How Change of Seasons Affects Animals and Humans

The equinox, on Wednesday evening, marks the beginning of fall and less daylight for the Northern Hemisphere. The change can have profound effects on animals and is also partially responsible for fall foliage. Credit: Dreamstime.

From Live Science:

Tomorrow (Sept. 22) at 11:09 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, the center of the sun will cross Earth's equator, marking the autumnal equinox, and the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere.

For a brief period, days and nights around the world each last close to 12 hours (day and night are not exactly equal, as the term “equinox” is meant to imply). Then, as the Earth continues its path around the sun, days become shorter and nights lengthen, with the change becoming more pronounced in the higher latitudes, but remaining nonexistent at the equator.

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Boeing Wins Bid to Build Vulture, The Solar Spyplane That Stays Aloft For Five Years

SolarEagle Boeing's SolarEagle will fly continuously for five years under DARPA's Vulture II program. Boeing

From Popular Science:

Boeing’s spyplane development wing won an $89 million contract this week to build the SolarEagle unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, designed to fly continuously for five years at 65,000 feet.

As the winner of Darpa’s Vulture II program, the plane really only has to fly for one to three months by 2014, however.

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Black Strings: Black Holes With Extra Dimensions

Five-dimensional black strings evolve into black holes connected by black string filaments, in this computer simulation. Credit: Pretorius/Lehner

From Live Science:

Meet the Bizarro universe version of a black hole: a black string.

These hypothetical objects might form if our universe has hidden extra dimensions beyond the three of space and one of time that we can see, scientists say. A new study of five-dimensional black strings offers a glimpse into how these strange objects might evolve over time – if indeed they exist at all.

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Germany's North Sea Wind Turbines Attracting Sea Strangers

An aerial view of the offshore energy park Alpha Ventus in the North Sea, about 45 kilometres (27 miles) north of the island of Borkum, April 27, 2010. "Alpha Ventus," the first German wind park in the North Sea, has become home to a new biotope. On the foundations of the turbines, which began operating this spring, scientists have found oysters, crabs, sea anemones, and mussels. (Ingo Wagner/Pool/Reuters)

From ABC News/Spiegel Online:

A slew of non-native marine species have made their home on the Alpha Ventus wind turbines off the German coast in the North Sea. Scientists say the oysters and crabs, among others, have not affected the structures.

"Alpha Ventus," the first German wind park in the North Sea, has become home to a new biotope. On the foundations of the turbines, which began operating this spring, scientists have found oysters, crabs, sea anemones, and mussels.

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The Pill At 50: Maybe Not The Best Birth Control For 2010

The birth control pill's simplicity helped it beat out competition - diaphragms, timed intercourse - in 1960. But today having to take a pill daily is a major shortcoming. TIM MATSUI / Getty Images

From Philadelphia Inquirer:

The Pill turned 50 this year. Is it aging gracefully?

There's no doubt that it revolutionized contraception after Food and Drug Administration approval in 1960. It offered women a safe, effective way to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Women chose it over less reliable methods such as timed intercourse and the diaphragm.

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Reprogrammable Card Can Be Many Credit Cards In One

Card 2.0 The Multi-Account credit card lets you toggle between different accounts at the same bank. Dynamics Inc.

From Popular Science:

A pair of new computerized credit cards can re-program their own magnetic stripes and hide their account numbers, providing added security for bank customers who don’t want to carry lots of plastic inside RFID-proof metal wallets.

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Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

Exercise has been shown to be ineffective when it comes to losing weight – dieting is a better route Photograph: Getty

From The Guardian:

Got a few pounds to lose? Cancel the gym membership. An increasing body of research reveals that exercise does next to nothing for you when it comes to losing weight. A result for couch potatoes, yes, but also one that could have serious implications for the government's long-term health strategy

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Steve Jobs In Email Pissing Match With College Journalism Student

From Gawker:

Steve Jobs is known for replying to random emails sent to his personal Apple email address. Well, a college journalism student from Long Island emailed him about a problem she had with Apple's PR department. Jobs' response? "Leave us alone."

Long Island University senior Chelsea Kate Isaacs, 22, emailed Jobs Thursday with a complaint: Her journalism professor had assigned her a story on a new initiative at her college to buy iPads for all incoming students. She wanted to get a quote from Apple about the use of iPads in academic settings. But when she repeatedly called Apple's PR department, leaving six voice messages, they never got back to her.

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Brain Matter Linked To Introspective Thinking

Views of the inflated cortical surface showing areas of brain grey matter correlating with introspective accuracy. Credit: Science/AAAS

From Cosmos:

WASHINGTON: People with a greater capacity for introspection have more grey matter in certain regions of their brains, according to a recent study.

Comparing the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans from the brains of 32 research subjects, scientists established a link between introspective ability and the size and structure of a small area of the anterior prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain associated with ‘higher-thinking’ skills.

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The Water Of Life: A Small World With Huge Potential

Frozen assets: icy geysers from the south polar region of Enceladus. AFP / Getty Images

From The Independent:

In the icy oceans of Enceladus, one of Saturn's tiny moons, scientists believe that there is proof that aliens exist. So why are there no plans to return to this mysterious miniature world?

In the future, swooping low over a lonely ice-moon of distant Saturn, an unmanned spacecraft will manoeuvre carefully, for it will be in a fragile orbit around a small world of feeble gravity.

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How Should San Francisco Plan For Sea-Level Rise?

BAY CITY: Sea-level rise due to climate change may imperil coastal development.
Mila Zinkova, courtesy WikiCommons

From Scientific American:

A 1,400-acre swath of salt flats along the western edge of San Francisco Bay has become the latest site for a development dispute that promises to become increasingly common in coastal U.S. cities: Whether new waterside growth makes sense when sea levels are rising.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—A 1,400-acre swath of salt flats along the western edge of San Francisco Bay has become the latest site for a development dispute that promises to become increasingly common in coastal U.S. cities: Whether new waterside growth makes sense when sea levels are rising.

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Incredible Pictures Of New York City At Night

On the front: The cover of Hawkes' book New York At Night. The 43-year-old spent 15 weeks putting his collection together

New York By Night: British Photographer's Astounding Scenes Of The Big Apple... Taken From The Open Door Of A Helicopter -- The Daily Mail

It is one of the most distinctive skylines on Earth.

But cloaked in a blanket of darkness, New York's numerous landmarks take on an almost ethereal quality.

Captured at night from around 1,000ft above the ground, these spectacular aerial images offer a striking portrait of one of the world's most vibrant cities, showing it as it has rarely been seen before.

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Pope's Astronomer Would Baptize Aliens

Will Smith delivered an alien baby in the movie "Men in Black." But would he baptize it? Amblin Entertainment

From FOX News:

One of the pope’s astronomers would happily baptize an alien if asked -- “no matter how many tentacles it has.”

Guy Consolmagno, a trained astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican’s observatory, discussed a slew of topics at the British Science Festival in Birmingham last weekend, noting that the Vatican was more up to date with the latest scientific developments than most realized.

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Penn Study Shows Why Sleep Is Needed To Form Memories

From Science Codex:

PHILADELPHIA – If you ever argued with your mother when she told you to get some sleep after studying for an exam instead of pulling an all-nighter, you owe her an apology, because it turns out she's right. And now, scientists are beginning to understand why.

In research published this week in Neuron, Marcos Frank, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, postdoctoral researcher Sara Aton, PhD, and colleagues describe for the first time how cellular changes in the sleeping brain promote the formation of memories.

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Sharks Photographed Eating A Whale

Great white shark feeding on a dead Bryde's Whale off Seal Island, Cape, South Africa Photo: ALISON KOCK / SPECIALIST STOCK / BARCROFT MEDIA

From The Telegraph:

Incredible pictures have caught the moment that several Great White Sharks ate a dead whale.

The Great White was seen feeding on a dead Bryde's Whale on September 11, 2010 in Seal Island, Cape, South Africa.

Almost 30 sharks took the opportunity to have lunch when they spotted the whale, giving animal lovers and wildlife experts an extraordinary insight into their feeding behaviours.

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RIM Readies Its Answer To iPad

From The Wall Street Journal:

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. could unveil its new tablet computer—as well as the operating system that will power it—as early as next week at a developers' conference in San Francisco, said people familiar with RIM's plans.

The tablet, which some inside RIM are calling the BlackPad, is scheduled for release in the fourth quarter of this year, these people said. It will feature a seven-inch touch screen and one or two built-in cameras, they said.

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Secrets Of Apple's Customer Success

Photo: The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is one of the company's flagship stores in terms of both customer traffic and architecture and design. (Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET)

From CNET:

Hardware manufacturers liberally take cues from Apple products, so why not its approach to customers?

For the seventh straight year, Apple has topped its competitors in the PC industry in the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), achieving a score of 86 out of 100. Its Apple's highest ranking since the annual survey began in 1995.

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Feds’ Requests For Google Data Rise 20 Percent

From Threat Level:

The number of U.S. government requests for Google data rose 20 percent in the last six months, according to data released by the search giant Monday.

U.S. government agencies sent Google 4,287 requests for data on Google users and services from Jan. 1 to June 30, 2010, an average of 23.5 a day. That’s compared to 3,287 for July 1 to Dec. 31, 2009, the company reported Tuesday in an update to its unique transparency tool.

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Twitter Users Including Sarah Brown Hit By Malicious Hacker Attack

An example of the "mouseover" code exploit being used on Twitter: this example is harmless but many others are not. Source: Sophos.com

From The Guardian:

Bug in new-look site exploited to redirect viewers on Twitter.com if they just hover over a link - but users of third-party software are safe (updated)

Update: the flaw has been fixed, and Twitter now says it is safe to use twitter.com again.

Sarah Brown is among thousands of Twitter users who have been hit by malicious use of a security flaw in the redesigned Twitter site.

The wife of the former prime minister Gordon Brown, who has more than a million followers on Twitter, unknowingly sent a link which contained malicious code that would redirect anyone who moved their mouse over it - but didn't click it - to a Japanese hard-core pornography site.

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Britain Vulnerable To Space Nuclear Attack Or 'Solar Flare' Storm, Conference Told

Dr Fox highlighted warnings from scientists that essential infrastructure such as satellites, could be paralysed by a once-in-a-century solar flare. Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

Rogue states such as North Korea and Iran could use nuclear weapons to attack Britain’s vital communications and electricity networks from space, a security conference heard.

In a stark warning, Dr Liam Fox warned countries that sought nuclear capabilities could attack Britain from the upper atmosphere instead of through more traditional “nuclear strikes”.

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Video: Spanish Designer Demonstrates Spray-On Clothing

From Popular Science:

High fashion meets high tech with this new spray-on clothing designed by a Spanish fashionisto. The design team also hopes to use the technology for spray-on bandages and hygienic upholstery.

Manel Torres worked with scientists at Imperial College London to invent the silly-string-like spray, announced just in time for Fashion Week.

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Six Ways That Artists Hack Your Brain

From New Scientist:

Since humankind first put brush to canvas, artists have played with the mind and the senses to create sublime atmospheres and odd impressions. It is only recently, with a blossoming understanding of the way the brain deconstructs images, that neuroscientists and psychologists have finally begun to understand how these tricks work.

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Hot Atmosphere Of Venus Might Cool Interior Of Earth’s Sister Planet

Temperature distribution within Venus and local mobilization at the surface. (Credit: DLR)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2010) — The heat in the atmosphere of Venus, induced from a strong greenhouse warming, might actually have a cooling effect on the planet's interior. This counter-intuitive theory is based on calculations from a new model presented at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Rome.

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Kids Who Own Dogs Are More Active

From Live Science:

When little Johnny or Molly asks for a puppy for their birthday, parents may want to give in. New research in England suggests children whose families own dogs are more active than those without a furry friend running around.

The research could have implications for childhood obesity in the United States, where 17 percent of 2- to 19-year-olds are obese, according to a 2007-2008 survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Among 6- to 19-year-olds, obesity has tripled over the past two decades, according to the CDC.

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10 Bizarre Locations & Unsolved Mysteries

From The List Blog:

Many strange and unexplained events have occurred in modern history.
These events are often based around an unsolved murder, bizarre
landmark, unexplained attack, or archeological discovery. This list will be
examining some bizarre locations and unsolved mysteries.

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Twitter: The New Stage For Hacker Hijinks

Among the many Twitter pages found to be spreading a worm this morning was the Whitehouse. (Credit: Websense Labs)

From CNET:

Generating a news frenzy usually reserved for Apple product launches, pranksters turned Twitter into wormville this morning. The fast-spreading exploits proved two things: Twitter is undoubtedly now a mainstream service, and it's joined the ranks of big-time tech companies as a target for hackers.

Security experts interviewed by CNET say the messaging service has done a fair job of protecting itself so far, but will have to be more careful with its coding if it wants to be trusted for news aggregation, integration on corporate sites, and as a useful international communication tool.

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Life On Earth May Have Had An Icy Start

From The Danger Room:

Tracks in ice could have served as a safe environment — much like a cell — for the first life on Earth to replicate and evolve.

A new study adds plausibility to the ‘RNA World’ hypothesis that argues life began with a single stranded molecule capable of self-replication.

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A Miracle! Science Claims It Has Figured Out How Sea Was Parted For Israelites

Charlton Heston as Moses in Cecil B DeMille's film The Ten Commandments (1956). Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/Paramount

From The Guardian:

Researchers reconstruct wind and wave combinations that could have produced dry path across sea described in Exodus.

It was a miracle of the ages, the parting of the Red Sea for the Israelites. Now modern science is claiming a feat that if true is almost as miraculous – figuring out how Moses may have done it and where.

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Earth And Moon 'Bombarded With Large Asteroids 3.9bn Years Ago'

A lunar topographic map of the Moon Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

Any life which may have existed on Earth 3.9 billion years ago would have been wiped out in a devastating asteroid strike, new analysis of Moon craters indicates.

Earth and its satellite were bombarded with large asteroids during the solar system’s “turbulent youth”, striking new topographical maps show.

The impacts would have been powerful enough to evaporate any water on our planet and destroy any early organisms.

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Graceful, Slim HRP-4 Humanoid Robot Unveiled; Destined for Menial Labor

Work It As its brother the HRP-2 looks on in the background, Japan's new humanoid robot, HRP-4, shows off its moves. Kawada Industries via YouTube

From Popular Science:

Japan’s newest RoboCop-looking humanoid robot practices yoga, tracks faces and objects and, in what seems to be a robo-requirement these days, pours drinks.

The industrial HRP-4 robot was designed to coexist with people, and its “thin athlete” frame is meant to be more appealing, according to Kawada Industries, which built the robot with Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

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Kazakhstan To Join Russia-Ukraine Space Program

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev. © RIA Novosti. Grigoriy Vasilenko

From RIA Novosti:

Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia will work together as part of the Cosmotrans space cooperation project, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Andriy Klyuyev said on Thursday.

The project provides for the joint use of Kazakhstan's Baikonur space center.

Kazakhstan and Ukraine signed a space cooperation agreement during Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev's recent visit to Ukraine.

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Is There A Moore's Law For Science?

The first Earth-like exoplanet discovery could be made in less than a year
(Image: NASA/JPL/Caltech/R. Hurt)

From New Scientist:

Can the rate of past discoveries be used to predict future ones? We may soon find out. Two researchers have used the pace of past exoplanet finds to predict that the first habitable Earth-like planet could turn up in May 2011.

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors that fit on a chip doubles about once every two years – a trend now known as Moore's law. Samuel Arbesman of Harvard Medical School in Boston wants to see if scientometrics – the statistical study of science itself – can similarly be used to not only study past progress but also to make predictions.

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Chinese Moon Landing Gets Timetable

From Global Times:

The timetable for China's first manned moon landing, as well as the launch of a space station, lab and probes to explore Mars and Venus, was announced by scientists over the weekend.

Chinese analysts, however, dismissed international concerns that Beijing is engaging in an outer-space arms race, stressing that recent activities and future missions are for scientific purposes and for the benefit of mankind.

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2010 Tied With 1998 As Warmest Global Temperature On Record

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2010) — The first eight months of 2010 tied the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record worldwide. Meanwhile, the June-August summer was the second warmest on record globally after 1998, and last month was the third warmest August on record. Separately, last month's global average land surface temperature was the second warmest on record for August, while the global ocean surface temperature tied with 1997 as the sixth warmest for August.

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Alternative To X-Rays Makes Its First Step

The initial object imaged through a layer of white paint (A) was a 32-pixel by 32-pixel image of a flower; the image was reconstructed with a new technique (B), matching the original by roughly 94.5 percent. Credit: Sylvain Gigan et al.

From Live Science:

A day when doctors need only visible light instead of X-rays to view a patient's innards can now be more easily imagined, with the announcement of a way to decipher the little light that passes through opaque materials.

Normally, one cannot see through opaque barriers such as paint, skin, fabric or eggshells because any light that does manage to make it through such materials is scattered in complicated and seemingly random ways. [Infographic: How Light Works]

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Can Samsung's Tablet Hold Its Own?

Photo: Tablet contender: Samsung's Galaxy Tab runs the Android operating system and is meant to go head to head with Apple's iPad. Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

Samsung hopes the Galaxy will compete with the iPad through carriers and content.

Samsung unveiled its new tablet, the Galaxy Tab, last night in New York City. Important details about the device--such as pricing--remain a mystery, but what's clear is that Samsung hopes to compete with the iPad. A key to this strategy will be offering service through all major U.S. cellular networks and having a wide variety of content ready to go.

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U.S. Army Shows Renewed Interest In Zeppelins

In demand: The U.S. Army has ordered three new airships to be built and fitted with high-tech surveillance equipment so they can be used in Afghanistan

Are Zeppelins About To Take Off Again - Or Is It Just Hot Air? -- The Daily Mail

As we soar up into the grey skies above Lake Constance - propellers whirling, seat belts tightly fastened and everyone brandishing their cameras in excitement - something feels ever so slightly strange.

It could be the gentle breeze coming in through the wide open windows and the long ropes dangling in front of the cockpit in an alarmingly relaxed way.

Or perhaps it's the fact that the twin 200hp engines are so quiet I can hear my fellow passengers unwrapping toffees and whispering, and Hans-Paul the pilot clearing his throat and swallowing.

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Robots On TV: Five Glimpses Of Future Machines

From New Scientist:

Meet a talking butler robot that knows its way around the house and can even recognise a copy of New Scientist. Or watch a baby-faced android that's being designed to learn like a human toddler.

In this month’s video special, we introduce you to our top five new robots. These machines are pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence and are learning to interact with humans more naturally. Some could become the heroes of dangerous rescue missions, while others could be our future companions.

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Genocide Wiped Out Native American Population

The unearthed bones and artifacts indicate that when the violence took place, men, women and children were tortured, disemboweled, killed and often hacked to bits. Getty Images

From Discovery News:

Physical traces of ethnic cleansing that took place in the early 800s suggest the massacre was an inside job.

Crushed leg bones, battered skulls and other mutilated human remains are likely all that's left of a Native American population destroyed by genocide that took place circa 800 A.D., suggests a new study.

The paper, accepted for publication in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, describes the single largest deposit to date of mutilated and processed human remains in the American Southwest.

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Budget Cuts Force CERN To Shut Accelerators For Year

The Linac 2 (Linear Accelerator 2) is pictured at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Meyrin near Geneva October 16, 2008. Credit: Reuters/Denis Balibouse

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Europe's particle research center CERN unveiled budget cuts Friday that will force it to temporarily close its accelerators for a year in 2012, but said its flagship "Big Bang" machine will mainly be unaffected.

Announcing the trimmed-down budget, in which governments will provide 135 million Swiss francs ($133.4 million) less over a five-year period to 2015, CERN said its high-profile drive to study the origins of the cosmos would continue as planned.

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It's Good To Think - But Not Too Much, Scientists Say

Image: People who think more about their decisions have more brain cells in their frontal lobes

From The BBC:

People who think more about whether they are right have more cells in an area of the brain known as the frontal lobes.

UK scientists, writing in Science, looked at how brain size varied depending on how much people thought about decisions.

But a nationwide survey recently found that some people think too much about life.

These people have poorer memories, and they may also be depressed.

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AIDS Virus Might Be A Million Years Old

Island-specific strains of the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which infects monkeys such as the Bioko Drill, revealed the virus has been around thousands of years longer than previously thought. Credit: Preston Marx, Tulane University

From Cosmos:

WASHINGTON: An HIV-like virus that infects monkeys is thousands of years older than previously thought and its slow evolution could have disturbing implications for humans, according to a new study.

Scientists said the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) - the ancestor to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS - is probably between 32,000 and 75,000 years old and may even date back a million years.

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Magical BEANs: New Nano-Sized Particles Could Provide Mega-Sized Data Storage

This schematic shows enthalpy curves sketched for the liquid, crystalline and amorphous phases of a new class of nanomaterials called "BEANs" for Binary Eutectic-Alloy Nanostructures. (Credit: Image courtesy of Daryl Chrzan)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2010) — The ability of phase-change materials to readily and swiftly transition between different phases has made them valuable as a low-power source of non-volatile or "flash" memory and data storage. Now an entire new class of phase-change materials has been discovered by researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley that could be applied to phase change random access memory (PCM) technologies and possibly optical data storage as well. The new phase-change materials -- nanocrystal alloys of a metal and semiconductor -- are called "BEANs," for binary eutectic-alloy nanostructures.

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Warming In Deep Southern Ocean Linked To Sea-Level Rise

From Live Science:

Warming waters in the deep ocean surrounding Antarctica has contributed to sea-level rise over the past two decades, scientists report today (Sept. 20).

The study, published in the Journal of Climate, draws on temperature trends between the 1990s and 2000s in the deep Southern Ocean. Though there are no continental boundaries, and all oceans contribute water to the Southern Ocean, its distinct circulation makes the area a separate water body.

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The Worst Part of GoingTo Space? Your Fingernails Come Off

Oh, It Hurts Some astronauts report losing their fingernails on spacewalks because of bulky gloves that cut off circulation and chafe against their hands. To avoid this inconvenience, a couple astronauts have taken to ripping off their own fingernails before reaching orbit. NASA

From Popular Science:

Did you think drinking your own urine was bad? To truly test whether you have the right stuff, imagine ripping out your own fingernails, on purpose.

A couple of astronauts have done this before going into orbit, because they figure it’s better than losing them inside chafing, unwieldy spacesuit gloves, according to Dava Newman, director of MIT’s technology and policy program and director of the university’s Man Vehicle Lab. Newman, who has studied space-related injuries, told a group of journalists at MIT that some astronauts have reported losing their fingernails during spacewalks. Fingernail trauma and other hand injuries are spacewalkers’ biggest complaint, she said.

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British Scientists Invent 'Skylon' Spaceplane That Will Take Tourists Into Orbit At Five Times The Speed Of Sound

The 270ft-long Skylon space plane will be able to take passengers into space at a fraction of the current cost

From The Daily Mail:

A space aircraft that can take off from an ordinary airport runway before carrying tourists into orbit could be a reality with 10 years, according to British scientists.

The 270ft Skylon plane will cost about £700m to build and will be able to carry 24 passengers.

Built by British engineering firm Reaction Engines, the aircraft has no conventional external engines.

Instead the Skylon will travel at five times the speed of sound using two internal engines that suck hydrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere to send it 18 miles above the ground – and out of Earth’s atmosphere.

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What's Eating The Stars Out Of Our Galaxy's Heart?

From The New Scientist:

The centre of the Milky Way is darker than you'd expect – and not just because it's home to a supermassive black hole

A LITTLE over 25,000 light years away lies the most mysterious place in the nearby universe. Jam-packed with colliding stars and cloaked in dust, it is the centre of our galaxy. At its very heart, we suspect, lurks a monstrous black hole more than 4 million times as massive as the sun. Known as Sagittarius A*, it is thought to rip stars apart, orchestrating stellar mayhem as it warps the very fabric of space and time.

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SETI 2060, Do We Make Contact By Then?

From Discovery News:

This month the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank Science Center is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the modern day search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

In 1960 a young radio astronomer, Frank Drake, undertook a bold and visionary experiment: He used the 85-foot dish antenna at Green Bank, W.V. to listen for radio signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.

Drake recently retired from the SETI Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., without finding his aliens. He’s not alone. As early as the turn of the last century Nicola Tesla and the father of radio, Guglielmo Marconi, were independently listening for signals from Martians.

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Global ‘Internet Treaty’ Proposed

Proposals put before the Internet Governance Forum would enshrine in law the principles of free speech and net neutrality for the web Photo: ALAMY

From The Telegraph:

Deal would enshrine in law the founding principles of open standards and net neutrality, and protect the web from political interference.

The proposal was presented at the Internet Governance Forum in Lithuania last week, and outlined 12 “principles of internet governance”, including a commitment from countries to sustain the technological foundations that underpin the web’s infrastructure.

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Nasa Tests Robot Hardware For Planet Missions

A suit port allows astronauts to be on the surface within a few minutes

From The BBC:

Nasa is testing the next generation of human spaceflight technology in the deserts of Arizona, US.

The Desert RATS (Research and Technology Studies) programme is designed to give advanced equipment a trial run, and to expose any issues before it is used in space.

The dry, dusty, rocky land near the lip of the Grand Canyon provides a good simulation of other planets.

"The terrain is very varied, and is very volcanic in nature, which more or less represents what you would see on the Moon" says Joe Kosmo, Mission Manager for the Desert RATS programme.

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Airbus Engineers' Plan For The Future Of Flying

From Der Spiegel:

What will air travel look like in the year 2050? A special team of engineers from European aircraft manufacturer Airbus have drafted plans for the future of flight. These include a completely transparent fuselage that will allow passengers to the see the stars above and city lights below.

The airplane dissolves into thin air, as if erased by an invisible hand. First the cabin roof disappears, then the floor, and from one moment to the next, the passengers feel like they have lost their grip on anything solid.

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