'Genius' Computer With An IQ Of 150

Artificial intelligence? The high-IQ software uses a mix of computer logic and 'human like' thinking to achieve higher scores than previous software

'Genius' Computer With An IQ Of 150 Is 'More Intelligent' Than 96 Per Cent Of Humans -- Daily Mail

* Software uses mixture of logic and 'human-like' thinking
* Score is classified as 'genius'
* It could 'spot patterns' in financial data

A computer has become the first to be classed as a 'genius' after scoring 150 in an IQ test.

The average score for people is 100. A score of 150 ranks the artificial intelligence programme among the top four per cent of humans.

The programme uses a mixture of mathematical logic and 'human-like' thinking, enabling it to outperform previous software on IQ tests.

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Tweaking The Fracking Process To Prevent Environmental Damage

Men with Cabot Oil and Gas work on a natural gas valve at a hydraulic fracturing site in South Montrose, Penn. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, stimulates gas production by injecting wells with high volumes of chemical-laced water in order to free up pockets of natural gas below.

It's Not Fracking's Fault, Study Says -- MSNBC

A university study asserts that the problems caused by the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," arise because drilling operations aren't doing it right. The process itself isn't to blame, according to the study, released today by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

The report is likely to add new fuel to a blazing controversy over fracking. Researchers reviewed the evidence contained in the reports of groundwater contamination from three prominent shale-rock formations where the process is employed: the Barnett Shale in North Texas, the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, New York and other areas of Appalachia; and the Haynesville Shale in western Louisiana and northeast Texas.

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The Future Of Energy In North America Is Tight Oil

A Cabot Oil and Gas natural gas drill is viewed at a hydraulic fracturing site on January 17, 2012 in Springville, Pennsylvania. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Tight Oil The Future Of Energy In North America -- Financial Post

Tight oil, the new oil source unlocked by new drilling technologies, is bearing such good results it could quickly compete with Canada’s oil sands as a top secure supply of North American oil.

With companies like Devon Energy Corp., Talisman Energy Inc., Encana Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. pushing big spending toward tight oil, analysts are ratcheting up their production forecasts for the supplies, which are largely based in the United States.

“Tight oil is changing the landscape in North America,” Steve Fekete, managing consultant at Purvin & Gertz, said at an oil sands industry conference in Calgary this week.

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Concentrated Solar Power: World Distribution Map

CSN Editor: Click here for an expanded view of the above image.

UN Plans Solar Energy For Africa

UN Plans Solar Energy For 33 Million People In Africa, Asia -- M&C

New York - Low-cost solar panels and solar batteries will be provided to poor communities in 14 countries in Africa and Asia in the next four years, the UN Development Programme said Thursday.

A total of 33 million people in the 14 countries will be able to make use of solar energy for commercial businesses and economic development, using the solar panels to be developed by a Mauritius-based company called ToughStuff, UNDP said.

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My Comment: Africa has the sun .... especially in the Sahara regions.

The Power Of Nanosecond Trading

Red line represents the frequency of sub-650 millisecond flash crashes, and blue the frequency of flash spikes, between January 2006 and February 2011. The black spike is the S&P 500 index. Image: Johnson et al./arXiv

Nanosecond Trading Could Make Markets Go Haywire -- Wired

The afternoon of May 6, 2010 was among the strangest in economic history. Starting at 2:42 p.m. EDT, the Dow Jones stock index fell 600 points in just 6 minutes. Its nadir represented the deepest single-day decline in that market’s 114-year history. By 3:07 p.m., the index had rebounded. The “flash crash,” as it came to be known, was big, unexpected and scary — and a new study says flash events actually happen routinely, at speeds so fast they don’t register on regular market records, with potentially troubling consequences for market stability.

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My Comment: So much for the small individual investor.

Could Hurricanes Wreck $700m Offshore Wind Farms In U.S.?

Threat: Academic experts in Pennsylvania say half of the turbines at four proposed offshore wind farms in the U.S. are likely to be destroyed by hurricanes in their 20-year life. A wind farm in Sweden is pictured

Could Hurricanes Wreck $700m Offshore Wind Farms In U.S.? Experts Predict HALF Of Proposed Turbines Will Be Ruined In 20 Years -- Daily Mail

* Pittsburgh researchers' study follows up on U.S. energy report in 2008
* Energy officials want wind farms to generate 20% of electricity by 2013
* Plans for farms in Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina & Texas
* Experts say current design can only withstand Category 3 hurricanes
U.S. energy officials have set a bullish target for wind farms to generate one fifth of the country’s electricity by 2030 - but Mother Nature certainly isn’t going to make it easy.

Academic experts at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, say half of the turbines at four proposed offshore wind farms are likely to be destroyed by hurricanes in their 20-year life.

The proposed wind farms at Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas could cost $175million each, but the researchers believe current designs of turbines mean many will not survive.

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My Comment: I could also make the case that sea water will corrode the windmills in a time period that could be even shorter than 20 years.

The 50 Best Websites of 2011

Illustrations by Alexander Ho for TIME

CSN Editor: The list is here.

Could The Next Generation Live To Be 150?

Photo: Maxwell Jones CBS 2

Seen At 11: Could The Next Generation Live To Be 150? -- CBS 2 New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — People in the Tri-State Area are living longer than ever, and if scientists have their way, life expectancies will continue to rise. Technologies today could allow the next generation to live up to 150, but how far should scientists go to allow people to live this long?

Baby Maxwell Jones’ life is just getting started, but if he’s lucky, the hours-old infant could live well into the next century.

“A hundred years, seems a stretch but it’s obviously possible,” his mother told CBS 2′s Kristine Johnson.

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Darpa's Budget Spared From Drastic Cuts

Darpa Dodges Obama Budget Death Ray, Keeps Its $2.8 Billion -- The Danger Room

For most of the U.S. military’s far-flung community of scientists and engineers, Monday was a day to pop a Xanax. Not only did the Defense Department announce a cut of more than $2 billion from is research and development budget for next year, but the Pentagon also said it would slow down production of new ships, spy drones, stealth jets, and combat vehicles — leaving a military that’s a bit creakier and older than before, and threatening the funding of thousands in the slide-rule set. Gulp.

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More News On Darpa's Budget

DARPA's budget haircut only a light trim -- Defense Systems
Darpa dodges Obama’s budget cuts -- Smart Planet
DARPA's budget and projects for Fiscal year 2013 -- Next Big Future

My Comment: No budget cuts for now .... but if sequestration comes into play, expect a slash and burn situation when it comes to all budgets .... Darpa's included.

Hollywood's 'Avatar' Robot Created By Japanese Scientists

Telesar V transfers marbles from a cup to another cup for a demonstration at Tachi's laboratory in Yokohama Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Japanese Scientists Create Hollywood's 'Avatar' Robot -- The Telegraph

The sci-fi world of the Hollywood blockbuster Avatar has been brought one step closer to reality with the creation of a robot that mimics the movements of its human controller.

Japanese scientists have developed a robot that allows humans to direct its actions while also enabling them to see, hear and feel the same things as their android counterpart.

The TELESAR V robot can be seen as perhaps the first step towards a real-life echo of the Hollywood film Avatar, in which US soldiers were able to remotely control the genetically engineered bodies of an extra-terrestrial race they wished to subdue.

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NASA Mars Funding Slashed

Photo: Nasa chief Charles Bolden admitted that tough choices had to be made.

Nasa Budget Slashes Mars Funding -- BBC

President Barack Obama's 2013 budget request for Nasa would slash spending on Mars exploration and shift funds to human spaceflight and space technology.

As reported by BBC News last week, this means the US will pull the plug on its joint missions to Mars with Europe.

If approved by Congress, the budget request would reduce funds available for planetary science by about 21%.

But spending on human exploration and space technology would rise by 6% and 22% respectively.

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My Comment: Nasa still has a budget?

Are Airships Coming Back?

Airship that can travel over 90mph could by used by Royal Navy

21st Century Airships May Join Navy Fleet -- The Telegraph

A new generation of British-built airships may be bought by the Royal Navy to resupply ships, follwoing their use by the US Army on the front line in Afghanistan.

Modern-day Zeppelins will take to the sky for the first time since the First World War when the US Army begins using airships in Afghanistan.

But Navy chiefs are now giving serious consideration to purchasing an airship from the Bedfordshire-based Hybrid Air Vehicles to provide surveillance and re-supply runs to aircraft carriers, The Daily Telegraph can discose.

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My Comment: The Americans have their own 'air ship/kite' program. It can be read here.

Webb Telescope Survives Spending Cuts

A September 2009 artist conception of James Webb Space Telescope. NASA

It's Alive! The Greatest Space Telescope Ever Built Survives -- Time

When last we heard about the James Webb Space Telescope, the souped-up, long-planned successor to the Hubble, the news was not good. Hard on the heels of a report blasting the Webb project for being badly behind schedule and over budget, a House committee voted to axe the partially completed telescope entirely.

Even a space nut could appreciate where they were coming from: originally envisioned in the 1990s as a monster scope 26 ft. (8 m) across, with more than 17 times the light-gathering power of the Hubble, the Webb was going to cost no more than $500 million and launch by 2007 — cross NASA's heart and hope to die! No one really bought that, but no one really expected the budget to swell to $2.6 billion and then to $6.2 billion, or the launch date to slip to 2015 and then 2018 either. When all that did happen, D.C. bean counters concluded that nothing would become the Webb project quite as much as the end of it.

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My Comment: $6.2 billion for a telescope .... sheesshhh ....

Hackers From Anonymous Crash The CIA Website

Anonymous hacked the CIA

Anonymous Claims Credit For Crashing CIA Site -- Washington Post

Hackers claiming an affiliation with Anonymous took credit for crashing the Central Intelligence Agency’s Web site Friday, in what appears to be another distributed denial-of-service attack.

The CIA’s Web site was inaccessible around 3:30 on Friday afternoon.

Preston Golson, a spokesman for the CIA, told The Post in an e-mailed statement, “We are looking into these reports.”

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More News On Anonymous Crashing The CIA Website

Anonymous targets the CIA -- CNN
Anonymous announces CIA website hacked -- BBC
Anonymous Says It Knocked C.I.A. Site Offline -- New York Times
Anonymous 'takes down' CIA website -- Al Jazeera
Anonymous took down cia.gov -- RT
Anonymous Takes Down CIA Web Site -- PC Mag
Anonymous knocks CIA website offline -- AFP
CIA Tango Down: Anonymous strikes again -- Examiner
'Tango Down': Anonymous claims attacks on CIA, Alabama state sites -- MSNBC

Family Portraits That Age You... In A Split-Second

The Family Portraits That Age You... In A Split-Second -- Daily Mail

* Photographer's 20-year project puts together series of amazing pictures of his relatives without using Photoshop
* Some are spliced with younger selves - while others combine parents with their children

A photo shows how a glamorous 16 year old will look as an old lady by using two images taken 46 years apart.

Half of the pretty blonde's wrinkle-free face is juxtaposed with a similar portrait of her as a white-haired old woman to show the passing of time.

The incredible series of pictures called AgeMap is a 20-year project by Bobby Neel Adams, who also merges portraits of family members into one image in his Family Tree series.

Read more ....

Moonrise Over Saturn

The 'smoky' effect at the bottom of the crescent moon Enceladus are geyser-like jets that create a halo of ice, dust and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring

Moonrise Over Saturn: Nasa Orbiter Captures Geysers Of Frost Shrouding South Pole Of Icy Moon Enceladus -- Daily Mail

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has captured a spectacular view of the crescent moon Enceladus in front off the planet.

The orbiter captured the famous jets of water ice spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus in a recent visible-light image - visible as a very faint smoky halo of ice shrouding the moon's south pole.

The spacecraft has orbited the planet Saturn since 2004, studying the planet, its mysterious moons, and its rings of tiny particles of ice.

The geyser-like jets on Enceladus appear as a small white blur below the dark south pole, down and to the right of the illuminated part of the moon's surface in the image.

The jets are made of water ice - and hint that Enceladus could have oceans below its surface.

The geyser-like jets create a halo of ice, dust and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring.

Read more ....

Funniest YouTube Video Ever?

Is This The Funniest YouTube Video Ever? Google Invents Algorithm To Find The Most Amusing Clip... And 'No No No No Cat' Is The Winner -- Daily Mail

You’d think the reasons for something being funny were beyond the reach of science – but Google’s brain-box researchers have managed to come up with a formula for working out which YouTube video clips are the funniest.

Their algorithm has declared that a video of a cat appearing to say ‘no’ over and over again – called No No No No Cat - is currently the funniest.

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My Comment: I disagree .... but then again .... I am not a cat person.

USS Revenge Found After 200 Years

Mystery Of 200-Year-Old Shipwreck Found Off US Coast -- The Telegraph

For two centuries it rested a mile from shore, shrouded by a treacherous reef from the pleasure boaters and beachgoers who haunt New England's southern coast.

Now, researchers from the US Navy are hoping to confirm what the men who discovered the wreck believe: that the sunken ship off the coast of Rhode Island is the USS Revenge, commanded by Oliver Hazard Perry and lost on a stormy January day in 1811.

"The Revenge was forgotten, it became a footnote," said Charlie Buffum, a brewery owner from Connecticut who found the shipwreck while diving with friend Craig Harger. "We are very confident this is it."

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My Comment: Gotta love the name .... USS Revenge.

A New Approach To Fight Cancer

Out of control: biologists still cannot explain why cancerous cells will proliferate and spread to other organs if unchecked

The Final Frontier In The War On Cancer -- The Telegraph

Frustrated by glacial progress, the US has turned to physicists to fight the disease, reveals Paul Davies.

When President Nixon declared war on cancer 40 years ago, he also sanctioned one of the biggest research programmes in history. The budget of America’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) is now $5 billion a year, more than Nasa spends on space exploration. Cancer accounts for a large slice of research funds in most other developed countries, too: Cancer Research UK, for example, has a budget of £500 million a year.

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What Oil Shortage?

Rising Oil Production in Alberta: More Evidence Disproving Hubbert’s Peak -- New American

The latest report from the Calgary (Alberta, Canada) Herald was nothing but good news: The steadily declining production of light oil from 2002 to late 2010 has reversed itself completely and is now not only proving the power and principles of a free market but “will change the way we think about oil, with many weighty consequences…” says blogger Peter Tertzakian. The graph he provided here shows Alberta’s production declining by about 16,000 barrels per day (B/d) every year since 2002, dropping to just over 300,000 B/d in late 2010. Now, thanks to new capital, new technology, and new enthusiasm, production is close to 400,000 B/d. It also “could heighten the blood pressure of a few peak oil theorists,” said Tertzakian.

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How Many Humans Have Lived On This Planet?

Do The Dead Outnumber The Living? -- BBC

The population of the planet reached seven billion in October, according to the United Nations. But what's the figure for all those who have lived before us?

It is often said that there are more people alive today than have ever lived - and this "fact" has raised its head again since the UN announcement about the planet's population reaching a new high.

The idea helps fuel fears that the population is expanding too fast.

It is true that if you delve back into the mists of time, the population of Earth was tiny in comparison to today and logically it might seem plausible that the living outnumber the dead.

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Pandora's Box Has Already Been Opened For Bio-Terrorists

Details Of Secret Experiments On Deadly Man-Made Bird Flu That Kills Over Half Of The People It Infects WILL Get Out, Says Bioterrorism Watchdog -- Daily Mail

* 'The infrastructure to stop a pandemic is not there,' says Professor Paul Keim

Details of secret experiments by scientists who have created the most deadly form of bird flu in the lab will inevitably be leaked - potentially into the hands of terrorists - an expert has warned.

A furore erupted in December over the decision by the U.S National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) to censor details of the virus being made public, which can be transmitted by coughs and sneezes.

But now the head of that board claims they will enter the public domain anyway.

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More News On The Fears Of Bird-Flu Research

No way of stopping leak of deadly new flu, says terror chief -- The Independent
Experts warn that there's no way to stop deadly new flu -- Aol.com
Fear of Terrorists Keeps Man-made Avian Flu Under Wraps -- Voice of America
Recommendation to censor bird flu research driven by fears of terrorism -- Washington Post
Can Scientific Censorship Stop Bioterrorism? -- Ronald Bailey, Reason
Hope or Fear: The Opposing Ideas of H5N1 Bird Flu Researchers -- Hans Villarica, The Atlantic

Is Facebook And Twitter Addictive?

Facebook And Twitter Are More Addictive Than Cigarettes Or Alcohol, Study Finds -- FOX News

A new study suggests that social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter are more difficult to resist than cigarettes or alcohol.

A team from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business recently conducted an experiment involving 205 people in Wurtzburg, Germany to analyze the addictive properties of social media and other vices.

Participants in the week-long study were polled via BlackBerry smartphones seven times per day and asked to report when they experienced a desire within the past 30 minutes, and whether or not the succumbed to that desire. They were also asked to gauge each desire on a scale from mild to “irresistible.”

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My Comment: I could not care less about Twitter and Facebook, but the children of my friends are certainly attached to these websites.

The Climate Skeptics 'May' Be Right

From Climategate Central: The Skeptics Were Right -- Don Surber

The world is cooling. Finally, this admission comes from the British weather service (the Met Office) and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit — the center of the Climategate Conspiracy in which some climatologists conspired to manipulate data in a mad effort to “prove” their daft theory that using carbon-based fuels would turn the planet into Hell On Earth.

They now must admit the truth that Global Warming is in error.

And so they do.

From the London Daily Mail:

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My Comment: The skeptics have a point .... this is the weather in Europe today.

'Oldest Living Thing On Earth' Discovered

Scientists say a patch of ancient seagrass in the Mediterranean is up to 200,000 years old Photo: Getty Images

'Oldest Living Thing On Earth' Discovered -- The Telegraph

Ancient patches of a giant seagrass in the Mediterranean Sea are now considered the oldest living organism on Earth after scientists dated them as up to 200,000 years old.

Australian scientists sequenced the DNA of samples of the giant seagrass, Posidonia oceanic, from 40 underwater meadows in an area spanning more than 2,000 miles, from Spain to Cyprus.

The analysis, published in the journal PLos ONE, found the seagrass was between 12,000 and 200,000 years old and was most likely to be at least 100,000 years old. This is far older than the current known oldest species, a Tasmanian plant that is believed to be 43,000 years old.

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My Comment: Now that is old.

Stunning Footage From Space

Breakthroughs In Invisibility Cloak Technology

Scientists Make 'Invisibility Cloak' Breakthrough -- The Telegraph

Scientists in the United States have made a further step towards creating an "invisibility cloak" by masking a large, free-standing object in three dimensions.

The lab work is the latest advance in a scientific frontier that uses novel materials to manipulate light, a trick that is of huge interest to the military in particular.

Reporting in the New Journal of Physics, researchers at the University of Texas in Austin cloaked a 7.2-inch cylindrical tube from light in the microwave part of the energy spectrum.

Those hoping for a Harry Potter-style touch of wizardry will be disappointed however. To the human eye, which can only perceive light in higher frequencies, there would have been no invisibility.

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More News On Scientists Making An 'Invisibility Cloak' Possible

Invisibility cloak uses 'metamaterial' to hide three-dimensional objects -- Christian Science Monitor
Invisibility breakthrough reported -- CBS/Live Science
Scientists pioneer cloaking technology -- Al Jazeera
Breakthrough in bid to create 'invisibility cloak' as 3D object is made to vanish for first time -- Daily Mail
'Cloaking' a 3-D object from all angles demonstrated -- BBC
Cloak's on you: Scientists create 'invisible' object -- CNet
Invisibility’s Next Frontier: Scientists Cloak 3-D Objects -- Danger Room
Scientists Close In on Invisibility Cloak -- Tech News World
Researchers cloak free-standing 3D object using plasmonic metamaterials -- Gizmag
'Invisibility cloak' could be used in 'super stealth' warplanes -- The Week

How Contact Lenses Will Bring Virtual Reality To U.S. Soldiers By 2013

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is working with Washington based company Innovega to develop a system of contact lenses and small wearable glasses giving soldiers a considerable tactical advantage. The ‘Terminator eye’ contact lens would enable soldiers to simultaneously focus on the battlefield and mission data, such as live video from an overhead drone, at the same time. (Photo: Innovega)

Contact Lenses: How They Will Bring Virtual Reality to U.S. Soldiers by 2013 -- International Business Wimes

It has been the stuff of science fiction for decades, but the U.S. military announced on Tuesday it is close to developing a virtual reality contact lens to enhance soldiers' vision on the battlefield.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is working with Washington-based company Innovega to develop a system of contact lenses and small, wearable glasses giving soldiers battelfield information in realtime.

The Terminator-style vision would enable soldiers to simultaneously focus on the battlefield and mission data, such as live video from an overhead drone, at the same time.

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More News On The Development Of Virtual Reality Contact Lens

DARPA developing contact lenses with 'Terminator'-like abilities -- GCN
Contact Lens Technology Could Give Soldiers 'Terminator' Capabilities -- Aol Defense
DARPA Working with Innovega for virtual reality contact lens and eyeware combination
-- Next Big Future
DARPA Works On Virtual Reality Contact Lenses -- Information Week
Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Are One Step Closer to Reality -- Big Think
Virtual reality contact lenses that beam images directly into your eyes could be on sale in 2014 -- Daily Mail
Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Offer 3D Panorama -- Discovery News
New Augmented Reality Contact Lenses/Eyeglasses Offer Entertainment, Help Soldiers -- Daily Tech

Take The Alzheimer's Test

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Take The Alzheimer's Test: The 21 Questions That Can Reveal If YOU Are At Risk... -- Daily Mail

A quick test that tells if your loved one is at risk of Alzheimer’s disease has been devised by doctors.

The 21-question test distinguishes between normal absent-mindedness and the more sinister memory lapses that may signal the early stages of dementia.

The questions are designed to be answered by a spouse or close friend.

The Alzheimer’s Questionnaire, which is almost 90 per cent accurate, measures mild cognitive impairment – the slight memory lapses that can be a precursor of the disease.

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My Comment: Did the test on myself .... scored 4. Hmmmm ....

More Internet Censorship On The Way

Posts on Google's Blogger service will now be taken down if they violate local laws - so in repressive regimes, governments may be able to use local speech laws to block controversial posts

Google Joins Twitter In Censorship Storm: Site May Now Block Blog Posts In Line With Requests From Oppressive Regimes -- Daily Mail

* Blog posts will be blocked at national government request
* Campaigners fear 'the end of the global internet community'
* But Google claims move will allow MORE free speech

Google's informal motto is 'don't be evil', but a huge change to its Blogger service could see the search giant help oppressive governments stamp out voices of protest.

Bloggers who have relied on the popular service to organise dissent as seen during the Arab Spring could find their posts being blocked by Google itself.

The company will now block posts or blogs from being seen in a country if they their local laws, handing a victory to regimes that crack down on free speech to keep a lid on dissent.

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What Happens When Our Brain Ages

New Insight Into Aging Brains -- Wall Street Journal

Study Links 24% of Intelligence Changes Over a Person's Life to Genetic Factors.

Nearly a quarter of the changes often seen in a person's intelligence level over the course of a lifetime may be due to genes, a proportion never before estimated, new research shows.

The study suggests that genes may partly explain why some people's brains age better than others, even though environmental factors likely play a greater role over a lifetime.

Understanding the factors behind healthy mental aging has become an increasingly vital one for societies with large elderly populations. However, it isn't an easy task.

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The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries In Physics

We've learned so much from science, bet there's plenty we still don't understand

5 Of The Biggest Unsolved Mysteries In Physics -- Y!Tech/Yahoo News

The mysteries of the universe are as vast and wide as existence itself. Throughout history, mankind has searched and struggled to find the answers tucked away inside the universe and everything we see around us. As Deep Thought said in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

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All Time Coldest U.S. Record Nearly Broken

Bitter Cold Records Broken In Alaska – All Time Coldest Record Nearly Broken, But Murphy’s Law Intervenes -- WUWT

Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment.

While the continental USA has a mild winter and has set a number of high temperature records in the last week and pundits ponder whether they will be blaming the dreaded “global warming” for those temperatures, Alaska and Canada have been suffering through some of the coldest temperatures on record during the last week.

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My Comment: Damn .... that's cold.

`Space Hurricane`From The Sun Sweeping The Planet Right Now

'Space Hurricane' From The Sun Sweeping Over Our Planet -- MSNBC

Flights rerouted due to solar storm; radiation rated strongest since 2003

A wave of charged particles from an intense solar storm is raising alerts about airline flights and satellite operations — and raising the prospect of stunning auroral displays.

The storm began when a powerful solar flare erupted on the sun Monday, blasting a stream of charged particles toward our planet. This electromagnetic burst — called a coronal mass ejection, or CME — started hitting Earth somewhere around 10 a.m. ET Tuesday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center.

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More News On Today`s Hurricane`From The Sun

'Space Hurricane': Huge Solar Storm Is Pounding Earth Now -- Space.com
Delta reroutes planes following massive solar eruption -- FOX news
Solar radiation storm sweeps over Earth -- CNET
Strongest Solar Storm Since 2005 Hitting Earth -- Sci-Tech Today
Space station dwellers safe from massive radiation storm -- Christian Science Monitor
Solar storm's effects to lash Earth until Wednesday -- BBC
Solar storm underway: ‘A taste of what’s going to come’ next year -- Washington Post
A solar storm reaches Earth (images) -- CNET

Fears Of Bioterrorism Halts Research On Mutant Bird Flu

Bioterror Fears Halt Research On Mutant Bird Flu -- BBC

Scientists who created a more deadly strain of bird flu have temporarily stopped their research amid fears it could be used by bioterrorists.

In a letter published in Science and Nature, the teams call for an "international forum" to debate the risks and value of the studies.

US authorities last month asked the authors of the research to redact key details in forthcoming publications.

A government advisory panel suggested the data could be used by terrorists.

Biosecurity experts fear a mutant form of the virus could spark a pandemic deadlier than the 1918-19 Spanish flu outbreak that killed up to 40 million people.

Read more ....

More News On Scientists Suspending For 60 Days Their Research On Mutant Bird Flu

Researchers Pause Work on Bird Flu That Could Kill Hundreds of Millions -- ABC News
Fears of mutant virus escape halt bird flu study -- Reuters
Deadly Bird Flu Research to Be Paused Over Concern About Risks -- Bloomberg
Bird flu scientists suspend work amid epidemic fears -- The Guardian
Scientists call moratorium on study of deadly bird flu -- L.A. Times
Scientists Agree to Halt Work on Dangerous Bird Flu Strain -- Time
Scientists to Pause Research on Deadly Strain of Bird Flu -- New York Times
Controversial Killer Flu Research Paused -- Wired
Flu scientists agree to 60-day ‘pause’ in bird-flu research -- Washington Post
Scientists Call for 60-Day Suspension of Mutant Flu Research -- Scientific America

Hackers Retaliate With Massive Cyber Attacks After Shutdown Of Megaupload

U.S. Justice Department Website Attacked By Hackers Over Megaupload Shutdown -- National Post

The U.S. government shut down the Megaupload.com content sharing website, charging its founders and several employees with massive copyright infringement, the latest skirmish in a high-profile battle against piracy of movies and music.

The Department of Justice announced the indictment and arrests of four company executives on Thursday as debate in Washington reaches a fever pitch over online piracy. Lawmakers are trying to craft legislation that balances cracking down on violators while avoiding censorship of the Internet.

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More News On The Shutdown Of Megaupload And Hacker Retaliation

Anonymous strikes back after feds shut piracy hub Megaupload -- CNN
Megaupload.com Gets Hit by Mega Piracy Indictment; Hackers Attack Feds, Entertainment Industry -- ABC News
U.S. shutters Megaupload.com, arrests founder; hackers retaliate? -- Seattle Times/AP
Megaupload is Megapwned by Gov't, Anonymous Hits Back, Downs DOJ Homepage -- Daily Tech
Anonymous claims DOJ hack attack -- Politico
FBI shuts down Megaupload.com, Anonymous shut down FBI -- News.com.au
Anonymous says it takes down FBI, DOJ, entertainment sites -- MSNBC
Hackers attack FBI, Justice Department websites after Megaupload shutdown -- National Post
Hackers’ revenge: Federal -- Miami Herald
Anonymous Claims DOJ, RIAA, MPAA Sites Hit for Megaupload Bust -- Time
The Copyright War- Govt Takes Down Megaupload, Anonymous Takes Down Govt! -- Crazy Engineers
Anonymous DOJ Attack Also Targets RIAA and More in Response to MegaUpload Indictment -- Gather
Anonymous Retaliates With Gov., Media Web Site Shutdowns after Megaupload Arrests -- RedmondMag
Anonymous Retaliates for Megaupload Shutdown, Attacks DOJ, Others -- PC World
US govt, entertainment sites attacked after piracy arrests -- ZDNet
Anonymous hacks DOJ, RIAA, MPAA and Universal Music websites -- ZDNet

Gravitational Lensing Helps Redraw the Map of Space

The observations show that dark matter in the Universe is distributed as a network of gigantic dense (white) and empty (dark) regions, where the largest white regions are about the size of several Earth moons on the sky. Van Waerbeke / Heymans / CFHTLens collaboration

A Cosmic Illusion: Gravitational Lensing Helps Redraw the Map of Space -- Time

You can hardly accuse Albert Einstein of being short on imagination. The man who invented General Relativity and helped invent quantum theory probably had more creative thoughts in an hour than most folks have in a year. But one of Einstein's more intriguing scientific papers, which appeared in Science in 1936, wasn't really his idea in the first place. It came instead from a Czech electrical engineer named Rudi Mandl, who was intrigued by one of relativity's implications.

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Major Websites Preparing To Go Dark On Wednesday

Wikipedia and other websites plan to go dark in protest. Reuters

SOPA Protest Nears Zero Hour -- Politico

Internet companies and activists are hoping to join the Arab Spring and other online democracy movements by taking an estimated 7,000 websites offline Wednesday to send a message to Washington: Don’t pass a pair of anti-piracy bills.

The websites that have announced plans to go dark include Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit and Wordpress, but some of the most visited websites are conspicuous in their absence.

And supporters of the copyright bills dismissed the blackout as a “stunt.”

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My Comment: To understand the issues that are involved, go here. As for myself .... unless Blogger goes offline .... I will be blogging tomorrow.

Massacre In The Hive

Massacre In The Hive: Amazing Footage Of 30 Giant Japanese Hornets Slaughtering 30,000 Tiny Honeybees To Eat Their Young -- Daily Mail

Tens of thousands are dead, hundreds more of the dying lie writhing on the battlefield, powerless to protect their children.

These horrifying and yet fascinating scenes are the highlights of a three-hour battle between just 30 giant Japanese hornets and 30,000 European honeybees.

The video, from a National Geographic documentary called Hornets From Hell, shows a full-scale attack on the honeybees' comb in order that the hornets can get at their larvae.

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My Comment: I got the chills from just watching the video.

The Hunt for Exomoons Is Heating Up

An artist's impression of a hypothetical exomoon in orbit around a planet in another planetary system. Dan Durda

Forget Exoplanets: The Hunt for Exomoons Is Heating Up

The universe seems almost infinitely reductive: our galaxy rotates around a central hub, planets orbit their planet stars, moons orbit their parent planets, and the odd moonlet may even orbit a moon.

Almost from the moment astronomers began finding planets around distant stars, they thus began talking about the moons that might orbit those alien worlds. It wasn't that they had any hope of discovering something as tiny as a moon: the smallest things they could find at the time were giant planets like Jupiter. But if a Jupiter happened to orbit in its star's Goldilocks Zone, where temperatures were relatively balmy, and if that Jupiter happened to have a moon about the size of Earth — not impossible, surely — then that hypothetical moon might have a chance of harboring life. That's a lot of ifs, which made talk of so-called exomoons seem like more of a marketing gimmick designed to gin up public interest in exoplanet science than a serious area of research.

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The First Ever Saturn-Like Exoplanet Is Found

A Saturn-Like Ringed Planet, 420 Light-Years Away Michael Osadciw/University of Rochester

Found: The First Ever Saturn-Like Exoplanet Surrounded By Orbital Rings -- Popular Science

The hits just keep on coming out of Austin this week as the 219th meeting of the American Astronomical Society rolls on. Researchers there have announced the discovery of the first Saturn-like ringed object outside our solar system, documented when researchers were trying to diagnose the cause of a strange eclipsing effect emanating from a nearby star.

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An Innovative Way To Collect Solar Energy

13-year-old Aidan Dwyer developed a new way to collect solar energy, and along the way sparked a fierce debate among scholars and scientists. He joins the News Hub to tell his story. Photo: Claudio Papapietro for The Wall Street Journal

A Youngster's Bright Idea Is Something New Under The Sun -- Wall Street Journal

Aidan Dwyer Took a Leaf from the Trees and Electrified International Debate

NORTHPORT, N.Y.—A new way of collecting solar energy has polarized scientists around the world and ignited fierce debate on the Internet, where the innovator in question has been called everything from an alien to the agent of a global conspiracy.

Maybe a better title would be an intellectual Hannah Montana. That's because the scientist, Aidan Dwyer, is 13 years old.

This past summer, Aidan won a national science competition with what seemed to be a bright idea: His research appeared to show that solar panels arrayed like the leaves on a tree collect sunlight more efficiently than traditional setups.

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Google's Chrome Poised To Become World's Most Popular Web Browser

Over the past year, Internet Explorer fell from 46 per cent of the worldwide market to 38.5 per cent. In the same period, Chrome rose from 15.68 per cent to 27.27 per cent, overtaking rival Firefox in the process

Google's Chrome Poised To Become World's Most Popular Web Browser This Year, Overtaking Internet Explorer -- Daily Mail

* Internet Explorer falls to 38.5 per cent in 2011
* Chrome soars from 15.68 per cent to 27.27 per cent
* Will overtake IE in 2012 if current trend continues

Google's fast, simple Chrome browser will move ahead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer by the end of this year if current trends continue, according to research from research firm StatCounter.

Over the past year, Internet Explorer fell from 46 per cent of the worldwide market to 38.5 per cent.

In the same period, Google Chrome rose from 15.68 per cent to 27.27 per cent, overtaking rival Firefox in the process.

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A New Design For Robots

This photo illustration shows an agama lizard with the Tailbot robot. (Discovery Channel 4D Anatomy Model, 2008 Fame Master Ent. Ltd.). Thomas Libby, Evan Chang-Siu and Pauline Jennings. Courtesy of PolyPEDAL Lab & CiBER/UC Berkeley

Should We Design Robots To Be More Like Velociraptors? -- Christian Science Monitor

Adding a long tails to a robot to stabilize its body could lead to far more agile search-and-rescue machines, a new study reveals.

Meat-eating dinosaurs like Velociraptor may have been quite the acrobats, using their tails to land aerial maneuvers safely, say scientists studying today's leaping lizards.

Long-tailed robots built as part of this work could help inspire a new generation of maneuverable search-and-rescue droids, the researchers add.

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Google Search Home Page Revamped

Google's pull-down menus should help highlight the firm's non-core search services to users.

Google Search Home Page Revamp Promotes Other Services -- BBC

Google is rolling out one of its biggest home page changes to date.

The revamp strips its front page of the black bar that currently runs horizontally along its top, and replaces it with a grey logo.

When clicked or highlighted, it reveals seven alternative services to the site's search page with an option to reveal a further eight.

Analysts said the move was designed to promote more of the firm's businesses without cluttering its webpage.

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My Comment: This is going to take some getting use to.

Windows XP Still Dominates The Web

Ten Years Later, Windows XP Still Dominates The Web -- CNN Money

And in the Apple market, Lion is still trailing two-year-old Snow Leopard.

In its final monthly report for 2011, NetApplications offers a window on the shifting fates of the various flavors of Microsoft (MSFT) Windows and Mac OS X that show up at its 40,000 clients' websites.

As a rule, creaky old legacy systems dominate.

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My Comment: It took me a few months to get over Windows 3.1 in favor of Windows 95. Such is the life of software.

'Buffing' Your Brain

Buff Your Brain -- Daily Beast/Newsweek

Read more. Learn a language. Get some sleep! Sharon Begley reports getting a bigger brain is easier—and more fun—than you think.

Brain training to sharpen memory. Aerobic exercise to preserve gray matter. Meditation to hone connections between reason and emotion.

It all sounds great, but there’s something that has long bothered us about the growing number of studies pinpointing ways to buff your brain: they don’t go far enough. Sure, exercises to improve memory are better for your brain than, say, watching reality TV, but the most you’re going to gain is more reliable access to knowledge already scattered around your cerebral cortex. If the information isn’t in there, no amount of brain training will tell you how the Federal Reserve system functions, why the Confederacy lost the Civil War, the significance of Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon, or why Word just crashed.

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Is A Super-Volcano In The Heart Of Europe About To Erupt?

If the Laacher See eruption is as powerful as the last one, volcanic material could land over 600 miles away

Is A Super-Volcano Just 390 Miles From London About To Erupt? -- Daily Mail

* It's similar in size to Mount Pinatubo, which in 1991 gave us the biggest eruption of the 20th century
* Billions of tons of ash and magma would be ejected
* Southern England would be covered in ash

A sleeping super-volcano in Germany is showing worrying signs of waking up.

It's lurking just 390 miles away underneath the tranquil Laacher See lake near Bonn and is capable of ejecting billions of tons of magma.

This monster erupts every 10 to 12,000 years and last went off 12,900 years ago, so it could blow at any time.

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My Comment: The awesome power of mother nature always gives me pause.

Four Industries Being Targeted By Apple

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Four Industries Apple Can Disrupt In The Near Future -- Time Techland

Tim Bajarin is the president of Creative Strategies Inc., a technology industry analysis and market intelligence firm in Silicon Valley.

Over the last 10 years, Apple has done a rather amazing job of disrupting quite a few industries. By my account, it has dramatically impacted the PC, tablet, consumer electronics, telecom, music and TV industries in a big way. And I believe that Apple is on the cusp of disrupting at least four more major industries in the next three to five years.

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My Comment: Only 4?

Is This The Year of Cold Fusion?

2012: The Year of Cold Fusion? -- Forbes

Well, there goes 2011, a year that was, to say the least, a mixed bag.

In the tech world it has been an interesting year. The Large Hadron Collider has, so far, failed to find evidence of the Higgs Boson (boo!) but at least it didn’t, as some people had feared, create a black hole that swallowed the earth (hooray!). Biological research produced promising results regarding antiviral drugs that may cure the common cold (hooray!) but a cure for cancer and HIV stills seems a long way away (boo!).

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My Comment: Unfortunately .... we are still a long way off.

How Can I Track My Stolen Gadget?

Laptop LoJack Nigel Buchanan

Ask a Geek: How Can I Track My Stolen Gadget? -- Popular Science

Thieves make off with millions of dollars’ worth of laptops and mobile devices every year. Most stolen gadgets go unrecovered, but tracking software can help. The software runs in the background of the operating system or, with some services, the boot-level layer, which makes detecting the tracker much more difficult. Services like Prey provide free software for up to three laptops or Android devices. BlackBerry, iPhone or iPad owners can use GadgetTrak (from $4).

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