who were under pressure preferred erotic pictures of female nudes who were had the opposite facial expressions to themselves.

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Large Hadron Collider Will Finally Reach Full Power In 2013... Eight Years Behind Schedule

The magnet core of the world's largest superconducting solenoid magnet at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Scientists at Cern said the machine will not reach full capacity until 2013

From The Daily Mail:

The Large Hadron Collider, which scientists hope will recreate the conditions just moments after the Big Bang, is to shut down for a whole year.

Scientists are set to run the particle-accelerating machine at half power for at least 18 months, sending seven trillion electron volts around the specially-built 17-mile tunnel.

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UK Skynet Military Satellite System Extended

The new spacecraft will use payload items held in reserve

From The BBC:

Skynet 5, the UK's single biggest space project, is to be extended.

The £3.6bn system, which provides secure satellite telecommunications to British armed forces, will be boosted by the addition of a fourth spacecraft.

The first three satellites were only launched in 2007-2008, but military planners envisage even more bandwidth will be needed in the future.

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Tailored Diet May Slow Down DNA Damage

In the future, our recommended dietary intake may be dictated by our genetic makeup
(Source: stock.xchng)

From ABC News (Australia):

Mounting evidence on the effect of micronutrients on DNA damage calls for a re-evaluation of recommended dietary intake values, say researchers.

Professor Michael Fenech of CSIRO's Food and Nutritional Sciences Division in Adelaide lays out his argument in a paper accepted for publication in the journal American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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Farm Aid From Space

A Kenyan Masai farmer stands next to his three cows exhausted by lack of nutrition near Kajiado, south of Nairobi. A NOAA environmental satellite was launched in February (below). Its images will be used in an index that helps determine payouts for climate insurance. Antony Njuguana/Reuters/File

From Christian Science Monitor:

Dusty northern Kenya doesn't look like a laboratory, but across its dry plains, cattle herders are pioneering a new way to fend off poverty and teaming up with unlikely partners – insurance agents.

The two groups have been brought together by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), headquartered in Kenya's capital, Nairobi. A few years ago, scientists at ILRI wondered if a new innovation, called weather-indexed insurance, might help impoverished cattle farmers survive the loss of their cows during times of drought.

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Ancient DNA Teased From Fossil Eggshells

Fragments of ancient moa eggshells. Eggshells are surprisingly good at protecting ancient DNA, and are often found at archaeological sites. Credit: University of Otago

From Cosmos:

PARIS: DNA from the fossilised eggshells of extinct birds - including iconic giants such as the moa and elephant bird - have been extracted for the first time, Australian scientists have reported.

The achievement marks a major step towards drafting the genome of birds wiped out by human greed, although the scientists warn this does not mean an extinct species should - or even can - be resurrected in the style of Jurassic Park.

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Scientists Discover 'Catastrophic Event' Behind The Halt Of Star Birth in Early Galaxy Formation

Artist’s representation showing outflow from a supermassive black hole inside the middle of a galaxy. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 10, 2010) — Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic event they believe was responsible for halting the birth of stars in a galaxy in the early Universe.

The researchers, led by Durham University's Department of Physics, observed the massive galaxy as it would have appeared just three billion years after the Big Bang when the Universe was a quarter of its present age.

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Effort To Map Human Brain Faces Complex Challenges

The wiring diagram of connections between neurons and the interscutularis muscle of a mouse ear. Credit: Lu et al., 2009 PLoS Biology: The Interscutularis Connectome

From Live Science:

Mapping the connections among brain cells could someday prove as revolutionary as mapping the human genome. But tracing each synaptic connection between neurons — essentially a manual effort so far — has proven painstakingly slow. To approach a thorough mapping, researchers will have to develop a computer-automated process.

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Obama's Plans For NASA Changes Met With Harsh Criticism

From Washington Post:

Harrison Schmitt's credentials as a space policy analyst include several days of walking on the moon. The Apollo 17 astronaut, who is also a former U.S. senator, is aghast at what President Obama is doing to the space program.

"It's bad for the country," Schmitt said. "This administration really does not believe in American exceptionalism."

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E-Books Are Largest Category In App Store

From Mac World:

Steve Jobs once dismissed the Kindle by declaring that “people don’t read anymore.” That may or may not be true, but either way, people definitely still sell books. As The Guardian reports, e-books are now more plentiful on the App Store than any other kind of app—including games.

The Guardian cites a report from mobile advertising company Mobclix, which identified 27,000 e-book apps, as opposed to 25,400 games. (Surprisingly, “novelty fart apps” didn’t even rank in the top five.)

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Cryptographers Voice Their Concerns On The Security Of Cloud Computing

Cryptographers Warn About Security Dangers in the Cloud at RSA -- Redmond Magazine (Microsoft IT Community News)

Researcher says read the fine print before connecting to the cloud.

Government intervention in cloud computing is "the big elephant in the room that no one will talk about," said Adi Shamir, professor of mathematics and computer science at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, who spoke at the recent RSA Conference as part of the event's annual Cryptographers' Panel.

Shamir added that once most people move their IT operations into the cloud, "it's going to be the wet dream of government."

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My Comment: If you are concerned about cyberwar, cyber security, and cyber attacks .... this article will increase your concerns exponentially.

US Still Responsible For Most CO2 Emissions

From New Scientist:

Europeans import nearly twice as much carbon dioxide per head as US citizens – but the US still holds the dubious distinction of being the world's largest emitter.

The Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California, reports that in 2004 23 per cent of global CO2 emissions – some 6.2 gigatonnes – went in making products that were traded internationally. Most of these products were exported from China and other relatively poor countries to consumers in richer countries. Some countries, such as Switzerland, "outsourced" over half of their carbon dioxide emissions in this way because they have a high import-to-export ratio of such energy-intensive goods as consumer electronics, motor vehicles and machinery.

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Google Tests TV Search Service

From The Wall Street Journal:

Google Inc. is testing a new television-programming search service with Dish Network Corp., according to people familiar with the matter, the latest development in a fast-moving race to combine Internet content with conventional TV.

The service, which runs on TV set-top boxes containing Google software, allows users to find shows on the satellite-TV service as well as video from Web sites like Google's YouTube, according to these people. It also lets users to personalize a lineup of shows, these people said.

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Super-Small Microphone Detects Motion Of Air Particles To Pinpoint Gunfire In Battle

The Microflown via Dvice

From Popular Science:

Wait, don't call it a microphone -- it's an acoustic vector sensor.

Between the yelling of sergeants, the rumble of jet engines, and the deafening pop of gunfire, a soldier's sense of hearing rapidly deteriorates in the heat of battle. Luckily, the Dutch company Microflown has designed a special microphone that can do a soldier's listening for him. By measuring the mechanical movement of individual air particles, as opposed to sound waves as a whole, the device can not only pinpoint the origin of sniper fire or approaching aircraft, but detail their make and model, as well.

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Cruise-Ship Disaster: How Do 'Rogue Waves' Work?

From Time Magazine:

It was like something out of a Hollywood disaster movie. On March 3, a sudden wall of water hit a cruise ship sailing in the Mediterranean Sea off the northeastern coast of Spain, killing two people, injuring 14 and causing severe damage to the vessel.

According to Louis Cruise Lines, the owner of the vessel, the Louis Majesty was hit by three "abnormally high" waves, each more than 33 ft. (10 m) high, striking in clear weather and without warning. "We heard a loud noise, and it was the wave that hit us," Claudine Armand, a passenger from France, told the Associated Press Television News. "When we came out of [our room], we saw the wave had flooded everything."

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Decision-Makers Betrayed By Their Wide Eyes

Dither no more (Image: Adam Hart-Davis/SPL)

From New Scientist:

WHY can't teachers keep a secret? Because their pupils give them away. It turns out that when people make decisions, their pupils dilate, a subtle cue that could be used to predict a person's intentions, or even converse with people with locked-in syndrome.

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Most Extreme White Dwarf Binary System Found With Orbit Of Just Five Minutes

Graphic of HM Cancri. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Warwick)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 9, 2010) — An international team of astronomers has shown that the two stars in the binary HM Cancri definitely revolve around each other in a mere 5.4 minutes. This makes HM Cancri the binary star with by far the shortest known orbital period. It is also the smallest known binary. The binary system is no larger than 8 times the diameter of the Earth which is the equivalent of no more than a quarter of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

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Even A 3-Year-Old Understands The Power Of Advertising

From Live Science:

Having the "right" brand of jeans or the latest gadget isn't just an annoying trait of teenagers (not to mention their parents). New research found that even preschoolers are brand-conscious and can recognize kiddie brand logos and products.

"Children as young as three are feeling social pressure and understand that consumption of certain brands can help them through life," said lead researcher Anna McAlister of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "Findings like this show us that we need to think about materialism developing in very young children."

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How To Save And Share Ridiculously Large Files

From CNET:

A few years ago it was a big deal to find a place that would let you share 1 gigabyte of files.

Things change, though. Bandwidth keeps growing, and the cost of Web storage keeps shrinking. That's good news for people looking to share increasingly large files, be it an HD video recording or an archive of several files that tops out at over a gig.

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Drinking Alcohol Could Help Women Stay Slim

The best drink for keeping the pounds off was red wine, but all four types of tipple included in the study -- red or white wine, beer and spirits -- showed similar results. Getty Images

From Discovery News:

A glass a day could keep excessive weight gain at bay.

Women who drink a couple of glasses of red wine, beer or spirits a day are better at keeping the pounds off than women who do not drink at all, according to a study published Monday.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston asked more than 19,000, average-weight U.S. women aged 39 or older how many alcoholic beverages they typically drank in a day, and then tracked the women for around 13 years.

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Grrr… What's 'Step Away From The Bone' In Dog?

From The New Scientist:

The canine phrase book has collected its first entries. Dogs understand the meaning of different growls, from a rumble that says "back off" to playful snarls made in a tug-of-war game.

Proving that animal vocalisations have specific meanings – and what they could be – is challenging. In 2008, Péter Pongrácz, a behavioural biologist at Eötvös Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, monitored dogs' heart rates to show that they seem to notice a difference between barks aimed at strangers and those directed at nothing in particular. Now he has gone a step further and shown that dogs respond differently to different vocalisations.

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Could The Mono Lake Arsenic Prove There Is A Shadow Biosphere?

California, USA --- Rock Formations in Mono Lake. (Micha Pawlitzki/Corbis)

From Times Online:

Do alien life forms exist in a Californian lake? Could there be a shadow biosphere? One scientist is trying to find out.

Mono Lake has a bizarre, extraterrestrial beauty. Just east of Yosemite National Park in California, the ancient lake covers about 65 square miles. Above its surface rise the twisted shapes of tufa, formed when freshwater springs bubble up through the alkaline waters.

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A Computer That Processes Faster Than The Speed of Light

Pushing the Limits of Physics Exceeding the speed of light opens one up to all kinds of theoretical problems, but two Austrian researchers claim there's no reason we can't build a computer that processes information at superluminal speeds.

From Popular Science:

How fast is too fast? According to the laws of physics, the speed of light is a good boundary, as going beyond it opens you up to all sorts of paradoxes and space-time phenomena that are usually the stuff of sci-fi. But a couple of researchers in Austria have come up with a way to compute information faster than the speed of light.

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How Safe Is Your Cell Phone?

Illustration by Jane Hong for TIME

From Time Magazine:

It takes a little extra work to get in touch with Andrea Boland. The Maine state representative answers e-mails and lists her business and home phone numbers on the Web. But unlike many politicians surgically attached to their BlackBerrys, she keeps her cell switched off unless she's expecting a call. And if she has her way, everyone in Maine — and perhaps, eventually, the rest of the U.S. — will similarly think twice before jabbering away on their mobiles.

Read more ....

NASA: Space Shuttles Could Fly Longer With Extra Funds

From Space.com:

WASHINGTON – The chief of NASA's space shuttle program said Tuesday that the agency could technically continue to fly its three aging orbiters beyond their planned 2010 retirement if ordered to do so by President Barack Obama and lawmakers. All it would take would be the extra funding needed to pay for it.

Space shuttle program manager John Shannon said NASA spends about $200 million a month on its space shuttle program. That's about $2.4 billion a year that would be required to keep the shuttle flying beyond their 2010 retirement date, he said.

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Did 'Midwife Molecule' Assemble First Life On Earth?

Forming a double helix prevents the RNA from going round in circles
(Image: Laguna Design/SPL)

From New Scientist:

The primordial soup that gave birth to life on EarthMovie Camera may have had an extra, previously unrecognised ingredient: a "molecular midwife" that played a crucial role in allowing the first large biomolecules to assemble from their building blocks.

The earliest life forms are thought by many to have been based not on DNA but on the closely related molecule RNA, because long strands of RNA can act as rudimentary enzymes. This would have allowed a primitive metabolism to develop before life forms made proteins for this purpose.

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New HIV Hiding Spot Revealed

From Science:

Powerful anti-HIV drugs have come tantalizingly close to eradicating the virus from people, driving the blood level of HIV so low that standard tests cannot detect it. But no one has been cured: the virus comes roaring back in everyone who stops taking the drugs. A new study has identified one of HIV's main hideaways, raising intriguing possibilities about how to remove it.

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Exposure To Letters A Or F Can Affect Test Performance

A new study finds that seeing the letter A before an exam can improve a student's exam result while exposure to the letter F may make a student more likely to fail. (Credit: iStockphoto/Stacey Newman)

From New Scientist:

Science Daily (Mar. 9, 2010) — Seeing the letter A before an exam can improve a student's exam result while exposure to the letter F may make a student more likely to fail.

The finding is published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology in March 2010.

Read more ....

13 Crazy Earthquake Facts

From Live Science:

1. Earth has been more seismologically active in the past 15 years or so, says Stephen S. Gao, a geophysicist at Missouri University of Science & Technology. Not all seismologist agree, however.

2. San Francisco is moving toward Los Angeles at the rate of about 2 inches per year — the same pace as the growth of your fingernails — as the two sides of the San Andreas fault slip past one another. The cities will meet in several million years. However, this north-south movement also means that despite fears, California won't fall into the sea.

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DARPA Seeks Prosthetics Directly Controllable Through Brain Implants

Military Amputees Brian Frasure, a clinical prosthetist and world-class athlete, speaks to the audience on the last day of the Military Amputees Advances Skills Training workshop at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Sgt. Sara Wood/U.S. Army

From Popular Science:

Artificial limbs have advanced quite a bit since the days of the pirate peg leg, but not nearly enough for DARPA. The Pentagon agency has kicked off a new phase of its "Revolutionizing Prosthetics" program that sets the hefty goal of creating a fully-functional human limb directly controlled by the brain within five years, according to Wired's Danger Room.

Read more ....

More States Propose Internet Sales Taxes

From CNET:

Jeremy Bray received an e-mail message this morning with an unwelcome surprise: Amazon.com told him it had canceled its affiliate program, which provides small payments for referring customers, for everyone in the state of Colorado.

The reason? A state law, which Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter signed last week, slaps onerous new restrictions on large out-of-state sellers like Amazon, which said it has no choice but to end its marketing program in response.

Read more ....