Iceland's Geothermal Bailout Feature

The Kuwait of the North: Engineers at the Tyr drilling rig in Krafla’s snow-covered caldera hope to use a supercritical-water source two miles underground to produce 10 times as much geothermal electricity as a normal well Courtesy Sveinbjorn Holmgeirsson/Landsvirkjun Power

From Popsci.com:

October, Iceland's economy tanked. Its bailout? A two-mile geothermal well drilled into a volcano that could generate an endless supply of clean energy. Or, as Icelanders will calmly explain, it could all blow up in their faces

It's spring in Iceland, and three feet of snow covers the ground. The sky is gray and the temperature hovers just below freezing, yet Gudmundur Omar Fridleifsson is wearing only a windbreaker. Icelanders say they can spot the tourists because they wear too many clothes, but Fridleifsson seems particularly impervious. He's out here every few days to check on the Tyr geothermal drilling rig, the largest in Iceland. The rig's engines are barely audible over the cold wind, and the sole sign of activity is the slow dance of a crane as it grabs another 30-foot segment of steel pipe, attaches it to the top of the drill shaft, and slides it into the well.

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How Apple, AT&T Are Closing the Mobile Web

A growing chorus claims that Apple’s questionable approval policy for its iPhone application store raises issues with net neutrality.

From Epicenter/Wired News:

Free Press, a group that advocates the idea of an open internet — that is, one in which consumers have the right to browse the web and run internet applications without restrictions — is the latest of several organizations to call out Apple for its inconsistencies. Free Press alleges that Apple crippled SlingPlayer, a TV-streaming application for iPhone, so that it would only work on a Wi-Fi connection; the initial version worked with a 3G cellular network connection as well as Wi-Fi. The SlingPlayer restriction is inconsistent with Apple’s approval of the Major League Baseball application, which provides live-streaming of sports events on both Wi-Fi and 3G connections, the group said.

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Sunspots Revealed In Striking Detail By Supercomputers

The interface between a sunspot's umbra (dark center) and penumbra (lighter outer region) shows a complex structure with narrow, almost horizontal (lighter to white) filaments embedded in a background having a more vertical (darker to black) magnetic field. (Credit: Copyright UCAR, image courtesy Matthias Rempel, NCAR)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2009) — In a breakthrough that will help scientists unlock mysteries of the Sun and its impacts on Earth, an international team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has created the first-ever comprehensive computer model of sunspots. The resulting visuals capture both scientific detail and remarkable beauty.

The high-resolution simulations of sunspot pairs open the way for researchers to learn more about the vast mysterious dark patches on the Sun's surface. Sunspots are associated with massive ejections of charged plasma that can cause geomagnetic storms and disrupt communications and navigational systems. They also contribute to variations in overall solar output, which can affect weather on Earth and exert a subtle influence on climate patterns.

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Vinegar Might Fight Fat

From Live Science:

Ordinary vinegar used to make salad dressings and pickles just might live up to its age-old reputation in folk medicine as a promoter of health, a new study suggests.

Nobody should start guzzling vinegar, but Japanese scientists found new evidence that vinegar can help prevent accumulation of body fat and weight gain, at least in mice.

Tomoo Kondo and colleagues note that vinegar has been used as a folk medicine since ancient times. People have used it for a range of ills. Modern scientific research suggests that acetic acid, the main component of vinegar, may help control blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and fat accumulation.

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Grey Hair May Be Protecting Us From Cancer

From New Scientist:

GREY hair may be unwelcome, but the processes that produce it are now better understood and could be protecting us from cancer.

Cells called melanocytes produce the pigments that colour hair and their numbers are kept topped up by stem cells. Hair goes grey when the number of stem cells in hair follicles declines. Now Emi Nishimura of Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan and colleagues have found what causes this decline in mice.

When the researchers exposed mice to radiation and chemicals that harm DNA, damaged stem cells transformed permanently into melanocytes. This ultimately led to fewer melanocytes, as it meant there were fewer stem cells capable of topping up the melanocyte pool. The mice also went grey (Cell, vol 137, p 1088). Nishimura's team proposes that the same process leads to the reduction in stem cells in the follicles of older people, especially as DNA damage accumulates as we age.

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Great White Sharks Hunt Just Like Hannibal Lecter

In this undated photo released by The University of Miami, a white shark is seen successfully lunging for and capturing a juvenile fur seal at the surface in False Bay, South Africa in 2004. (AP Photo/University of Miami, Neil Hammerschlag)

From Yahoo News/AP:

WASHINGTON – Great white sharks have some things in common with human serial killers, a new study says: They don't attack at random, but stalk specific victims, lurking out of sight.

The sharks hang back and observe from a not-too-close, not-too-far base, hunt strategically, and learn from previous attempts, according to a study being published online Monday in the Journal of Zoology. Researchers used a serial killer profiling method to figure out just how the fearsome ocean predator hunts, something that's been hard to observe beneath the surface.

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Sexy Maths: When It Pays To Play The Odds

From Times Online:

Mathematicians, and the laws of probability, can tell you whether to have a flutter, or keep hold of your money.

Let’s start by playing a game. I roll a dice and pay you in pounds the number that appears on it. How much would you be prepared to pay to play? If you pay £1 you cannot lose, and if you pay £6 you cannot win but at what point do the odds tip from my advantage to yours?

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Students 'Should Be Able To Take Brain Boosting Drugs'

'Smart drugs' are increasingly being used by students to improve their exam grades

From The Telegraph:

Students should be able to take brain boosting drugs like Ritalin to get better exam results, an expert has said.

Students should be able to take brain boosting drugs like Ritalin to get better exam results, an expert has said.

John Harris, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Manchester, said that it was "not rational to be against human enhancement" and that the drugs could help people become better educated.

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Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

This is the view inside the doughnut-shaped JET reactor, the largest fusion device on Earth. During a reaction, nuclear fuels are held away from the walls by electromagnets, and reach temperatures more than ten times hotter than the core of the sun

From The Daily Mail:

The JET fusion reactor looks more like the lair of a Bond villain than an extraordinary British experiment that might save the world.

The highly compacted core of the sun is a very hot place indeed.

In the star's burning heart, hydrogen atoms collide at immense speeds. This welds them together and turns them into helium atoms, which each release a burst of energy that escapes into the solar system as light. It is a nuclear furnace, responsible for fuelling all life on Earth, that consumes a lot of hydrogen (600 million tons every second) at very high temperatures (over 15 million degrees C). As such, it's the second-hottest place in the solar system.

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Wind Power Blues

From The Toronto Sun:

Toronto doctor warns that, if not properly controlled, the noise from wind turbines could make people sick -- literally.

Since the debate over wind turbines and whether they negatively impact on human health is heating up in Ontario, let's talk to an expert on the relationship between noise and stress.

Toronto psychiatrist Dr. Irvin Wolkoff is a recognized authority on this subject and has testified on it as an expert witness in court.

(Full disclosure: Dr. Wolkoff and I are friends, but his professional views are his own.)

Wolkoff notes there has been little independent, credible research on the specific issue of wind turbine noise and what, if any, impact it has on human health. That research should be undertaken immediately, he said.

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Toward New Drugs That Turn Genes On And Off

Scientists found a group of molecules that act like an "on-off switch" and could be used to develop medicines against various diseases. (Credit: The American Chemical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 21, 2009) — Scientists in Michigan and California are reporting an advance toward development of a new generation of drugs that treat disease by orchestrating how genes in the body produce proteins involved in arthritis, cancer and a range of other disorders. Acting like an "on-off switch," the medications might ratchet up the production of proteins in genes working at abnormally low levels or shut off genes producing an abnormal protein linked to disease.

In the study, Anna K. Mapp and colleagues discusses molecules that cause genes to be active and churn out proteins — so-called transcriptional activators. That's because they control a key process known as transcription, in which instructions coded in genes produce proteins. Malfunctions in these activators could lead to altered transcription patterns that lead to disease. For example, variations in the tumor suppressor gene p53 are found in more than half of all human cancers.

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Sunday: The Longest Day of the Year

Each year on June 20 or 21, the sun is as far north as it can get from the celestial equator, marking the solstice. Credit: Starry Night Software

From Live Science:

If you've been waiting for the chance to get more done during the day, Sunday is your day, but only by a fraction of a second.

Like a giant timepiece, Earth and sun are configured for the summer solstice once again. This year it happens June 21, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The sun will be up a fraction of a second longer than the day prior or the day after. (The length of the full day, including night, does not change, of course.)

To grasp how it works, one must understand Earth's cockeyed leanings and some celestial configurations that even the ancients knew something about.

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Swine Flu 'Could Infect Up To Half The Population'

A medical researcher working to produce a DNA test for swine flu, which is spreading more quickly in the UK. Photo AFP.

From The Independent:

Health authorities told to set up testing and drug distribution centres in case of autumn outbreak.

Primary care trusts are to set up anti-viral drug distribution centres and swine flu testing clinics amid fears that the infection could spread out of control.

The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, wrote to health authorities last week urging hospitals to test all patients who show signs of flu-like symptoms. He wrote: "Transmission from person to person in this country is increasingly common. There is evidence that sporadic cases are arising with no apparent link either to cases elsewhere in the UK or to travel abroad."

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NASA's Mission To Bomb The Moon

From Scientific American:

NASA will tomorrow launch a spectacular mission to bomb the Moon. Their LCROSS mission will blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a missile that will blast a hole in the lunar surface at twice the speed of a bullet. The missile, a Centaur rocket, will be steered by a shepherding spacecraft that will guide it towards its target - a crater close to the Moon's south pole. Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.

Scientists expect the blast to be so powerful that a huge plume of debris will be ejected.

The attack on the Moon is not a declaration of war or act of wanton vandalism. Space scientists want to see if any water ice or vapour is revealed in the cloud of debris.

Though the Moon mostly a dry airless desert, they believe ice could be trapped in crater shadows near the south pole which never receive any sunlight. If so it could provide vital supplies for a manned moonbase.

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Solar Sleuths Tackle Mystery Of Quiet Sun

Scientists have found that slow, eastward-moving "jet streams" (depicted in yellow) move about 7000 kilometres below the sun's surface. As this plot shows, over time they migrate from near the sun's poles toward its equator. The ones corresponding to Cycle 24 took their time reaching 22° in latitude, matching the prolonged solar minimum seen in recent years. (Illustration: Frank Hill and Rachel Howe/NSO)

From New Scientist:

For the past couple of years, our sun has been at the minimum of its 11-year activity cycle. Its face has been virtually spotless for months on end, and there've been no dire alerts of titanic solar storms about to slam into Earth.

The problem is that this "quiet sun" has continued far too long – two years ago, a special task force predicted that the transition from the just-ended Cycle 23 to the upcoming Cycle 24 would come around March 2008. It didn't. (To be fair, there was sharp disagreement within the group at that time.)

Much fanfare accompanied the appearance of a tiny high-latitude sunspot in early 2008, supposedly heralding Cycle 24's arrival. Yet for months and months afterward the sun's face remained spotless.

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Hands On Review: iPhone OS 3.0 Chock Full Of Changes

From Ars Technica:

iPhone OS 3.0 is out and it runs on all generations of iPhone and iPod touch. Ars reviews the OS and takes a look at what's in store. If you're not planning to buy a shiny new iPhone 3G S, you may find yourself quite satisfied with your 3G iPhone running the new OS.

The one-word summary for iPhone 3.0 should be "subtle." But don't go thinking that subtlety means boring—the changes that come with Apple's latest mobile OS are plentiful and hidden in many corners of the device. Apple previewed iPhone OS 3.0 to the world in March of this year and again in June at WWDC 2009, but there's no greater experience than playing around with the software and discovering all the surprises yourself. We did just that with iPhone OS 3.0 and discovered that while the cool big changes may get all the press, there are also numerous updates to smaller details should be anything but ignored.

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Big Particle Collider Restart Delayed Till October

Large Hadron Collider

From Yahoo News/AP

GENEVA – The world's largest atom smasher will likely be fired up again in October after scientists have carried out tests and put in place further safety measures to prevent a repeat of the faults that sidelined the $10 billion machine shortly after startup last year, the operator said Saturday.

The Large Hadron Collider was meant to restart in late September, but that will probably be pushed back two to three weeks, a spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research said.

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US Couple To Have World's First Weightless Wedding

The bride's wedding dress was designed to billow out in all directions as she tumbles and twirls about in zero gravity (Image: Bonnie Veronico)

From The New Scientist:

It's T-minus one day until Erin Finnegan and Noah Fulmor say "I do" in zero gravity, becoming the first couple to have a weightless wedding. The US couple will exchange vows aboard G-Force One, the "vomit comet" operated by the Zero Gravity Corporation.

Finnegan and Fulmor, who live in New York City, are self-professed space fanatics – as children, both wanted to be astronauts. Finnegan attended space camp, while Fulmor volunteered at a local planetarium. Today Finnegan works in animation production and Fulmor is a legal secretary (see an image of the couple).

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My Comment: What can I say but best wishes.

Ancient Ice Age, Once Regarded As Brief 'Blip' Found To Have Lasted For 30 Million Years

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Geologists at the University of Leicester have shown that an ancient Ice Age, once regarded as a brief 'blip', in fact lasted for 30 million years.

Their research suggests that during this ancient Ice Age, global warming was curbed through the burial of organic carbon that eventually lead to the formation of oil – including the 'hot shales' of north Africa and Arabia which constitute the world's most productive oil source rock.

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Dads Are Key to Making Us Human

From Live Science:

Some 95 percent of male mammals have little to no interaction with their children. Homo sapiens are one of the most notable exceptions, leading some scientists to think fatherhood is an important part of what makes us human.

Most theories for the family involvement of fathers invoke the familiar "Man the Hunter" characterization, in which dad protects and provides for his young.

While fathers do play key roles in securing the physical health of their children, they also can be important for the optimum development of psychological and emotional traits considered to be primarily human, such as empathy, emotional control and the ability to navigate complex social relationships.

Unlike many other animals, humans need their fathers well beyond the act that leads to conception, researchers are coming to realize.

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