The Math Behind the Physics Behind the Universe

Discover Interview: The Math Behind the Physics Behind the Universe -- Discover Magazine

Shing-Tung Yau explains how he discovered the hidden dimensions of string theory.

Shing-Tung Yau is a force of nature. He is best known for conceiving the math behind string theory—which holds that, at the deepest level of reality, our universe is built out of 10-dimensional, subatomic vibrating strings. But Yau’s genius runs much deeper and wider: He has also spawned the modern synergy between geometry and physics, championed unprecedented teamwork in mathematics, and helped foster an intellectual rebirth in China.

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Civil War In Africa Has No Link To Climate Change

Temperature is not the issue (Image: Daniel Pepper/Getty)

From The New Scientist:

THE idea that global warming will increase the incidence of civil conflict in Africa is wrong, according to a new study. What's more, the researchers who previously made the claim now concede that civil conflict has been on the wane in Africa since 2002, as prosperity has increased. If the trend continues, a more peaceful future may be in store.

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E-Books Are Still Waiting for Their Avant-Garde

From Gadget Lab/Wired Science:

E-readers have tried to make reading as smooth, natural and comfortable as possible so that the device fades away and immerses you in the imaginative experience of reading. This is a worthy goal, but it also may be a profound mistake.

This is what worries Wired’s Jonah Lehrer about the future of reading. He notes that when “the act of reading seems effortless and easy … [w]e don’t have to think about the words on the page.” If every act of reading becomes divorced from thinking, then the worst fears of “bookservatives” have come true, and we could have an anti-intellectual dystopia ahead of us.

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'Mind-Reading Machine' Can Convert Thoughts Into Speech

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

A mind reading machine is a step closer to reality after scientists discovered a way of translating people's thoughts into words.

Researchers have been able to translate brain signals into speech using sensors attached to the surface of the brain for the first time.

The breakthrough, which is up to 90 per cent accurate, offers a way to communicate for paralysed patients who cannot speak and could eventually lead to being able to read anyone thoughts.

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Researchers Give Robots the Capability for Deceptive Behavior

The black robot intentionally knocked down the red marker to deceive the red robot into thinking it was hiding down the left corridor. Instead, the black robot is hiding inside the box in the center pathway. (Credit: Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 9, 2010) — A robot deceives an enemy soldier by creating a false trail and hiding so that it will not be caught. While this sounds like a scene from one of the Terminator movies, it's actually the scenario of an experiment conducted by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology as part of what is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception.

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Quantum Jumps Could Help Image Cancer Cells

An animation showing the fluorescence process when the quantum dot is in the so-called "on" state. Credit: Ovidiu Toader, Vancouver BA, Canada

From Live Science:

New research by Boldizsár Jankó, a professor of theoretical physics at The University of Notre Dame, and his colleagues offers an important breakthrough in understanding an enduring mystery in physics.

More than a century ago, at the dawn of modern quantum mechanics, the Noble Prize-winning physicist Neils Bohr predicted “quantum jumps.” Since the early 1990s, researchers have been able to view such jumps as interruptions of the continuous emissions from single molecules, a phenomenon informally called “blinking”. However, while some blinking can be directly ascribed to Bohr’s original quantum jumps, many observations do not follow predictions.

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Green Sky At Night, What A Delight! Plasma Eruption On The Sun Causes Spectacular Northern Lights

Spectacular: The Northern Lights bursting into a spectacular display of purple in Norway

From The Daily Mail:

In shimmering, rippling waves of green, Mother Nature's most spectacular show lights up the night sky.

Captured in the Arctic Circle above the still waters of a lake, it is an undeniably awe-inspiring display.

The haunting beauty of the Northern Lights - known as aurora borealis - is caused by massive explosions in the sun which send streams of electrically charged particles 3 million miles to the Earth.

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Stunning Photos of Space Capture Top Honors

This image of a bristlecone pine tree under the Milky Way took the top prize in the second annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, run by the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, England. Hosted with Sky at Night magazine, the contest received more than 400 entries from about 25 countries. The winner, "Blazing Bristlecone," was shot by Tom Lowe in California's White Mountains. (© Tom Lowe)

CSN Editor: For more pictures, go here.

What Caused The Calif. Natural Gas Explosion?

From Discovery News:

A horrific explosion in San Bruno, Calif., yesterday initially prompted fears of an airplane crash. The source turned out to be a ruptured natural gas line, but what failure actually caused the deadly, Bruckheimer-like scene?

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, PG&E, told the Associated Press that a 30-inch gas pipe had ruptured several feet underground. PG&E told reporters that the blast originated in a steel gas pipeline about two feet in length, but they don't know the cause yet because the fire was still going this morning.

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30 Ways The World Could End

From Discover Magazine:

Crank up the gloom and doom: Global apocalypse could be just around the corner, and you might never see it coming—unless you read this article.

Fashions come and go in all human endeavors—even eschatology, the study of the end of the world.

Back in the 1980s, our planet seemed sure to perish in a nuclear barrage, and songs about atomic apocalypse were at the top of the charts: Cue Prince’s “1999” (“Everybody’s got a bomb/We could all die any day”). By the 1990s, death by asteroid impact was all the rage. After 9/11 and the 2001 anthrax attacks, worries turned to a bioweapon unleashed by a terror group. The latest obsession is plague, delivered in the metaphorical form of vampires and zombies—especially zombies, since vampires have developed an unseemly fondness for chaste romance.

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US Navy Seeks 'Safer' Bomb

Show some restraint (Image: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty)

From New Scientist:

COULD a variable-yield bomb reduce the number of innocent people killed or injured during an air attack targeting enemy soldiers? That's the thinking behind a US navy plan to develop a "dial-a-blast" bomb.

The navy is seeking proposals from companies to create a bomb weighing 200 kilograms that can either be detonated at full or reduced power. The idea is that the device could be loaded onto planes before a target has been identified, and the explosive power set by the pilot once a target is known. If there is a risk of killing civilians, then the explosive power can be reduced to ensure a small blast radius. In an unpopulated area the bomb, currently known as the Selectable Output Weapon, could be set so that it has the same power as a regular bomb of the same size. Carrying a single bomb would make it easier and cheaper for the navy to arm its planes.

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Alt Text: Google, Apple Unveil Competing Battle Robots

From The Underwire:

Google and Apple announced Friday what many analysts have long predicted: That they will settle the long-standing competition between the two companies with a series of giant robot battles.

The announcement comes as the culmination of a series of parallel developments between the two competitors. Apple recently unveiled its new Apple TV with 99-cent streaming episodes, and Google followed a week later with Google TV, to be deployed this fall.

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This Man Makes 137,000 iPhones A Day

Terry Gou. Photo: Tony Law for Bloomberg Businessweek

From Fortune/CNN Money:

"I should be honest with you," Foxconn founder and chairman Terry Gou told Bloomberg Businessweek on the subject of the suicides at his company's massive factory complex in Shenzhen, China. "The first one, second one, and third one, I did not see this as a serious problem. We had around 800,000 employees, and here [in Longhua] we are about 2.1 square kilometers. At the moment, I'm feeling guilty. But at that moment, I didn't think I should be taking full responsibility." After the fifth suicide, in March, Gou says, "I decided to do something different."

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Vitamin B Is Revolutionary New Weapon Against Alzheimer's Disease

From The Telegraph:

Vitamin B tablets could slow and even halt the devastating march of Alzheimer's Disease in the elderly, a breakthrough British study suggests.

The research showed that large doses of the supplement could halve the rate of brain shrinkage – a physical symptom associated memory loss and dementia in the elderly.

The effects were so dramatic that the scientists behind the work believe it could revolutionise the treatment of the disease.

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People Hanging Out More On Facebook Than Google

From CNET:

Internet users are spending a bit more time these days socializing on Facebook than searching on Google, according to new data from market researcher ComScore.

In August, people spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, accounting for 9.9 percent of the total number of minutes they spent online for the month. That inched past the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6 percent of total time, that Net users spent on all of Google's sites combined, including its search engine, YouTube, Gmail, and Google News, ComScore said Thursday.

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'Tractor Beam' One Step Closer To Reality: Laser Moves Small Particles

Members of the scientific team: Yana Izdebskaya, Anton Desyatnikov, Vladlen Shvedov, Andrei Rode, Yuri Kivshar and Wieslaw Krolikowski. (Credit: Photo by Tim Wetherell)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 9, 2010) — Researchers from The Australian National University have developed the ability to move particles over large distances, using a specially designed laser beam.

Professor Andrei Rode's team from the Laser Physics Centre at ANU have developed a laser beam that can move very small particles up to distances of a metre and a half using only the power of light.

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5-Minute Scan Reveals Brain Maturity

From Live Science:

A five-minute brain scan can reveal the maturity of a child's brain, according to a new study. The results could be used to track abnormal brain development and catch brain disorders like autism early.

The study, published online this week in the journal Science, uses a specialized method of mathematically sifting through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data to form a picture not just of the brain's structure, but the way its various regions work together.

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Who Wants To Live For Ever?

Who Wants To Live For Ever? A Scientific Breakthrough Could Mean Humans Live For Hundreds Of Years -- The Independent

By tweaking our DNA, we could soon survive for hundreds of years – if we want to. Steve Connor reports on a breakthrough that has the science world divided.

A genetically engineered organism that lives 10 times longer than normal has been created by scientists in California. It is the greatest extension of longevity yet achieved by researchers investigating the scientific nature of ageing.

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Race To Take On Apple's iPad Hots Up As Top Manufacturers Launch Rivals To Bestselling Gadget

An Apple iPad is displayed next to Samsung's new tablet device, the 'Galaxy tab' at Samsung's booth at the 'IFA' in Berlin last week

From The Daily Mail:

Apple's iPad is finally facing some competition.

At least four of the technology firm's main rivals are launching their own version of the astronomically successful tablet device that sold three million units within its first 80 days.

And just as the iPhone redefined the smart phone, triggering a raft of lookalike rivals, so the iPad has established a new market for tablet style computers - gadgets which sit between smartphones and the bulkier net books and lap tops.

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Artificial Intelligence: Riders On A Swarm

From The Economist:

Mimicking the behaviour of ants, bees and birds started as a poor man’s version of artificial intelligence. It may, though, be the key to the real thing.

ONE of the bugaboos that authors of science fiction sometimes use to scare their human readers is the idea that ants may develop intelligence and take over the Earth. The purposeful collective activity of ants and other social insects does, indeed, look intelligent on the surface. An illusion, presumably. But it might be a good enough illusion for computer scientists to exploit. The search for artificial intelligence modelled on human brains has been a dismal failure. AI based on ant behaviour, though, is having some success.

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The Truth Is Out There (In Area 51)

Nevada’s mountains provide a wall around one of the world’s most secret places.
(Courtesy KPITV; Map: USGS)

From Air & Space Magazine:

A veteran reporter describes his search for the aircraft of Area 51.

"And you'll see a very long runway right...there." Our aircraft commander jabbed a finger at a small, cross-hatched circle on the U.S. Air Force navigation chart. "But, even if we lose all four engines," he said, "we will not land on it.”

“Why not, sir?” I asked.

“We’d be there a long time and have to answer a lot of questions,” the commander replied, then moved on to the next day’s mission preview. A four-stripe sergeant leaned toward me. “That’s Groom Lake,” he said under his breath. “That’s where the really secret [stuff] happens.”

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What Killed The Mammoths? Alien Nanodiamonds May Hold The Answer

Wooly Mammoth Did nanodiamonds mean death for this mammoth and all his friends? Depends on which study you believe. Wikimedia Commons

From Popular Science:

Do nanodiamonds prove an asteroid impact killed off North America's massive mammals 13,000 years ago? It depends on which scientist you ask.

A pair of studies published in the last month offer competing theories about whether an extraterrestrial object killed megafauna like woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed cats, along with the Clovis culture of North American human settlers.

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Mining The Truth On Coal Supplies

Photo: The Sierra Club

From National Geographic:

A view that the world’s leading electricity fuel—and major contributor to climate change—is running out.

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

No matter how bad coal might be for the planet, the conventional wisdom is that there is so much of it underground that the world’s leading fuel for electricity will continue to dominate the energy scene unless global action is taken on climate change.

But what if conventional wisdom is wrong?

A new study seeks to shake up the assumption that use of coal, the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, is bound to continue its inexorable rise. In fact, the authors predict that world coal production may reach its peak as early as next year, and then begin a permanent decline.

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A Cellular Secret To Long Life

From Science News:

Just as proper storage keeps a loaf fresh longer, adequate packaging may be a key to cellular longevity, reports a study of the organisms that make bread rise.

New research on aging in baker’s yeast suggests that proper packaging of DNA can halt aging and lead to longer life. The study, published September 10 in Molecular Cell, shows that a decline in levels of DNA-packaging proteins called histones is partially responsible for aging, and that making more of the proteins can extend the life-span of yeast.

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Ancient Greeks Spotted Halley's Comet

The comet was considered a bad omen in 1066 (Image: Mary Evans/Alamy)

From New Scientist:

A CELESTIAL event in the 5th century BC could be the earliest documented sighting of Halley's comet - and it marked a turning point in the history of astronomy.

According to ancient authors, from Aristotle onwards, a meteorite the size of a "wagonload" crashed into northern Greece sometime between 466 and 468 BC. The impact shocked the local population and the rock became a tourist attraction for 500 years.

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Big Bang Was Followed by Chaos, Mathematical Analysis Shows

Time line of the Universe. (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2010) — Seven years ago Northwestern University physicist Adilson E. Motter conjectured that the expansion of the universe at the time of the big bang was highly chaotic. Now he and a colleague have proven it using rigorous mathematical arguments.

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Herb Quells Cows' Methane-Laden Belches

From Live Science:

For scientists concerned about greenhouse gas emissions, cow farts are nowhere near as problematic as their methane-laden belches. Now a new oregano supplement could stem the burps and reduce the potent methane emissions.

Worldwide, cows are responsible for 37 percent of the human-produced methane, according to study researcher Alexander Hristov, an associate professor of dairy nutrition at Penn State University. Most of that methane comes not from the backsides of cows, but from the gas they belch after digesting their food, according to Hristov and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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My Comment: Belching creates more methane gas than farting .... that is news to me.

Whoops! The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time

From Gizmodo:

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits," Thomas Edison once said. But is hustling all it takes? Is progress always deliberate? Sometimes genius arrives not by choice—but by chance. Below are our ten favorite serendipitous innovations.

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The 727 That Vanished

In 2003, a 727 that once flew for American Airlines disappeared from Angola.
(Courtesy Mike Gabriel)

From Air & Space Magazine:

A case pursued by the FBI, the CIA, the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security, CENTCOM, and the sister of Ben Padilla.

Seven years after her brother disappeared from Quatro de Fevereiro International Airport in Angola, Benita Padilla-Kirkland is trying to persuade the FBI to re-open his case. She believes she has the “new information” agents told her they require. But she suspects that the agency already has more information than agents will admit to.

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Archive Gallery: The Twentieth Century's Best-Kept Military Secrets

From Popular Science:

Death-ray bombs, giant flamethrowers, unclassified airfields, and more of history's deepest military secrets.

It's hard to look at military spending without wondering what's behind the scenes.. For instance, in this month's issue of Popular Science, we investigate what exactly the Pentagon is getting for the $58 billion it has dropped on classified assassination weapons.

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My Comment:View the photo gallery starting here.

Warming Solution: Just Stop Cold?

From National Geographic:

The greatest climate threat is from future cars and building, study says.

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.

Imagine that tomorrow, the whole world will stop building things that burn fossil fuels—cars and planes, power plants, and housing tracts.

How much more global warming would the planet endure?

(See Related, from National Geographic Channel: "Aftermath: Population Zero" )

This might sound like an environmentalist's dream—or a CEO's nightmare—but it's a serious question addressed by a new study published in the September 10 issue of Science.

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Mars Shows Signs Of Recent Activity

MARS PHOENIX LANDERA new analysis of carbon dioxide gas sampled in 2008 by NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander, shown in this self-portrait taken by a camera on the lander, suggests that the Red Planet may have been an active place with volcanoes and liquid water during the past 100 million years.JPL/NASA, University of Arizona, Texas A&M University

From Science News:

Carbon dioxide measurements suggest liquid water and volcanoes in past 100 million years.

New evidence suggests that Mars was much more active in the relatively recent past, with volcanoes erupting and water flowing on its surface within the past 100 million years.

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Skydiving From The Edge Of Space: Can A Human Break The Sound Barrier?

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner in his high-altitude suit after a test jump in California. Photograph: Robert Yager

From The Guardian:

A person freefalling from 120,000 feet would theoretically reach a supersonic speed of over 700mph. Two daredevils of the skies are racing to break the sound barrier – and face unknown hazards in their attempt.

We know this. At around 120,000 feet, on the fringes of space, the air is so thin that a falling human body would travel fast enough to exceed the speed of sound. A skydiver, properly equipped with pressurised suit and a supply of oxygen to protect against the hostile elements, could feasibly jump from that height and, about 30 seconds later, punch through the sound barrier – becoming the first person ever to go "supersonic" without the aid of an aircraft or space shuttle.

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World's Most Expensive Book Up For Grabs

(Image: Sotheby's)

From New Scientist:

If you like this picture of snowy owls and have a spare £4 to £6 million floating around, you might want make a bid for Audubon's book Birds of America when it goes to auction on 7 December at Sothebys, London.

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Evolving Culture: Where Do We Go From Here?

Hide And Seek? A male musk ox stands in a paddock at the Large Animal Research Station in Fairbanks, Alaska. The musk ox is genetically adapted to survive the harsh climate. Its long hair skirt, covering a fine wool coat and a 2-inch layer of fat, allows the animal to retain heat during the long, lean winters. All animals, except humans, adapt to climate by changing genetically. Jane Greenhalgh/NPR

From NPR:

For billions of years, the environment and how it affected organisms' genes was the key to evolution. But in the past 10,000 years, for humans at least, genetic evolution has been nudged aside by something more powerful.

"What we are able to do which other animals aren't able to do is to rapidly adapt to completely new environments," says Robert Boyd, an anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. "Most animals — all animals except humans — would have to adapt to that by changing genetically."

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Extreme X-Ray Source Suggests New Class of Black Hole

This is an artist's impression of the source HLX-1 (represented by the light blue object to the top left of the galactic bulge) in the periphery of the edge-on spiral galaxy ESO 243-49. This is the first strong evidence for the existence of intermediate mass black holes. (Credit: Heidi Sagerud)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2010) — A group of international astronomers in the UK, France and the USA, led by the University of Leicester, have found proof to confirm the distance and brightness of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, which may herald a new type of Black Hole.

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Humpback Dinosaur Surprises and Puzzles Experts

Hypothetical reconstruction of the flesh-eating dinosaur Concavenator that lived 125 million years ago shows the animal's humpback and spiky appendages on its forearms that may have been wings. Copyright: Raúl Martín.

From Live Science:

A hunchback dinosaur of sorts once roamed what is now central Spain. The meat-eating beast sported a humplike structure low on its back, a feature never previously described in dinosaurs, and one that has scientists scratching their heads.

The dinosaur, which is being called Concavenator corcovatus, measured nearly 20 feet (6 meters) in length and belonged to a group of some of the largest predatory dinosaurs known to walk the earth — carcharodontosaurs. It lived some 125 million years ago.

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The New iPod Line: A Mix Of Hits And Misses

From Chicago Sun Times:

September means three things: letter carriers and UPS delivery drivers tentatively start wearing long pants again, there will be a day when your entire sunny disposition is soured by the sounds of the first Christmas ad of the season ... and Apple releases updates to all of their iPods.

I’ve had time to use the new Shuffle, Nano, and Touch and I declare the 2010 editions to be a mixed bag. One is a retreat back that amounts to a big step forward; another is set of “under the hood” upgrades that adds true muscle car performance; and the third is ...

... um ...

Quite creative.

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Junkie Food: Tastes Your Brain Can't Resist

A delicious indulgence, or your next desperate hit? (Image: Jonphotography.com)

From New Scientist:

Is that cupcake an innocent indulgence? Or your next hit? We're finding that a sweet tooth makes you just as much an addict as snorting cocaine

SETTLED on the sofa watching the usual rubbish on TV, I notice that predictable, uncontrollable, nightly craving. At first I sit there, fighting it. But the longer I fight, the worse it gets. After 20 minutes, I can't concentrate on anything, I feel anxious, and start fidgeting like crazy. Finally, admitting my addiction, I break. I go to the freezer - to my stash of white stuff - and take a hit. Almost instantly, I relax, my brain in a state of bliss as the chemical courses through my veins. Isn't it amazing what a few scoops of ice cream can do?

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Brace For Global Cooling, Says The Old Farmer's Almanac

The Statue of Liberty, depicted frozen solid in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." Many weather forecasters and scientists wonder whether a coming period of "global cooling" may be on the way. Twentieth Century Fox

From FOX News:

DUBLIN, N.H. – Most of the country will see a colder-than-usual winter while summer and spring will be relatively cool and dry, according to the time-honored, complex calculations of the "Old Farmer's Almanac."

The 2011 issue of the almanac, which claims to be the nation's oldest continuously published periodical, was released Tuesday. It predicts that in the coming months, the Earth will continue to see a "gradual cooling of the atmosphere ... offset by any warming caused by increased greenhouse gases."

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Optical Speedbumps Create Illusion of Little Girl Darting Out In Front Of You

Slow Down As the driver approaches, this 2-D optical illusion painted on the pavement comes into focus, appearing in 3-D and reminding drivers to slow down.

From Popular Science:

Civil authorities around the world have tried all kinds of tricks to get drivers to slow down: speed bumps, rumble strips, flashing lights, the decoy police cruiser, and of course the good old-fashioned speed trap. The British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation is taking a different tack: scaring the living hell out of drivers. In an effort to brusquely remind drivers of the consequences of wanton acceleration, they’re painting an elongated image of a child chasing a ball into the street in 2-D on the pavement in such a way that it appears three-dimensional.

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Human Body Parts Found in Tiger Shark's Stomach

From Discovery News:

The legs, arms and severed torso of a person were all found inside the stomach of a tiger shark caught by sport fishermen last weekend, according to The Press Association, The Boston Herald, and numerous other reports.

Tiger sharks can swim over long distances, so it is not yet clear where the 12-foot-long shark consumed its human victim. Police are currently conducting DNA tests on the person's remains, Assistant Police Commissioner Glenn Miller in Nassau, Bahamas, told AP.

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Ipad Killers

(Photo: Apple iPad)

From CBS:

The product that ignited what until then had been a dormant market, Apple's iPad dominates the category. But its success has ignited the imagination of rivals who are prepping their own tablet computers - some of which are now available, others which are expected soon. Some made a splash last week at the IFA Berlin show last week and more doubtless will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. This much is clear: If the iPad is not your cup of tea, sit tight - fairly soon, there are going to be far more consumer touch-screen tablets to choose from.

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One In Four Gives Fake Net Names

From The BBC:

More than a quarter of people online have lied about their name and more than one in five has done something online they regret, says a new report.

The behavioural and psychological impacts of online life are outlined in a report from the security firm Norton.

The report suggests that two-thirds of web users have been hit by cybercrime, with the costs and time to resolve the crime varying widely around the world.

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Fundamental Constant Might Change Across Space

A team of astronomers have obtained new data by studying quasars, which are very distant galaxies hosting an active black hole in their center. As the light emitted by quasars travels throughout the cosmos, part of it is absorbed by a variety of atoms present in interstellar clouds, providing astronomers with a natural laboratory to test the laws of physics billions of light-years away from the Earth. Credit: Dr. Julian Berengut, UNSW, 2010.

From Space Daily:

New research suggests that the supposedly invariant fine-structure constant, which characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic
force, varies from place to place throughout the Universe. The finding could mean rethinking the fundaments of our current knowledge of physics.

These results will be presented tomorrow during the Joint European and National Astronomy Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, and the scientific article has been submitted to the Physical Review Letters Journal.

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The Brain Speaks: Scientists Decode Words From Brain Signals

This photo shows two kinds of electrodes sitting atop a severely epileptic patient's brain after part of his skull was removed temporarily. The larger, numbered, button-like electrodes are ECoGs used by surgeons to locate and then remove brain areas responsible for severe epileptic seizures. While the patient had to undergo that procedure, he volunteered to let researchers place two small grids -- each with 16 tiny "microECoG" electrodes -- over two brain areas responsible for speech. These grids are at the end of the green and orange wire bundles, and the grids are represented by two sets of 16 white dots since the actual grids cannot be seen easily in the photo. University of Utah scientists used the microelectrodes to translate speech-related brain signals into actual words -- a step toward future machines to allow severely paralyzed people to speak. (Credit: University of Utah Department of Neurosurgery)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 6, 2010) — In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, University of Utah researchers translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain.

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NASA Team To Trapped Miners: No Alcohol Or Cigarettes

Workers stand next to a special drill, the Xtrata 950, which will dig an escape hole for the miners who are trapped underground in a copper and gold mine, as it is transported to the top of a hill at Copiapo, some 725 km (450 miles) north of Santiago August 27, 2010.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

From Live Science:

After spending almost a week in Chile, a team of NASA personnel sent to provide nutritional advice and psychological support to 33 trapped miners reported Tuesday that the efforts of the Chilean government have been outstanding so far, and the focus needs to be on long-term strategies that will allow the men to live sustainably underground as a community.

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The Shark Soup Massacre And How To Stop It

From New Scientist:

Sharks attacking humans is big news; humans attacking sharks, not so much. Conservation photographers Paul Hilton and Alex Hofford are trying to redress this imbalance. In revealing the extent of the bloody trade in shark fins, their book Man and Shark is a testament of our cruelty towards these majestic creatures.

Hilton and Hofford, who both live in Hong Kong, have witnessed the butchery of sharks in places as diverse as Mozambique, Yemen and Sri Lanka. But Hofford had seen nothing until he went to Japan.

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Scientists Invent A Tractor Beam

In "Stak Trek," Federation starships relied upon tractor beams to hold and tow other vessels. Scientists may not be there yet, but they have managed to tow a small particle using light beams

From FOX News:

WASHINGTON – Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects.

Researchers from the Australian National University have announced that they have built a device that can move small particles a meter and a half using only the power of light.

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Airborne Laser Weapon Fails to Take Down Dummy Nuke In Critical 100-Mile Test Shot

The Airborne Laser Test Bed Missile Defense Agency

From Popular Science:

The Missile Defense Agency’s Airborne Laser Test Bed (ALTB) – formerly known simply as the Airborne Laser – has endured a back-and-forth existence, at different times the darling of the MDA, at other times on the verge of catching the Pentagon or Congressional axe. But after an all-around success in February, the scales have tipped back the other way for the embattled ICBM-blaster as it failed a critical test on September 1.

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Hubble Spots Ghostly Space Spiral

From Discovery News:

When I first saw this ghostly Hubble Space Telescope image, I assumed that faint blurry spiral was a lens flare or some other photographic anomaly. But on closer inspection, the details started to present themselves.

As imaged by the space telescope's sensitive Advanced Camera for Surveys, this striking pattern is formed by material being ejected from a dying star. But this isn't a lone star; there's a second star -- a binary partner -- orbiting with it and modulating the expanding gas.

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Mystery Of Google Doodles Answered: 'Google Instant'

From CBS News:

The big tease of the last few days is over: Google earlier today announced a search enhancement called Google Instant.

Google Instant, which is rolling out through the course of the day, evolved from the company's mission to speed up search results for Internet queries. The basic change means that users will find a changing set of results in the middle of the page each time they type in a character into the search box. The added technology is designed to help Google's search engine predict what a person might be searching for.

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