Windows 8 Tablets Set To Challenge iPad, Android

Microsoft demonstrated for the first time the next generation of Windows, internally code-named "Windows 8," at the D9 conference. The company calls it a "reimagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface." YouTube

From FOX News:

Watch your back, iPad. Look out, Android. Windows is coming.

Microsoft Windows president Steven Sinofsky showed off a prototype Windows 8 tablet at the All Things D conference in California this week -- the company's answer to Apple's "magical" device and Google's Android.

The new tablet-friendly operating system will function much like the Windows Phone 7 platform, with tiles you can flick around the screen, click to start an app, or reposition anyway you want.

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Cartoon Pic For Today

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Californian Dolphin Gang Caught Killing Porpoises

Photo: Frustrated youth (Image: Mark P. Cotter)

From New Scientist:

SEEMINGLY random acts of violence by bottlenose dolphins on porpoises could be down to sexual frustration among young males.

Cases of the cetaceans killing other creatures for no apparent reason have been reported in UK waters. Now bottlenose dolphins have been seen attacking harbour porpoises in the Pacific Ocean. Crucially, these observations show for the first time that the attackers are young males (Marine Mammal Science, DOI: 10.1111/j.1748-7692.2011.00474.x).

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Hidden Hieroglyphs Found Inside The Great Pyramid

A composite of images taken by a robot of the floor of the Great Pyramid is shown. Red hieroglyphs are visible. Djedi Team

Robot Finds Hidden Hieroglyphs Inside Pyramid -- MSNBC

Secrets of 4,500-year-old tomb revealed in first images from behind mysterious doors.

A robot explorer sent through the Great Pyramid of Giza has begun to unveil some of the secrets behind the 4,500-year-old pharaonic mausoleum after it transmitted the first images behind one of its mysterious doors.

The images revealed hieroglyphs written in red paint that have not been seen by human eyes since the construction of the pyramid. The pictures also unveiled new details about two puzzling copper pins embedded in one of the so called "secret doors."

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How One Man And Half A Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America

The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America By Hannah Nordhaus HarperCollins 336 pp

The Beekeeper's Lament: How One Man And Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America -- Christian Science Monitor

Our bees are dying in apocalyptic numbers. What does it mean to us?

Bees are amazing. That’s the first reason to read The Beekeeper’s Lament, journalist Hannah Nordhaus’s rewarding account of migratory beekeeping and the mysterious scourge stalking the domestic bee population.

For the past week I’ve been telling everyone I’ve met stories from the miraculous lives of bees, like this one about the queen bee: Dihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd you know that she makes only one flight her entire life, when she’s a few days old, and that it’s out among the swarms of male drones where she intertwines with as many as she can before returning to her colony carrying all the sperm she’ll ever need over the course of a reproductive lifetime in which she’ll lay hundreds of thousands of eggs?

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VLT (Very Large Telescope) HD Timelapse Footage

This Time Lapse Video of the Very Large Telescope At Work is the Coolest Thing You'll See Today -- Popular Science

There’s very little we can write to preface the imagery below, so we’ll just set the scene and get out of the way. The video below was captured by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado at the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile’s Atacama Desert. And it might make you cry.

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My Comment: This looks so cool.

Why We Need A Good Night’s Sleep

A Good Night’s Sleep Isn’t a Luxury; It’s a Necessity -- New York Times

In my younger years, I regarded sleep as a necessary evil, nature’s way of thwarting my desire to cram as many activities into a 24-hour day as possible. I frequently flew the red-eye from California, for instance, sailing (or so I thought) through the next day on less than four hours of uncomfortable sleep.

But my neglect was costing me in ways that I did not fully appreciate. My husband called our nights at the ballet and theater “Jane’s most expensive naps.” Eventually we relinquished our subscriptions. Driving, too, was dicey: twice I fell asleep at the wheel, narrowly avoiding disaster. I realize now that I was living in a state of chronic sleep deprivation.

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Endeavour Returns Home For The Final Time (Video)

As Endeavour Returns Home For the Final Time, Atlantis Prepares for the Last Shuttle Launch Ever -- Popular Science

Sailing through the midnight sky to a picture-perfect landing in Florida, the country’s youngest spaceship came home for the last time Wednesday, leaving a completed space station in its wake. On a 16-day mission, the crew of space shuttle Endeavour installed a massive physics experiment and put the finishing touches on the ISS, completing the last scheduled spacewalks by shuttle crew members.

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How the Brain Processes Faces

Stimuli were matched with respect to low-level properties, external features and high-level characteristics. (Credit: Face images courtesy of the Face-Place Database Project, Copyright 2008, Michael J. Tarr)

How the Brain Processes Faces: Neural System Responsible for Face Recognition Discovered -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (June 1, 2011) — Each time you see a person that you know, your brain rapidly and seemingly effortlessly recognizes that person by his or her face.

Until now, scientists believed that only a couple of brain areas mediate facial recognition. However, Carnegie Mellon University's Marlene Behrmann, David Plaut and Adrian Nestor have discovered that an entire network of cortical areas work together to identify faces. Published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), their findings will change the future of neural visual perception research and allow scientists to use this discovery to develop targeted remedies for disorders such as face blindness.

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Claim Of Arsenic-Based Life Reignites Debate

This scanning electron micrograph shows a strain of the arsenic-eating bacterium called GFAJ-1. CREDIT: Science/AAAS.

Debate Reignited Over Claim of Arsenic-Based Life -- Live Science

One of the more heated scientific debates of recent years has been stirred up again with the publication of new criticisms of the reported finding of "arsenic life."

The prestigious journal Science published the criticisms today (May 27) along with a defense of the study, which Science had posted online this past December.

A team of researchers led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon of NASA's Astrobiology Institute had studied bacteria collected from California's Mono Lake and reported finding evidence that these microorganisms were substituting the poisonous molecule arsenic for the phosphorous usually used to build DNA.

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Hackers Finding The Holes In Net Safety

From Philly.com:

No security in cyber world.

Major hacking stories in the personal, political, and industrial worlds have shown recently how widespread cyber attacks - from the silly to the vicious - really are.

"They're happening every nanosecond - that's how you have to think," says Ray O'Hara, 2011 president of ASIS International, a security organization. "You just can't go to sleep at night, thinking you're secure."

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Photo: "Mrs Ples" is the most famous example of A. africanus from the Sterkfontein cave site

Ancient Cave Women 'Left Home' -- BBC

Analysis of early human-like populations in southern Africa suggests females left their childhood homes, while males stayed at home.

An international team examined tooth samples for metallic traces which can be linked to the geological areas in which individuals grew up.

The conclusion was that while most the males lived and died around the same river valley, the females moved on.

Similar patterns have been observed in chimpanzees, bonobos and modern humans.

Details of the study are published in a letter in Nature.

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Electrons Are Almost Perfectly Round

Electrons orbiting an atom Photo: ALAMY

Electrons Are Almost Perfectly Round, Scientists Discover -- The Telegraph

Electrons may be the most round natural objects in the universe, a study has discovered.

Researchers at Imperial College London have made the most accurate measurement yet of the shape of an electron, finding that it is almost a perfect sphere.

Experts found that the subatomic particles differ from being perfectly round by less than 0.000000000000000000000000001cm.

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Steve Jobs Returns From Medical Leave

Mr Jobs will launch Apple's new Mac software, Lion, and iO5, the next version of the firm's iPhone and iPad software

Steve Jobs Returns From Medical Leave For Launch Of Apple's Lion Operating System -- The Daily Mail

*He will launch Apple's new Mac software, Lion, and iO5, the next version of the firm's iPhone and iPad software

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs will return to the fray from medical leave next week to open the technology giant's annual developers' conference.

The company's inspirational boss, who has been gravely ill in recent months, will deliver the San Francisco event's keynote speech next Monday.

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The Older the Planet, the Greater Chance There's Life

Image: Astronomers have used the Kepler Space Telescope (seen in an artist's rendition, above) to locate likely planets orbiting stars beyond the sun.
NASA / Kepler Mission

In Search of Habitable Worlds: The Older the Planet, the Greater Chance There's Life -- Time

To date, the Kepler space telescope has found more than 1,200 likely planets orbiting stars beyond the sun — quite a haul for a satellite that's been flying for just over two years. The true prize Kepler is hunting for, of course, is not just any planet, but one that's a twin of Earth — about the size of our world, orbiting in a zone where the temperature range is like ours. All that would make it a prime place to look for life. Finding such a not-too-hot, not-too-cold world is probably just a matter of time, but even then, there will be one more factor to consider: how old the planet is.

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FYI: Why Are Escalators So Dangerous?

Crikey! Hazardous Crocs Getty Images/Washington Post

From Popular Science:

The escalator was patented in 1892, and the design hasn’t changed much since then. The landing platforms make entry and exit dicey endeavors—particularly when the moving stairs disappear beneath them, and all manner of clothing and body parts can get stuck. In recent years, escalators have torn the big toe from a Croc-wearing child in Singapore, bucked dozens of riders in Washington, D.C., and strangled a tipsy sushi chef when the hood of his sweatshirt got caught in the gap between the stairs and the landing platform.

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New Theory On How The Hawaiian Islands Were/Are Formed

Hot lava spills into the sea from under a hardened lava crust on the Big Island of Hawaii (file picture). Photograph by Patrick McFeeley, National Geographic

800-Mile-Wide Hot Anomaly Found Under Seafloor Off Hawaii -- National Geographic

Findings contradict long-held theory that a plume directly fuels Hawaii.

Hawaii's traditional birth story—that the volcanic islands were, and are, fueled by a hot-rock plume running directly to Earth's scorching core—could be toast, a new study hints.

Scientists say they've found solid evidence of a giant mass of hot rock under the seafloor in the region. But it's not a plume running straight from the core to the surface—and it's hundreds of miles west of the nearest Hawaiian island.

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My Comment: So much for all of that schooling that I received on how the Hawaiian islands were formed.

Has The Universe's 'Missing Mass' Been Found?

This NASA illustration photo shows stars that are forming in a dwarf starburst galaxy located about 30 million light years from Earth. A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break. (AFP/NASA/File)

Aussie Student Finds Universe's 'Missing Mass' -- Yahoo News/AFP

SYDNEY (AFP) – A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called "missing mass" of the universe during her summer break.

Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University's School of Physics, locating the mystery material within vast structures called "filaments of galaxies".

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A Closeup Of Black Hole Jets

Centaurus A Black Hole Jets This composite of visible, microwave (orange) and X-ray (blue) data reveals the jets and radio-emitting lobes emanating from Centaurus A's central black hole. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Galaxy Closeup Reveals Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets -- Popular Science

A black hole with a mass of 55 million suns.

A gigantic black hole at the center of one of the Milky Way’s close neighbors is spewing jets of material into the cosmos, hurling gamma rays and radio waves into interstellar space. Now researchers in the U.S. and Germany peered at the galaxy with the closest-ever resolution, seeing galactic features up to 15 light-days across. That’s incredibly close for a galaxy 12 million miles away.

Read more ....

American Demographic Changes

America's Tomorrow from PolicyLink on Vimeo.

The Changing Face Of America: Time-Lapse Map Reveals How Non-Whites Will Become The Majority In U.S. Within 30 Years -- the Daily Mail

By the year 2040, the majority of Americans will be people of colour - the minorities will have become the majority.

A fascinating new time-lapse map shows the increase in the non-white population across the decades.

It starts with 1990 and then predicts up to 2020, 2030 and 2040.

Read more ....

A New 'Distant Object' Candidate Is Discovered

Researchers have unveiled a gamma-ray burst detected by NASA's Swift satellite in April 2009 as the latest candidate for the most distant object in the universe. (Credit: Gemini Observatory / AURA / Levan, Tanvir, Cucchiara)

Cosmic Explosion Is New Candidate For Most Distant Object In The Universe -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 25, 2011) — A gamma-ray burst detected by NASA's Swift satellite in April 2009 has been newly unveiled as a candidate for the most distant object in the universe. At an estimated distance of 13.14 billion light years, the burst lies far beyond any known quasar and could be more distant than any previously known galaxy or gamma-ray burst. Multiple lines of evidence in favor of a record-breaking distance for this burst, known as GRB 090429B for the 29 April 2009 date when it was discovered, are presented in a paper by an international team of astronomers led by former Penn State University graduate student Antonino Cucchiara, now at the University of California, Berkeley.

Read more ....

Did The Military Cause The Tornadoes That Devastated Joplin, Mo.?

Tornadoes Caused by Military?: Recent Events Fuel Conspiracy Theories -- ABC News

It's an astonishing claim: The tornado that ravaged Joplin, Mo., last Sunday, killing at least 125 people, was not a random act of nature but the result of an obscure military-backed research program in Alaska that shoots radio waves into the upper atmosphere.

Here's another one: The shooting rampage in Tucson last January that killed six people and wounded 13, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was an elaborate government hoax that used actors to portray the victims.

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My Comment: Conspiracy theories .... or in my opinion .... people having too much time on their hands, but not enough time for some independent thought.

The Moon Is Filled With Water

Scientists at Brown University found super-tiny melt inclusions in lunar soil samples that opened the door for measurements that revealed the magnitude of water inside the moon. (Credit: Saal lab, Brown University)

Scientists Detect Earth-Equivalent Amount of Water Within the Moon -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 26, 2011) — There is water inside the moon -- so much, in fact, that in some places it rivals the amount of water found within Earth.

The finding from a scientific team including Brown University comes from the first-ever measurements of water in lunar melt inclusions. Those measurements show that some parts of the lunar mantle have as much water as Earth's upper mantle.

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Babies And Their Ability To Reason

A baby watches objects bounce around an enclosure during an experiment on infant cognition. CREDIT: L. Bonatti & E. Teglas

Babies Are Capable of Complex Reasoning -- Live Science

Babies are sophisticated mini-statisticians, a new study finds, capable of making judgments about the probability of an event they've never seen before.

Using a computer model, researchers were able to accurately predict what a baby would know about a particular event if given certain information. The model may be useful in engineering artificial intelligence that reacts appropriately to the world, said study researcher Josh Tenenbaum, a cognitive scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The study also demonstrates just how savvy baby brains are, Tenenbaum told LiveScience.

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Skeleton Of Amazon Warrior Discovered In Scotland

Photo: Re-constructed heads of an unknown female and of a medieval knight whose skeletons were found during the recent refurbishment of the Palace at Stirling Castle.

From The Scotsman:

THE discovery of the remains of an aristocratic Scottish "Amazon", killed in battle during the Wars of Independence, is set to rewrite the history books.

Her skeleton was among the remains of five "high status" individuals - all of whom had suffered violent deaths - found beneath the paved floor of the "lost" Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle.

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Robot's Supersonic Air Jets Allow It To Climb Most Surfaces

Video: Robot's Supersonic Air Jets Allow It To Climb Just About Any Surface -- Popular Science

Many wall-walking robots mimic natural adhesives--like the sticky feet of geckos--to remain fixed to a surface while they scale it.

But this little bot uses nothing but a supersonic version of a well-known principle of fluid dynamics to cling to just about any surface--without the surface of its grippers ever actually touching it.

Read more ....

Orion-Type Capsule Picked For Deep NASA Space Missions

Photo: The Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, or MPCV, shown with a launch escape rocket and service module. NASA plans to develop the capsule for use in future missions to deep space targets. (Credit: NASA)

NASA Picks Orion-Type Capsule For Deep Space Missions -- CNET

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--A version of the Bush administration's Orion moon capsule, written off by the Obama administration and then resurrected as a space station lifeboat, will be developed instead for use in future manned flights to deep space targets beyond Earth orbit, the agency announced today.

Douglas Cooke, associate administrator of NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate, told reporters the Orion concept, described by former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin as "Apollo on steroids," is the most capable spacecraft currently on the drawing board for meeting the Obama administration's "flexible path" approach to deep space exploration.

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U.S. Congress Getting Ready To Tax The Internet

How Will States Tax Internet Downloads? Congress May Decide -- Epicenter

Here’s an interesting conundrum, posed by Representative Dennis Ross (R-Florida), at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing held on Monday:

“Imagine you are sitting in Dulles airport in Virginia, waiting for a flight back to Florida,” Ross began in his opening remarks. “You download a music file from Apple, which is headquartered in California. The music is sent to you via a server in Oklahoma.”

Which of these states should be allowed to tax the sale?

Without a “clear national rule,” he warned at the hearing, “all four states may attempt to tax the transaction.”

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My Comment: Another tax grab .... get ready for it.

NASA's Mars Rover Spirit To Be Shut Down

NASA's Mars rover Spirit, shown in an artist's rendering, was expected to serve a three-month mission, but it provided scientists with a trove of information over more than six years of operation. (Reuters)

NASA Rover Spirit 'Revolutionized' How We See Mars -- L.A. Times

As the Martian rover falls silent for good, JPL scientists mourn Spirit's loss and celebrate its remarkable achievements that continued for years beyond its expected lifetime.

It was supposed to roam the surface of Mars for only three months and cover a distance of just a few hundred yards. Instead, NASA's Spirit rover traveled nearly five miles over five years, finding geological evidence that the Red Planet had once been warm and wet enough to have harbored life. Even after it got hopelessly stuck in the powdery soil of Gusev crater, the rover continued to make discoveries and beamed them to scientists millions of miles away.

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My Comment: Five years of discovery and excitement .... kudos to the engineers and scientists who made this possible.

Smallpox Eradication Decision Is Deferred Again

The viral disease was eradicated over 30 years ago. BBC

Smallpox-Destruction Deadline Delayed For 3 Years -- Wall Street Journal

Global health officials delayed setting a deadline Tuesday for destroying the last known stocks of smallpox for at least three years, a compromise that will enable the U.S. and Russia to continue researching medications to counter a bioterror attack.

The consensus at the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the World Health Organization, came after a contentious debate stretching over two days. It represents a compromise for the U.S., Russia and more than two dozen other countries that wanted to keep the virus stocks for at least another five years. Iran, China, Thailand and other countries objected to that timetable and some of its provisions.

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More News On The World's Smallpox Supply

WHO defers fixing date on destroying live smallpox -- Reuters
Decision Delayed on Eliminating Smallpox Stocks -- Global Security Newswire
UN Decides Not to Destroy Last Known Smallpox Stockpiles -- The Atlantic
World Health Organization Decides to Keep Smallpox Stocks ... For Now -- FOX News/Live Science
Smallpox decision deferred again -- BBC
Call to destroy smallpox delayed -- CBC
US and Russian smallpox stocks spared the chop -- Register

My Comment: To better understand the impact that smallpox has had on the history of man .... check out this link.

It Seems That Man Has Been At War With His Fellow Man For A Very Long Time

Bronze Age relic: Archaeologists have found the remains of around 100 bodies in the Tollense Valley in northern Germany, including this fractured skull

'Earliest' Bronze Age Battle Site Containing 100 Bodies Found On German River Bank -- The Daily Mail

Fractured skulls and broken bones found on a German river bank could point to the earliest site of a Bronze Age battle ever discovered.

Archaeologists uncovered the remains of around 100 bodies in the Tollense Valley in northern Germany, suggesting brutal hand-to-hand combat between warring tribes.

Bones had been battered, skulls were fractured and one body has an arrowhead buried more than 2cm inside it.

Read more ....

My Comment: On the one hand, such a discovery is fascinating and informative of how we interacted (and fought) in ancient times. On the other hand .... it is depressing to know that our culture and approach to war has not changed .... with the exception that we now have better weapons.

Lots Of Multi-Planet Systems Found In Kepler Planet Hunt

This artist rendering provided by NASA shows a solar system comparison of the Kepler 11 solar system and ours. NASA/AP

Surprise Find In Kepler Planet Hunt: Lots Of Multi-Planet Systems -- Christian Science Monitor

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which is searching for Earth-mass planets orbiting sun-like stars, is finding hundreds of candidate planets, and many more multi-planet systems than expected.

Two years into a 3-1/2-year mission, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, hunting for planets orbiting some 165,000 stars in the constellation Cygnus, is uncovering planet candidates by the hundreds.

Many of these inhabit multi-planet systems that are unexpectedly flat – the inclination of the planets’ orbits within each of these systems are essentially the same, a feature that may hold clues about how these systems formed and evolved.

Read more ....

Endeavour Cleared After Heat Shield Inspection

Photo: The space shuttle Endeavour conducts a flip maneuver to allow inspection of its heat shield tiles, prior to docking at the International Space Station.

From CBS News:

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. - After a close-up, focused inspection of a damaged heat shield tile on the belly of space shuttle Endeavour, NASA analysts have concluded that there is no threat posed to the orbiter, and NASA's Mission Management Team cleared the ship for re-entry as-is.

"So all good results all the way around," said MMT Chairman LeRoy Cain. "We're essentially clearing the vehicle for re-entry at this point. There were no dissenting opinions, no alternate opinions; the entire team was pretty much on board with the assessments that were done."

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Free-Floating "Planets" Are More Common Than What Is Believed

The "rogue" planets act as lenses, bending the light from distant stars

'Free-Floating' Planets Found With No Star In Sight -- BBC

An international team of astronomers claim to have found free-floating "planets" which do not seem to orbit a star.

Writing in Nature, they say they have found 10 Jupiter-sized objects which they could not connect to any solar system. They also believe such objects could be as common as stars are throughout the Milky Way.

The objects revealed themselves by bending the light of more distant stars, an effect called "gravitational microlensing".

Read more ....

What If The Rapture Happens

According Christian tradition, the rapture is the day when believers will ascend to heaven and be rewarded with everlasting life. CREDIT: Dreamstime

What If 200 Million People Go Missing on Saturday? -- Live Science

According to the predictions of Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping, May 21 will be the day of the rapture, when God calls believers to heaven to live in everlasting paradise.

By Camping's estimation, that means the Earth will be 200 million souls lighter by Sunday morning.

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Radio Telescopes Capture Best-Ever Snapshot of Black Hole Jets

Merging X-ray data (blue) from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with microwave (orange) and visible images reveals the jets and radio-emitting lobes emanating from Centaurus A's central black hole. (Credit: ESO/WFI (visible); MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (microwave); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (May 20, 2011) — An international team, including NASA-funded researchers, using radio telescopes located throughout the Southern Hemisphere has produced the most detailed image of particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy.

"These jets arise as infalling matter approaches the black hole, but we don't yet know the details of how they form and maintain themselves," said Cornelia Mueller, the study's lead author and a doctoral student at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.

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How To Manipulate Social Movements By Hacking Twitter

Image credit: Leo Espinosa

Are You Following A Bot? -- The Atlantic

How to manipulate social movements by hacking Twitter.

One day last February, a Twitter user in California named Billy received a tweet from @JamesMTitus, identified in his profile as a “24 year old dude” from Christchurch, New Zealand, who had the avatar of a tabby cat. “If you could bring one character to life from your favorite book, who would it be?,” @JamesMTitus asked. Billy tweeted back, “Jesus,” to which @JamesMTitus replied: “honestly? no fracking way. ahahahhaa.” Their exchange continued, and Billy began following @JamesMTitus. It probably never occurred to him that the Kiwi dude with an apparent love of cats was, in fact, a robot.

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Massive Storm On Saturn

This false-color infrared image shows clouds of large ammonia ice particles dredged up by the powerful storm. Credit: Cassini

Massive Storm Erupts On Saturn -- Cosmos

MARYLAND: A giant early-spring storm in Saturn's northern hemisphere - so powerful that it stretches around the entire planet - has been detected.

The rare storm has been wreaking havoc for months and shooting plumes of gas high into the planet's atmosphere, according to data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft and a European Southern Observatory ground-based telescope, that have been tracking its progress

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My Comment: Hmmmm ..... I guess I should not complain about the weather that I must go through each winter (I live in Quebec, Canada).

'Dark Energy' Confirmed

The Anglo-Australian telescope was used in the galaxy survey

New Method 'Confirms Dark Energy' -- BBC

First results from a major astronomical survey using a cutting-edge technique appear to have confirmed the existence of mysterious dark energy.

Dark energy makes up some 74% of the Universe and its existence would explain why the Universe appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate.

The finding was based on studies of more than 200,000 galaxies.

Read more ....

How Piano Wires Changed Through The Centuries

Even as the wires used in pianos changed from iron to steel, sound quality has remained largely the same. Getty Images

How Piano Wires Changed Through Centuries -- Discovery

Since Mozart's time, piano wires have changed in content -- but very little in quality, research shows.

* The wire inside pianos has undergone significant changes between the piano's origins in the early 1700s until the late 1880s.
* Research suggests that piano designers used music wire to reach similar harmonic levels despite working with different metals.
* Piano designers balance tension and stiffness of music wire, but many other factors are considered as well.

Read more ....

10 Incredible Facts About The Human Brain

10 astounding facts about the human brain

10 Astounding Facts About The Human Brain -- The Telegraph

Last night, BBC One's Inside the Human Body focused on the brain. Here are ten remarkable facts about our most complex organ.

* The human brain is so sophisticated it takes nearly 20 years to mature

* In the womb, humans grow 8,000 new brain cells every second

* By the time humans are born they have all the brain cells they will ever need

* The human brain is the "most sophisticated thing" in the known universe

* New-born babies can recognise their mother’s face after just a few hours

Read more ....

Atmosphere Above Epicentre Of Deadly Japan Earthquake Heated Up 'Rapidly' In Days Before Disaster

Satellite images showing changes in the heat of the atmosphere above the epicentre of the March 11 earthquake between March 1 and March 12. The total electron content in the ionosphere increased dramatically before the quake

A Warning Sign? Atmosphere Above Epicentre Of Deadly Japan Earthquake Heated Up 'Rapidly' In Days Before Disaster -- The Daily Mail

* Scientists hope they will one day be able to predict quakes uses air ionisation data.

The atmosphere directly above the fault zone which produced Japan's recent devastating earthquake heated up significantly in the days before the disaster, a study has shown.

Before the March 11 earthquake, the total electron content in a part of the upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere, increased dramatically over the earthquake's epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck.

It is believed that in the days before an earthquake, the stresses on geological faults in the Earth's crust causes the release of large amounts of radon gas.

Read more ....

My Comment: This is a remarkable discovery that deserves further research.

U.S. Special Ops Tracking Terrorists Everywhere

Photo: An artists rendition of Montana State University's Explorer-1 [Prime] CubeSat. Montana State University/NASA

U.S. Special Ops Building Satellites To Track Terrorists Everywhere -- Popular Mechanics

The raid on Osama bin Laden's compound this month highlighted special forces' focus on finding high-value targets. Their hunt extends into space, too. An official with U.S. Special Operations Command has confirmed that his organization is testing tiny satellites that could keep tabs on targets from above.

An official with Special Ops revealed Wednesday that the U.S. recently launched mini-satellites that could clandestinely track high-value targets, like al-Qaida terrorists. "We sent up four satellites to demonstrate passing TTL [tagging, tracking, locating] data," Doug Richardson, a civilian official at U.S. Special Operations Command, told an audience on Wednesday, referring to a December launch of a SpaceX rocket carrying the CubeSats—inexpensive satellites so small they can fit in the palm of your hand, and which have been used for scientific missions for a number of years.

Read more ....

My Comment: One more reason why the Pentagon is upset with all of these leaks.

Kindle E-Book Outsells Print Versions For First Time Ever

Bestseller: The e-book is outselling text versions for the first time ever

Is It The End For The Paperback? Kindle E-Book Outsells Print Versions For First Time Ever -- the Daily Mail

Sales of digital e-books have outstripped real books for the first time, according to Amazon.

Four years after the launch of electronic novels, the firm announced it has sold 105 e-books for every 100 printed books over the past six weeks.

While e-book sales have previously outsold hardback books, never before have they exceeded sales of all books, in both hardback and paperback forms.

Read more ....

My Comment: We predicted this years ago .... but it is still a surprise to now know that this point has been reached.

Robots Learning Their Own Language

The 'Lingodroids' Learning Language via IEEE Spectrum

Robots Learn To CreateTheir Own Spoken Language -- Popular Science

Having a computer for a brain has its perks, but it has its drawbacks as well. Language is a tough concept for robots, as words can convey the abstract as well as the concrete and robots have trouble knowing the difference (and grasping the abstract). That makes human-machine interaction less than intuitive for humans and confusing to ‘bots. But Australian researchers are hoping to change that by teaching robots to communicate verbally in a language of their own creation, the same way humans did.

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Beware Of The Coming Zombie Apocalypse

Will Budget Cuts Leave Us Unprepared For Zombie Apocalypse? -- ABC News

If zombies ever start taking over the planet, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says we'd better be prepared for it.

If the undead really start roaming the earth looking for fresh brains to eat, we can't rely on our ability to shoot 'em dead the way people do in video games or in horror flicks. Instead, the agency says, we need to treat it like any other disaster.

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More News On The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse

US officials prepare for 'zombie apocalypse' -- The Guardian
CDC prepares for Zombie Apocalypse: tips on how to survive -- Washington Post
Ready for a zombie apocalypse? CDC has advice -- CNN
CDC Advises on Zombie Apocalypse … and Other Emergencies -- Wall Street Journal
CDC Zombie Apocalypse: What we're watching now -- CBS News
Ready for a zombie invasion? Center for Disease Control has tips on popular new blog post -- New York Daily News
Zombies Upstage a Routine Public Health Bulletin -- New York Times
Preparing for a zombie apocalypse? The CDC weighs in -- L.A. Times
CDC: Here’s what to do in case of zombie apocalypse -- Chicago Sun Times
CDC helps Americans prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse -- USA Today
US offers coping tips on 'zombie apocalypse' -- AFP
CDC reveals safety plan for Zombie Apocalypse -- The Register
CDC "Zombie Apocalypse" disaster campaign crashes website -- Reuters
CDC Launches Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide: Supplementary Tech Tips -- ZDNet
CDC to America: How to Prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse -- Time

By Working As A Team, Autonomous Swarming 'Bots Can Quickly Explore and Map Structures

GT's Henrick Christensen With One of the Team's Autonomous Mapping 'Bots Georgia Tech

Working as a Team, Autonomous Swarming 'Bots Quickly Explore and Map Structures -- Popular Science

A swarm of intelligent, autonomous robots from Georgia Tech may soon be leading the charge into dangerous and uncertain situations, providing valuable mapping intel to first responders, military, or police behind them. A team of researchers there have developed a team of small, rolling robots that can autonomously communicate with one another to quickly build a detailed floor plan map of an entire structure and beam it to nearby humans.

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My Comment: I can see recon units and FOBs having this tech as standard in the next 15-20 years (if not sooner).

Planets More Numerous Than Believed

An artist's depiction illustrates a Jupiter-sized planet wandering free in interstellar space. The new findings appear to confirm the existence of many such planets. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / May 19, 2011)

Planets May Be Vastly More Numerous Than Believed -- L.A. Times

Researchers say that millions of Jupiter-sized planets are wandering in our galaxy far from any star. The findings suggest that there may be twice as many planets as stars in the Milky Way, perhaps several times as many.

The Milky Way galaxy may be filled with millions upon millions of Jupiter-sized planets that have escaped their solar systems and are wandering freely in space, researchers said Wednesday in a finding that seems certain to make astronomers rethink their ideas about planetary formation.

Scientists had previously thought that about 20% of stars had massive planets attached to them, but the new results reported in the journal Nature suggest that there are at least twice as many planets as stars, and perhaps several times as many.

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Rare Colour Photographs Of The Depression

Distributing surplus commodities in St Johns, Arizona, October 1940

In The Bleak Light Of The Depression: Rare Colour Photographs Of The Era That Defined A Generation -- Daily Mail

It was an era that defined a generation. The Great Depression marked the bitter and abrupt end to the post-World War 1 bubble that left America giddy with promise in the 1920s. Near the end of the 1930s the country was beginning to recover from the crash, but many in small towns and rural areas were still poverty-stricken. These rare photographs are some of the few documenting those iconic years in colour. The photographs and captihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifons are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color. The images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, shed a bleak new light on a world now gone with the wind.

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My Comment: A fascinating gallery of photos from a time when America was all black and white.

Protecting Ones Home From The Floods

Citizens in Flood Zone Build Homemade Levees to Protect Their Homes -- Popular Science

All of that water pouring out of spillways and topping levees up and down the Mississippi River has to go somewhere, and many living in those areas prone to flooding have taken drastic action to keep from being inundated. In what could be called a testament to the human instinct to protect hearth and home, some in the disaster zone are holding out by taking civil engineering into their own hands, building makeshift levees to keep the rising waters at bay. Click through the gallery to see how far some homeowners have gone to protect their properties.

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Using Viagra 'Could Make You Deaf'?

The researchers are not sure how Viagra might affect hearing Photo: Alamy

Viagra 'Could Make You Deaf' -- The Telegraph

Viagra could make you deaf, doctors have warned.

Viagra and similar impotence drugs have been linked to hundreds of cases of sudden hearing loss around the world, including some in the UK.

Doctors have begun to warn that the drugs could damage users' hearing after a spate of people in the US with auditory problems.

Experts, including some from Charing Cross, Stoke Mandeville and Royal Marsden hospitals, were so concerned by the claims that they demanded an investigation from official watchdogs across three continents.

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Moment Tsunami Swamps Japan's Doomed Fukushima Nuclear Plant

(Click on image to Enlarge)
Disaster strikes: The tsunami rushes over a protective sea wall and towards tanks of heavy oil for the Unit 5 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex

Genesis Of A Disaster: Moment Tsunami Swamps Japan's Doomed Fukushima Nuclear Plant -- The Daily Mail

This is the moment the Japanese tsunami destroyed a sea wall designed to protect the Fukushima nuclear plant and surged towards reactors.

Tons of water can be seen destroying the wall and sweeping away reactor equipment, cars and other machinery in pictures released by plant owners.

The tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the plant, causing the reactors to melt down and numerous explosions as engineers tried to release a build up of radioactive hydrogen gas.

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My Comment: Another example on why we should never underestimate the power of nature.

The Marvels Of Imaging Technology On Fossils Trapped In Amber

The 49 million-year-old Huntsman spider seen using X-ray computed tomography. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Manchester)

Imaging Technology Reveals Intricate Details of 49-Million-Year-Old Spider -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2011) — Scientists have used the latest computer-imaging technology to produce stunning three-dimensional pictures of a 49 million-year-old spider trapped inside an opaque piece of fossilized amber resin.

University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues in Germany, created the intricate images using X-ray computed tomography to study the remarkable spider, which can barely be seen under the microscope in the old and darkened amber.

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My Comment: 49 million years trapped in amber .... wow.

Japan Earthquake Was 'In The Air' Days Before

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. local time (05:46 UTC), a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan. The epicenter was 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Sendai, and 231 miles (373 km) northeast of Tokyo. If initial measurements are confirmed, it will be the world’s fifth largest earthquake since 1900 and the worst in Japan's history. This image of Japan from 1999 was taken as part of SeaWiFS, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor Project. CREDIT: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, SeaWiFS Project and ORBIMAGE

Japan Earthquake Was 'In the Air' Days Before, Scientist Claims -- Live Science

The atmosphere above the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake in Japan underwent unusual changes in the days leading up to the disaster, according to preliminary data.

The research has not yet been published in an academic journal or reviewed by other scientists, but it could offer an intriguing possibility for earthquake prediction — though the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," said study researcher Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California.

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My Comment: This is very intriguing, and deserves more study.

Small Pox Fears?

'Bizarre Bits' Exhibition Took a Strange Turn When Feds Arrived -- Wall Street Journal

A 135-Year-Old Piece of Skin Launches a Smallpox Scare at a Virginia Museum.

An outbreak of smallpox was the farthest thing from Paul Levengood's mind when his staff at the Virginia Historical Society put together an exhibit of "bizarre bits" in the society's collection since its founding in 1831.

There was Confederate President Jefferson Davis's cigar, confiscated by Union troops. There was a fungus carving of Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller and a wreath made of human hair.

Then someone mentioned a letter, handwritten and dated 1876, with what appeared to be a smallpox scab pinned inside—light brown, about the size of a pencil eraser, and crumbling.

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Update: 135-Year-Old Piece of Skin Triggers Smallpox Scare At Virginia Museum -- FOX News

My Comment: Small Pox has been one of history's worst scourges .... stories like this one should always raise our eyebrows and make us grateful that small pox epidemics are a thing of the past. As to this story .... I doubt that small pox will ever turn to plague mankind .... but it is another wake-up call on why we should always be vigilant.

China Admits Three Gorges Dam Has Problems

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province is seen in this 2009 file photo. China's landmark dam project provides benefits to the Chinese people, but has created a myriad of urgent problems from the relocation of more than a million residents to risks of geological disasters, the Chinese government said on Thursday. Reuters/File

Controversial Three Gorges Dam Has Problems, Admits China -- Christian Science Monitor

The world's largest hydroelectric project was designed to tame the flood-prone Yangtze River and to generate clean energy. But the water is becoming polluted, and regular landslides are making life near the dam dangerous.

The Chinese government made a rare admission Thursday of something that millions of people living around the Three Gorges dam know only too well: There is a dark side to the country’s proudest engineering achievement.

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My Comment: Critics have been saying the same thing for years .... I guess are now listening.