Introducing The Gel-Filled Army Helmet That Will Crush Bullets As They Penetrate It

Richard Palmer, CEO of Blue Divine Ltd, with 'D3O' shock-absorbing material which will be used to line new British Army helmets

From The Daily Mail:

On the face of it a layer of orange jelly may not sound the best way to protect a soldier's head from high velocity bullets and shrapnel.

But the British Army's standard-issue combat helmet is set to be upgraded with a liner made from gooey miracle gel, which responds to a sudden impact by locking instantly into a solid form - absorbing huge amounts of energy harmlessly.

A UK-based technology company was today celebrating a £100,000 contract from the Ministry of Defence to develop its D3O shock-absorbing gel to help save the lives of British troops fighting on the frontline in Afghanistan.

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My Comment: The use of nanotechnology at a basic level.

Moon and Venus Converge Friday Night

The scene about two hours after sunset from near Phoenix, Arizona on Friday, Feb. 27, 2009. Simulated sky map made using Starry Night Software.

From Live Science:

It has been a superb winter for viewing the queen of the planets, Venus. February marks the pinnacle of its evening visibility as it stands like a sequined showgirl nearly halfway up in the western sky at sunset.

You can't miss it. Just look west after sunset. In fact, you can see it during the day if you know where to look. Find it just after sunset one evening, then scan around the same spot just before sunset the next day.

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Europe Names Crew For Mars 'Mission'

Red Mars from Spirit (Image from NASA)

From Breitart/AFP:

The European Space Agency (ESA) on Friday named a Frenchman and a German who will join four Russians in an innovative 105-day isolation experiment to test whether humans can one day fly to Mars.

From March 31, the six "crew" will be locked inside a special facility in Moscow that replicates conditions of a space trip to Mars.

The simulation will be followed by a 520-day experiment, starting later this year, that would last as long as a real mission to Mars.

The two Europeans are Oliver Knickel, 28, a mechanical engineer in the German army, and Cyrille Fournier, 40, a captain with Air France who flies A320 airliners, ESA said in a press release.

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Warnings Issued On Nanotechnology

Photo: One example of nanotechnology is this Kevlar-treated fabric developed for the military in Cambridge, Mass. The coating is extremely thin. ELISE AMENDOLA AP

From The Houston Chronicle:

Some say time's right to assess its environmental impact.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may soon act to impose the first regulations specific to nanotechnology, a move that could have a significant impact in Houston.

Already, Canada has signaled its intent to require companies working with nanomaterials — designed at the molecular level to have special properties, such as enhanced strength — to report what materials they are working with and in what quantity.

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Jurassic Web

Screenshot of a web page in 1996 (Image from Tulane)

From Slate:

The Internet of 1996 is almost unrecognizable compared with what we have today.

It's 1996, and you're bored. What do you do? If you're one of the lucky people with an AOL account, you probably do the same thing you'd do in 2009: Go online. Crank up your modem, wait 20 seconds as you log in, and there you are—"Welcome." You check your mail, then spend a few minutes chatting with your AOL buddies about which of you has the funniest screen name (you win, pimpodayear94).

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Additional Evidence That Potato Chips Should Be Eaten Only In Moderation

Acrylamide, found in foods such as potato chips and french fries, may increase the risk of heart disease. Acrylamide has been linked previously to nervous system disorders and possibly to cancer. (Credit: iStockphoto/Alexander Zhiltsov)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2009) — A new study published in the March 2009 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition by Marek Naruszewicz and colleagues from Poland suggests that acrylamide from foods may increase the risk of heart disease. Acrylamide has been linked previously to nervous system disorders and possibly to cancer.

After ingesting large amounts of potato chips providing about 157 micrograms of acrylamide daily for four weeks, the participants had adverse changes in oxidized LDL, inflammatory markers and antioxidants that help the body eliminate acrylamide—all of which may increase the risk of heart disease.

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Sex Goes Way Back, Fossil Find Shows

The armored fish, Materpiscis attenboroughi, may have given birth to its young tail-first, similar to some sharks and rays. Credit: Museum Victoria.

From Live Science:

Remains of embryos entombed in their fish mothers' wombs for 380 million years have been found in fossils from an ancient rock outcrop in Western Australia. The finding is a big deal because it suggests that sex goes way back.

The prehistoric fish, called placoderms, are found at the base of the vertebrate evolutionary tree (in a large group we humans also belong to), so it now looks like sexual intercourse, and the mating behaviors that go along with it, were more widespread in these ancient animals than previously thought, said the scientists who made the discovery.

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The Weirdest New Source of Alternative Energy: Underwater Vibrations

A prototype underwater generator shows the fluid dynamics that will produce power from slow-moving currents using metal rods suspending near the ocean or river floor. Image courtesy of NOAA

From Discover Magazine:

Researchers say this longtime bane of offshore drilling is more cost-efficient than wind and solar.

The latest frontier for renewable energy is the ocean floor. A novel method of generating power uses a network of metal rods to tap into the currents that flow along the bottom of the ocean (and along riverbeds as well). Water swirls as it flows past the rods, making them vibrate. This phenomenon is painfully familiar to oil companies, which spend large sums of money minimizing such vibrations in order to stabilize offshore drilling equipment. “Everyone was obsessed with suppressing this motion,” says Michael Bernitsas, the University of Michigan engineer who developed the technology. “At some point it dawned on me that maybe we can do the opposite: Enhance it and harness the energy.”

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Ice Ages and Sea Level

Figure 1: Orbital Parameters: Eccentricity, Precession and Obliquity- click for larger image
(Image from Watts Up With That)

From Watts Up With That?

The Earth is currently in an interglacial period of an ice age that started about two and a half million years ago. The Earth’s current ice age is primarily caused by Antarctica drifting over the South Pole 30 million years ago. This meant that a large area of the Earth’s surface changed from being very low-albedo ocean to highly reflective ice and snow. The first small glaciers were formed in Antarctica perhaps as long ago as 40 million years. They expanded gradually until, about 20 million years ago, a permanent ice sheet covered the whole Antarctic continent. About 10 million years later, glaciers appeared on the high mountains of Alaska, and about 3 million years ago, ice sheets developed on lower ground in high northerly latitudes.

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Galaxy May Be Full Of 'Earths,' Alien Life

Photo: An artist's impression shows a planet passing in front of its parent star. Such events are called transits.

From CNN:

(CNN) -- As NASA prepares to hunt for Earth-like planets in our corner of the Milky Way galaxy, there's new buzz that "Star Trek's" vision of a universe full of life may not be that far-fetched.

Pointy-eared aliens traveling at light speed are staying firmly in science fiction, but scientists are offering fresh insights into the possible existence of inhabited worlds and intelligent civilizations in space.

There may be 100 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way, or one for every sun-type star in the galaxy, said Alan Boss, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution and author of the new book "The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets."

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How To Make Your Computer Boot Faster

(Photograph by Kyoko Hamada)

From Popular Mechanics:

Why can’t a computers start up like a television? In short, it is all about the operating system. And contrary to common sense, the newer the operating system the longer it can take. But you can do something about it. Here are tips to get your tortoise-like boot time to hop like a bunny.

Why can’t a computer be more like a television? When you push the power button on a TV, it just turns on. Computers, on the other hand, boot—as in, they take so long to get started that you want to stick your boot into them.

You would think that the march of technological progress would have reduced boot times over the years, but newer operating systems can take longer—Microsoft Vista actually tends to boot more slowly than its predecessor, Windows XP. (Microsoft claims its next-generation operating system, Windows 7, should provide drastic improvements in boot time.)

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The Evolution of Human Aggression

From Live Science:

Everyone has experienced anger at one point in their lives and some of us — males mostly, going by statistics — have channeled that anger into violence, perhaps by throwing a punch during a hockey game or after too many beers at the bar.

Then there's aggression on a much more sinister scale, in the form of murder, wars and genocide. Trying to understand what fuels the different levels of human aggression, from fisticuffs to nation-on-nation battle, has long preoccupied human biologists.

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Genetic Discovery Could Lead To Advances In Dental Treatment

A normal mouse tooth on the left, where ameloblast cells that produce enamel are glowing in red. On the right is a tooth with the Ctip2 gene deleted, and little enamel has been able to form. (Credit: Image courtesy of Oregon State University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 24, 2009) — Researchers have identified the gene that ultimately controls the production of tooth enamel, a significant advance that could some day lead to the repair of damaged enamel, a new concept in cavity prevention, and restoration or even the production of replacement teeth.

The gene, called Ctip2, is a "transcription factor" that was already known to have several functions - in immune response, and the development of skin and the nervous system. Scientists can now add tooth development to that list.

The findings were just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Prosecution Alters Pirate Bay Charges in Bid to Win Conviction

From Wired News:

STOCKHOLM – The Pirate Bay prosecutor altered the copyright-infringement charges Tuesday to make it easier to convict the four defendants who co-founded the world's most notorious BitTorrent tracker.

Moments later, Hollywood investigators testified about the ease with which they obtained copyright works using the 5-year-old site.

But at the outset of Tuesday's proceedings, the prosecutor, Håkan Roswall, announced a alteration of the charges, which legal scholars suggested would make it more likely to win a conviction.

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Top 10 Ig Nobels: The Best of Science's Strangest Prize

From Popular Mechanics:

A large portion of scientific research remains forever off the public radar. A select few studies deliver results that reverberate in the scientific community and make their way to textbooks. Then there are those research efforts that, as one group puts it, represent "achievements that cannot or should not be reproduced." Every year the Annals of Improbable Research highlights this last group with the Ig Nobel, an award for the top engineering solutions, science products and peer-reviewed papers that, according to the editors, "make you laugh, then make you think." We looked back at 18 years of the prizes to bring you our 10 favorite Ig Nobels of all time.

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On the Trail of Osama bin Laden: Scientists Use Biological Tracking Models to Pursue America's Most Wanted

Regional analysis of city islands within a 20-km radius
of bin Laden’s last known location (red dot).

From Popular Mechanics:

The United States military's attempts to track down Osama bin Laden in the seven-plus years since the World Trade Center attacks have been notoriously fruitless. But a new study suggests the way to find America's most wanted criminal is to treat him like an endangered species. In the study, released in MIT International Review, University of California-Los Angeles geographers Thomas Gillespie and John Agnew modeled the terrorist leader's possible whereabouts by using the same techniques conservationists use to track the dispersal of animals and likely migration patterns. Using a variety of criteria specific to Osama bin Laden's needs—electricity, room for his entourage, health problems—the study isolates three buildings in the remote Pakistani town of Parachinar in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas as the most likely hideout. (The paper was submitted to the FBI before it went to the MIT journal and, according the FBI, it was forwarded to the appropriate personnel and is part of an active investigation.)

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Just How Fat Are We?

Big Little Kids: Obesity rates in Americans ages 12 to 19 have more than tripled since 1980.

From Popsci.com:

Headlines fret about the growing obesity epidemic, but what does it mean? How did it happen? And what are the costs?

Obesity, defined as a body-mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, is not equally distributed across the U.S. Check out this map to find out which state is the fattest (hint: it's the namesake of mud pie), which is the thinnest (think Coors Light), and which spends the most money on obesity-related health care (its governor pumps iron).

Read on, after the break, for more of America's (and the world's) fat facts.

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Why Women Cannot Read Maps

Are we lost? Women tend to describe directions as 'right of' and 'left of' landmarks, while men are better at reading maps, a study found

Are We Lost? Why Women Are Worse At Reading Maps But Can Find Those Misplaced Keys -- Daily Mail

Women are worse at reading maps but better at finding lost items, research into how the sexes perceive beauty has revealed.

U.S Scientists asked 10 men and 10 women to view a series of unfamiliar pictures. The participants were told to give their impressions of the images and whether or not they found them beautiful.

The scientists also used a technique called magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure changes in the magnetic fields generated by active neurons in the brain.

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Black Hole Destroying A Star (Video)

Hat Tip: Geek Press.

When Dreaming Is Believing: Dreams Affect People's Judgment, Behavior

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 22, 2009) — While science tries to understand the stuff dreams are made of, humans, from cultures all over the world, continue to believe that dreams contain important hidden truths, according to newly published research.

In six different studies, researchers surveyed nearly 1,100 people about their dreams. "Psychologists' interpretations of the meaning of dreams vary widely," said Carey Morewedge, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the study's lead author. "But our research shows that people believe their dreams provide meaningful insight into themselves and their world."

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