A Solution To The Problem Of Wind Farms Near Military Bases

A military plane takes off at Dyess Air Force base near Abilene, Texas.
(Credit: Abigail Vander Hamm/AWEA)

Tech Fixes To Wind Turbine-Radar Conflict FaceHurdles -- CNET

Emerging technology can ease the problem of wind farms causing interference with air-traffic control systems. But deployment of that technology in the U.S. has been slowed by questions over authority and cost.

Since 2006, radar maker Raytheon and National Air Traffic Services, which provides air traffic control in the U.K., have been working on a project to upgrade air traffic radar so it can distinguish between aircraft and wind turbines' spinning blades. Concerns over the disturbances turbines can cause on air traffic control systems are already stunting the growth of wind power: radar and wind turbines conflicts derailed nearly as much as the total amount of installed wind power capacity in the U.S. last year.

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U.N. Exec: Cyberwar Could Be Worse Than Tsunami

ITU Secretary-General Hamdoun Toure'. (Credit: UN)

From ZDNet:

International cyberwar would be "worse than a tsunami" and should be averted by a global cybersecurity peace treaty, according to the head of the International Telecommunications Union.

Hamadoun Touré, who has been secretary-general of the UN agency since 1999 and is up for reelection in a few weeks' time, has targeted cybersecurity issues in his electoral pledges. Speaking at a London roundtable on Thursday, he said he had proposed such a treaty this year, but it had met "a lot of resistance" from industrialised nations.

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My Comment: Will governments bound themselves to international conventions when it comes to cyber security and cyberwar .... hmmmm .... I have my doubts. But some in the UN are optimistic that something can be done .... and will try to establish a framework in which countries must abide to and respect. My prediction, most countries will eventually sign on, but the usual suspects (i.e. North Korea, Iran, some former Soviet Union states, etc.) will not.

The Anatomy Of An E-Mail Hack

Emails can bear malicious links ready to unleash computer-enabled chaos with just a single click. (Getty Images)

From ABC News:

How Do E-Mail Viruses Spread? How Should You Protect Yourself?

Delivery notices from the post office, messages from out-of-touch friends and headlines from seasonal sporting events look innocent enough when they arrive in emailform.

But they all can bear malicious links ready to unleash computer-enabled chaos with just a single click.

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Reading Arabic 'Hard For Brain'

From The BBC:

Israeli scientists believe they have identified why Arabic is particularly hard to learn to read.

The University of Haifa team say people use both sides of their brain when they begin reading a language - but when learning Arabic this is wasting effort.

The detail of Arabic characters means students should use only the left side of their brain because that side is better at distinguishing detail.

The findings from the study of 40 people are reported in Neuropsychology.

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What Are BP, Apple, Amazon, And Others Spending On Google Advertising?

From Fast Company:

Google is typically very secretive about the specifics of its search revenue. I can't actually recall any other leak quite like this one, in which the budgets of specific companies are laid out--kudos to AdAge for snagging the internal document with such rarely seen information.

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Miniature Auto Differential Helps Tiny Aerial Robots Stay Aloft

Engineers at Harvard University are developing minuscule aerial robots that could someday be used to probe environmental hazards, forest fires, and other places too perilous for people. (Credit: Pratheev S. Sreetharan/Harvard University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 3, 2010) — Microrobots could be used for search and rescue, agriculture, environmental monitoringEngineers at Harvard University have created a millionth-scale automobile differential to govern the flight of minuscule aerial robots that could someday be used to probe environmental hazards, forest fires, and other places too perilous for people.

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Top 10 Working Animals

From Live Science:

On Labor Day, we celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of American workers. But humans aren't the only ones who toil: Animals do, too. People have used animal labor for thousands of years, and even today, our fuzzy (or feathery, or slippery) friends can go places and do things we can't.

-- Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

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Are Aliens Eavesdropping On Us? Not Likely

From Discovery News:

The seeming infinity of stars we see in deep exposures of the Milky Way belies the fact that our galaxy has been dead silent when it comes to detecting a radio or optical signal saying “hello” from any neighboring extraterrestrial civilization.

Maybe extraterrestrials are out there but they might not have gone to the effort and expense of building a powerful radio beam and aiming it at us. This may not be in their annual science budget. Or they simply may not want to make their presence know to the universe, as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking recently warned us not to do.

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Archaeologists Uncover 7,000-Year-Old Oar

"The oar was well preserved because fine mud layers completely blocked oxygen from decaying it," said Yoon On-Shik, a researcher from Gimhae National Museum.

From Cosmos:

SEOUL: A rare neolithic period wooden boat oar, believed to date back about 7,000 years but still in good condition, has been unearthed by South Korean archaeologists.

The oar was discovered in mud land in Changnyeong, 240 kilometres southeast of Seoul, the Gimhae National Museum said.

"This is a very rare find, not only in South Korea but also in the world," said museum researcher Yoon On-Shik. "We have to check with Chinese artefacts to confirm whether it is the oldest watercraft ever found in the world."

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At Google, Doodling Is Real Work

The first doodle signaled that Google's co-founders were attending Burning Man.
(Credit: Google)

From CNET:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--They've celebrated Pac-Man's anniversary, Einstein's birthday, the World Cup, the Fourth of July, Persian New Year, the Olympics, U.S. elections, and just about everything in between. Who are they? Google's Doodlers, of course.

A band of artists whose job it is to translate special events into those colorful, whimsical versions of Google's corporate logo, the Doodlers almost certainly have one of the best jobs in the world.

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Craigslist Puts "Censored" Tag On Adult Services Section

Craigslist has deactivated its adult services section
(Credit: CBS News)

From CBS News:

Craigslist has deactivated its adult services section in the United States, leaving in its place the word "censored" in bold black and white.

It's still not clear whether this means that the classified ads site has taken down the section, something that 17 attorneys general recently demanded in an open letter. They said that Craigslist could not adequately block potentially illegal ads promoting prostitution and child trafficking.

Craigslist did not immediately return a request for comment.

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Surveillance Tech Wirelessly Watches Over Older Parents

From The ABC News:

Telemonitoring: Video Cameras, Sensors Help Care for Aging Parents.

For 74-year-old Carol Brewer, welcoming a video camera into her living room wasn't easy.

She said she'd walk through her own home and wonder, "Am I dressed appropriately?"

But over time, she said, she grew accustomed to the little grey globe in the corner of the room and now credits it, in part, with helping her and her 78-year-old husband Ross, who is paralyzed from the waist down, continue to live in their Lafayette, Ind., home on their own.

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'No Climate Link' To African Wars

Climate Shifts 'Not To Blame' For African Civil Wars -- The BBC

A study suggests climate change is not responsible for civil wars in Africa, challenging widely held assumptions.

Climate change is not responsible for civil wars in Africa, a study suggests.

It challenges previous assumptions that environmental disasters, such as drought and prolonged heat waves, had played a part in triggering unrest.

Instead, it says, traditional factors - such as poverty and social tensions - were often the main factors behind the outbreak of conflicts.

The findings have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in the United States.

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My Comment: I think it is to early to say that climate change is not causing some African wars, on the flip side, it is also too early to say that it is. But according to the PNAS .... they are confident that there is no link at all.

How To tell Emergency Room Patients That They're Dying.

From Slate:

On television, the emergency room patients beat the odds. Their hearts get shocked back to life. Their organs get sewn up. They awaken to a handsome young physician's dazzling smile.

In real life, one in 500 ER patients—200,000 a year—dies under the bright lights of the emergency rooms. Another 500,000—3 percent—die during hospital stays following emergency treatment. Countless patients learn, from a doctor they have never seen before and may never see again, that they have fatal diseases. Others get treated, aggressively and repeatedly, for dangerous flare-ups in conditions like heart failure or emphysema without anyone having the time or the skills to explain that the chronic disease they have been living with is now the chronic disease that they are slowly dying from, a scenario Atul Gawande explored in his recent New Yorker piece on what doctors can do when they can no longer cure.

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Eternal Black Holes Are The Ultimate Cosmic Safes

There may be a way to create black holes that do not evaporate over time (Image: Copyright Denver Museum of Nature and Science)

From The New Scientist:

If you wanted to hide something away for all eternity, where could you put it? Black holes might seem like a safe bet, but Stephen Hawking famously calculated that they leak radiation, and most physicists now think that this radiation contains information about their contents. Now, there may be a way to make an "eternal" black hole that would act as the ultimate cosmic lockbox.

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Taking Cues From Medical Tech, Big Oil Could Use Nanoparticles to Hunt for Leftover Crude in Spent Wells

Using Nanotech to Reach Every Drop of Oil Flcelloguy via Wikimedia

From Popular Science:

You can't throw a rock in the realm of biotech right now without hitting some scheme or another for tapping the unique properties of nanoparticles to hunt tumors, target drug delivery, or monitor the body internally for specific biomarkers. But a perhaps unlikely field of scientific exploration is also tapping these nano-biotechnology applications to search for the elusive hydrocarbons that are its lifeblood: the oil industry.

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4 Big Losers From Apple's TV, iPod Announcement

From Popular Mechanics:

At today's music-themed keynote in San Francisco, Apple rolled out a lot of goodies as fanboys cheered each announcement. It was hard not to imagine entire industries turning red with fear. Apple is a powerful company, and their business decisions and product announcements have a tendency to radically reshape entire industries. Let's look at some of the biggest potential losers from today's announcements.

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Can Nanotechnology Save Lives?

Polymer fronds a few thousand nanometers long wrap around even tinier plymer spheres. Felice C. Frankel

From The Smithsonian:

Harvard professor and scientific genius George Whitesides believes that nanotechnology will change medicine as we know it

Finding George Whitesides is often tricky even for George Whitesides. So he keeps an envelope in his jacket pocket. “I don’t actually know where I am in general until I look at it,” he says, “and then I find that I’m in Terre Haute, and then the question really is, ‘What’s next?’” During a recent stretch, the envelope revealed that he was in Boston, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai, Delhi, Basel, Geneva, Boston, Copenhagen, Boston, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles and Boston.

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Inception: 'The Most Resilient Parasite Is An Idea Planted In The Unconscious Mind'

From The Telegraph:

The movie 'Inception' raises interesting questions about the brain’s susceptibility to new ideas during dreaming, says Roger Highfield.

Are you dreaming as you read this sentence? I’m sure you’re confident that you’re wide awake – but if you’ve seen Inception, the new blockbuster movie, you may harbour a nagging doubt.

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5 Nanometer Computer Chips

From Future Pundit:

While Moore's Law for increasing computer chip transistor density won't go on for more than another 20 years it is still happening. Intel introduced 32 nanometer chips in 2009 and will introduce 22 nm chips in 2011. The New York Times reports on Rice University and Hewlett-Packard researchers who have developed 5 nanometer logic devices.

These chips store only 1,000 bits of data, but if the new technology fulfills the promise its inventors see, single chips that store as much as today’s highest capacity disk drives could be possible in five years. The new method involves filaments as thin as five nanometers in width — thinner than what the industry hopes to achieve by the end of the decade using standard techniques. The initial discovery was made by Jun Yao, a graduate researcher at Rice. Mr. Yao said he stumbled on the switch by accident.

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How To Make Money Developing Mobile Apps

iPad, iPhone, iPod

From Tod.fm:

Do you want to make money developing applications for iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices? I went from almost zero experience to earning a regular income from my apps in a few short months. Let me show you how I did it.

This is a long article (6,217 words). I will go through some important aspects of writing successful apps, from finding and choosing the right ideas to develop, to a very important money saving tip. Although I’m writing from the perspective of an iOS developer, the general ideas apply to other platforms like Android. Whether you develop for Apple’s devices or not, you can still benefit from the article.

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My Comment: A rather long article, but an interesting read.

This Is Weird

A game character from Love Plus is superimposed over a cellphone photo of Kanji Nagasawa, the owner of a Korean barbecue restaurant in Atami, Japan, holding a specialty dish created for the game's fans. Akiko Fujita

Only In Japan, Real Men Go To A Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends -- Wall Street Journal

Dating-Simulation Game a Last Resort For Honeymoon Town and Its Lonely Guests.

ATAMI, Japan—This resort town, once popular with honeymooners, is turning to a new breed of romance seekers—virtual sweethearts.

Since the marriage rate among Japan's shrinking population is falling and with many of the country's remaining lovebirds heading for Hawaii or Australia's Gold Coast, Atami had to do something. It is trying to attract single men—and their handheld devices.

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What Is Consciousness?

From Think Big:

What does it mean to be conscious? It's a question that philosophers and scientists have puzzled over perhaps since there have been philosophers and scientists.

In his book "Consciousness Explained," Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett calls human consciousness "just about the last surviving mystery," explaining that a mystery is something that people don't yet know how to think about. "We do not yet have all the answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them," writes Dennett. "With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist—and hope—that there will never be a demystification of consciousness."

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Second Super-Fast Flip Of Earth's Poles Found

On the flip, in record time (Image: G.Glatzmaier/Los Alamos National Laboratory/P.Roberts/UCLA/SPL)

From The New Scientist:

SOME 16 million years ago, north became south in a matter of years. Such fast flips are impossible, according to models of the Earth's core, but this is now the second time that evidence has been found.

The magnetic poles swap every 300,000 years, a process that normally takes up to 5000 years. In 1995 an ancient lava flow with an unusual magnetic pattern was discovered in Oregon. It suggested that the field at the time was moving by 6 degrees a day - at least 10,000 times faster than usual. "Not many people believed it," says Scott Bogue of Occidental College in Los Angeles.

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They Crawl, They Bite, They Baffle Scientists

THE ICK FACTOR The lab of Stephen A. Kells, a University of Minnesota entomologist. Bedbugs are not known to transmit disease. Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Don’t be too quick to dismiss the common bedbug as merely a pestiferous six-legged blood-sucker.

Think of it, rather, as Cimex lectularius, international arthropod of mystery.

In comparison to other insects that bite man, or even only walk across man’s food, nibble man’s crops or bite man’s farm animals, very little is known about the creature whose Latin name means — go figure — “bug of the bed.” Only a handful of entomologists specialize in it, and until recently it has been low on the government’s research agenda because it does not transmit disease. Most study grants come from the pesticide industry and ask only one question: What kills it?

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What Created This Smooth, 200-Mile-Long Trench On Mars?

Orcus Patera ESA

From Popular Science:

The European Space Agency has released a series of new images of Orcus Patera, a long crater near Mars's Mons Olympus whose rim rises some 6,000 feet. But the images, taken by the Mars Express craft, only deepen the mystery of the crater's origin.

The ESA says "the most likely explanation is that it was made in an oblique impact, when a small body struck the surface at a very shallow angle." Sounds almost definitely like aliens.

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How the 105-mph Fastball Tests The Limits Of The Human Body

Pitcher Aroldis Chapman #51 of the Louisville Bats throws a pitch during a game on May 14, 2010 against the Rochester Red Wings at Frontier Field in Rochester, New York. Gregory Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics:

A Triple-A pitcher shocked the baseball world with a pitch clocked at an insanely fast 105 mph. Here's why we won't see pitchers throw it much faster than this—ever.

Last Friday was a mixed bag for fans of the fastball. Early in the day, the Washington Nationals announced that phenom Stephen Strasburg, who hurled a 101-mph pitch in his debut in June, would likely require Tommy John surgery for his injured elbow; a procedure that could sideline him for up to 18 months. But later that night Aroldis Chapman, a 22-year-old Cuban defector pitching for the Cincinnati Reds' triple-A affiliate in Louisville, captured baseball fans' attention when he threw a pitch clocked at 105 mph.

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Apple Ping Network Slammed With Spam

Apple Ping is having some spam problems. Lots of them. So is Ping finished? Probably not. Newscom

From Christian Science Monitor:

Earlier this week, Apple launched a platform called Ping, which is built into the latest iteration of iTunes. Ping is a sort of Facebook or MySpace for iTunes people: You can use the service to share your favorite songs and videos, suggest content to friends, and search for concerts and events in your area. But Ping has gotten off to a rocky start.

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Gadget Lab Podcast: iPods, Apple TV and Samsung's Galaxy Tab

India To Build World's Largest Solar Telescope

Photo: Currently, the world's largest solar telescope is the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, with a diameter of 1.6 metres in Kitt Peak National Observatory at Arizona in the US.

From Space Daily:

India is inching closer towards building the world's largest solar telescope in Ladakh on the foothills of the Himalayas that aims to study the sun's microscopic structure.

The National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) project has gathered momentum with a global tender floated for technical and financial bidding by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA).

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Health Checkup: Who Needs Organic Food?

Foodpix / Getty Images
Organic food comes with real health benefits and significant costs. TIME looks at both sides of the debate

From Time Magazine:

Looking for a quick way to feel lousy about yourself? Then forget the idea of a healthy diet and just eat what your body wants you to eat. Your body wants meat; your body wants fat; your body wants salt and sugar. Your body will put up with fruits and vegetables if it must, but only after all the meat, fat, salt and sugar are gone. And as for the question of where your food comes from — whether it's locally grown, sustainably raised, grass-fed, free range or pesticide-free? Your body doesn't give a hoot.

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Yet Another Human Job Is Replaced By A Robot

EMILY To the Rescue: An Automated Lifeguard -- The Economist

Yet another human job is replaced by a robot.

BIG crowds, strong surf and powerful rip currents are only a few of the obstacles that lifeguards must overcome to keep swimmers safe. Strong winds can pull many bathers out to sea simultaneously, overwhelming the guards if there are only a few of them. And, since average swimming speed is about 3kph (2mph) even a single rescue mission can take more than half an hour.

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Stephen Hawking: Ten Pearls Of Wisdom

Professor Stephen Hawking Photo: DISCOVERY CHANNEL

From The Telegraph:

After Professor Stephen Hawking apparently rubbished the idea of a God, claiming the Big Bang was an inevitable result of physics, here are ten of our favourite quotes.

Stephen Hawking on why the universe exists:

"If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God."

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Kepler Probe Ffinds Two Saturn-Sized Planets Orbiting A Single Star 2,000 Light Years Away

An artist's impression of the two Saturn-sized planets as they orbit the same star

From The Daily Mail:

Two giant Saturn-sized planets have been spotted passing in front of the same star, Nasa scientists announced today.

It is the first time more than one planet has ever been discovered 'transiting' a single star.

The two planets were discovered by the space telescope Kepler and will give scientists vital information about how planets were formed and how they interact with each other.

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Scientists Figure Out Magical 'Banana' Free Kick

From The CBC:

Thirteen years after Roberto Carlos stunned onlookers with his amazing "banana" free kick that seemed to defy the law of physics, scientists have finally worked out how he did it.

In what many people regard as the best free kick ever, the Brazil defender struck the ball with the outside of his left foot 35 yards out, bending it around the outside of France's three-man wall during a friendly tournament in Lyon in 1997.

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Water in Earth's Mantle Key To Survival Of Oldest Continents

This is an image of a sample of cratonic mantle root from Kimberley, South Africa. The rock consists of dark green olivine, whitish-green enstatite, emerald green diopside and purple garnet. (Credit: David R. Bell / ASU)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010) — Earth today is one of the most active planets in the Solar System, and was probably even more so during the early stages of its life. Thanks to the plate tectonics that continue to shape our planet's surface, remnants of crust from Earth's formative years are rare, but not impossible to find. A paper published in Nature Sept. 2 examines how some ancient rocks have resisted being recycled into Earth's convecting interior.

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High-Tech Effort Underway to Protect Magna Carta

One of four existing copies of the 1297 Magna Carta. Credit: National Archives & Records Administration

From Live Science:

The Magna Carta helped form the foundation for modern English and U.S. law. Now one of two copies known to exist outside England is headed for a special new case to preserve it.

The very first Magna Carta dates to 1215, when English barons forced King John to write down the traditional rights and liberties of the country's free persons. A copy of the Magna Carta signed by King Edward I in 1297 currently resides within a helium-filled casement at the National Archives Building in Washington. But the medieval document is scheduled for a temporary removal in 2011 so it can be re-measured for a new case filled with argon.

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NASA Flies First Drone Over Hurricane

From Wired Science:

Hurricane Earl is waning as it moves northward up the east coast of the United States. Some of the first researchers to notice the weakening had front row seats, watching the eye of the hurricane via drone flights.

In addition to the usual cadre of satellites, NASA is using a small fleet of unmanned aircraft into, over and around the hurricane as it tracks north from the Caribbean. While flying into a hurricane is nothing new, Earl is the first hurricane that NASA has observed using their unmanned Global Hawk observation aircraft (pictured above).

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Canadian To Command Space Station In 2013

From Space Daily:

Astronaut Chris Hadfield in 2013 will become the first Canadian to command the International Space Station (ISS), the Canadian Space Agency announced Thursday.

Hadfield, 51, will rocket on his third trip into space aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft in December 2012 and assume command of the station during the second part of a six-month mission.

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Why Do Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers?

Jodi Cobb / National Geographic Creative / Getty Image

From Time Magazine:

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.

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My Comment: I am convinced .... and yes .... I need a drink.

One Reason Dieting Does Not Work

That’s The Way The Cookie Crumbles -- The Economist

One reason dieting does not work.

IF, BY chance, you are served an unusually large slice of pizza, compared with what others appear to be getting, would that experience incline you, some minutes later, to eat more cookies or fewer when platefuls came your way? That depends, it turns out, on whether you are on a diet. Those who are not eat fewer cookies, whereas those who are see the excessive pizza as a licence to pig out. It is a demonstration of what Janet Polivy, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, refers to as the “what the hell” effect—a phenomenon familiar from real life to which Dr Polivy has given scientific respectability, most recently in a paper published in the latest edition of Appetite.

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Why Food Is Costing Us The Earth

Coffee prices have risen sharply Photo: SIMON RAWLES

From The Telegraph:

The fight is on over how to solve our food crisis, but if we choose the wrong food policy at this juncture there could be no going back, says Rose Prince.

Hardly a morning passes without food making the headlines. This week has brought us the burger that thinks it's a pizza and news that eating asparagus makes you stay slim (fingers crossed it's the type covered in melted butter). And we heard that, if you eat pickled squid guts and single cream together, it tastes like strawberry shortcake.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab: Firm Joins Forces With Google By Launching Tablet to Take On Apple's iPad

iPad killer? People compare the performance of Apple's iPad (L) and Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablet devices at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin today

From The Daily Mail:

Apple faces a killer blow to its iPad after Samsung unveiled its own device amid rumours it could could be just half the price.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab with its seven inch touchscreen is smaller than the iPad, however it matches the Apple device in virtually all other functions.

Initial details suggest some aspects of the Tablet are even more sophisticated than the Apple creation.

At the same time, Apple faces competition from other technology giants which are racing to get their own touchscreen tablets into the shops before Christmas.

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My Comment: I prefer the size of the iPad, but others prefer something smaller. At last there is choice now, and that is a good thing.

Doctors Seek Way To Treat Muscle Loss

Participants in a University of Florida study use ankle weights to increase strength and balance. Researchers say muscle deterioration is a major reason some of the elderly lose mobility and cannot live independently. Steve Johnson for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Bears emerge from months of hibernation with their muscles largely intact. Not so for people, who, if bedridden that long, would lose so much muscle they would have trouble standing.

Why muscles wither with age is captivating a growing number of scientists, drug and food companies, let alone aging baby boomers who, despite having spent years sweating in the gym, are confronting the body’s natural loss of muscle tone over time.

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Stephen Hawking Says There's No Theory Of Everything

From New Scientist:

Craig Callender, contributor

Three decades ago, Stephen Hawking famously declared that a "theory of everything" was on the horizon, with a 50 per cent chance of its completion by 2000. Now it is 2010, and Hawking has given up. But it is not his fault, he says: there may not be a final theory to discover after all. No matter; he can explain the riddles of existence without it.

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The Secret To The Immortality Of McDonald's Food

Salon/iStockphoto/xxxnake

From Salon:

The chain's burgers can resist rot for years. Scientists explain why they have the shelf life of the undead.

Ever since Morgan Spurlock held up that jar of mysteriously well-preserved fries in "Super Size Me," the list of exhibits in the McDonald’s museum of food-that-refuses-go-bad has grown exponentially. The latest entrant is the Happy Meal Project, a burger and a packet of fries that have soldiered on undecayed for 143 days.

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My Comment: I have a confession .... I am addicted to sausage egg McMuffins. Don't know why .... just need a fix once in a while.

Hubble Observations of Supernova Reveal Composition Of 'Star Guts' Pouring Out

A team of astronomers led by the University of Colorado at Boulder is charting the interactions between Supernova 1987A and a glowing gas ring encircling the supernova remnant known as the "String of Pearls." (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010) — Observations made with NASA's newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope of a nearby supernova are allowing astronomers to measure the velocity and composition of "star guts" being ejected into space following the explosion, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Mass Extinction Threat: Earth On Verge of Huge Reset Button?

From Live Science:

Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems.

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China's Militarization of Space Continues

Chinese Satellite Test -- Inside The Ring, Washington Times

China recently conducted a space test involving two satellites that rendezvoused several hundred miles above Earth in a maneuver analysts say will likely boost Beijing's anti-satellite weapons program.

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More News On China's Space Program

Two Chinese Satellites Have Close Encounter in Orbit -- Discovery News
Close Encounters of the Worrisome Kind? Chinese Satellites Meet in Space -- Discover Magazine
China’s Secret Satellite Rendezvous ‘Suggestive of a Military Program’ -- The Danger Room
Satellite pulls new manoeuvre in space -- Toronto Sun
Two Chinese Satellites Rendezvous in Orbit -- Universe Today
Chinese On-orbit Rendezvous Analyzed [The Space Review] -- Space News
Two Chinese satellites rendezvous in orbit -- New Scientist

Hurricane's Path Unfamiliar to U.S. Northeast

From CBS News:

Earl Heads Uncomfortably Close to Area Relatively Few Hurricanes Tend to Go.

(AP) Pushed by an ill-timed trough of low pressure, Hurricane Earl is heading uncomfortably close to an area relatively few hurricanes tend to go: the northeastern United States coastline.

Earl's path may in fact be foreshadowing more northerly big storms to come with global warming, two hurricane experts said Thursday.

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Counting Down To Commercial Space Launches

Image: Space pioneer: This image shows an artist’s rendering of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Credit: SpaceX

From Technology Review:

The next few years will see at least two new commercial spacecraft put into orbit.

A small fleet of privately developed spacecraft will head into orbit in the next few years--assuming that current levels of public and private funding can be sustained. If it happens, this will mark a new chapter in space exploration and research, as NASA comes to rely more on private companies for the technology to put manned and unmanned vehicles in space.

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Global Energy Use In The 21st Century

World energy consumption by type in 2006 - Image: Wikimedia

From Watts Up With That?:

Guest Post by Thomas Fuller

This is a great time to talk about energy use worldwide. Not because it’s topical, or politically important, or anything like that. It’s a great time because the math is easier now than ever before, and easier than it ever will be again.

It’s similar to a time a few years ago when there were almost exactly 100 million households in the United States. It made a lot of calculations really easy to do. And this year, the United States Department of Energy calculates that the world used 500 quads of energy. Ah, the symmetry.

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DARPA's Cyber Insider Threat Program Is The Agency's Great Hope For Ending Leaks

Protecting Military Networks Thinking about WikiLeaking? Think again. U.S. Navy

From Popular Science:

The recent WikiLeaks exposure was a huge black eye for the U.S. Department of Defense, supposedly one of the more secure state organizations we have working for us. Its impact clearly wasn’t lost on the Pentagon, whose blue sky research arm has launched a new project designed to ferret out malicious behavior on DoD networks. Named CINDER – Cyber INsiDER Threat – the project is designed not to sniff out people, but adversarial actions as they happen.

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My Comment: I am skeptical that such a program will be successful .... but hey .... Darpa has surprised us on many occasions and should not be underestimated.

Charlie Bamforth Tells All About The Beer Industry

Charlie Bamforth
UC Davis, College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences

From Popular Mechanics:

In the forthcoming book, Beer Is Proof God Loves Us (to be published October 2010 by FT press), beer expert and master brewer Charlie Bamforth talks about the fast-changing world of beer. From the loss of the pub to the growth of homebrewing, corporate takeovers, and the rise of craft culture, Bamforth outlines the recent history of beer and helps beer-lovers, home brewers and aspiring brewmasters navigate the modern-day beerscape. We got Bamforth on the phone to talk about his views on Big Beer, home brewing and how to become a brewmaster.

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