Lighting Revolution Forecast By Top Scientist

In search of the 60 - year household light bulb - packaged green LEDs on InGaN multiple quantum well devices grown at Cambridge University. (Credit: Image courtesy of AlphaGalileo Foundation)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — New developments in a substance which emits brilliant light could lead to a revolution in lighting for the home and office in five years, claims a leading UK materials scientist, Professor Colin Humphreys of Cambridge University. The source of the huge potential he foresees, gallium nitride (GaN), is already used for some lighting applications such as camera flashes, bicycle lights, mobile phones and interior lighting for buses, trains and planes.

But making it possible to use GaN for home and office lighting is the Holy Grail. If achieved, it could reduce the typical electricity consumption for lighting of a developed country by around 75% while delivering major cuts in carbon dioxide emissions from power stations, and preserving fossil fuel reserves.

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Scramjets Promise Space Travel For All

Business-class return to space, please (Image:NASA)

From New Scientist:

ON A bright autumn morning five years ago, the space-flight community was turned on its head by a little teardrop-shaped spacecraft built in a small workshop in California's Mojave desert. The successful flight of SpaceShipOne on 29 September 2004, the first of two flights en route to winning the $10 million Ansari X prize, seemed to usher in a new era of space travel - one in which space flight would be affordable, frequent and, perhaps most importantly, accessible to all.

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Massive New Zealand Quake Moves Country West

From Yahoo News/AP:

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Southern New Zealand has moved slightly closer to the east coast of neighboring Australia as a result of a massive earthquake last week off the country's South Island, a scientist said Wednesday.

The magnitude 7.8 quake, centered in the ocean near Resolution Island in the country's Fiordland region, twisted South Island out of shape and moved its southern tip 12 inches (30 centimeters) closer to Australia, seismologist Ken Gledhill said.

Gledhill, director of government-owned GNS Science's "GeoNet" national earthquake monitoring project, said the island's geographic shift showed the immensity of the forces involved.

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John S. Barry, Main Force Behind WD-40, Dies at 84

From CNBC:

John S. Barry, an executive who masterminded the spread of WD-40, the petroleum-based lubricant and protectant created for the space program, into millions of American households, died on July 3 in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. He was 84.

The cause was pulmonary fibrosis, a lung disease, said Garry Ridge, president and chief executive of the WD-40 Company.

The company says surveys show that WD-40, the slippery stuff in the blue and yellow aerosol can, can be found in as many as 80 percent of American homes and that it has at least 2,000 uses, most discovered by users themselves. These include silencing squeaky hinges, removing road tar from automobiles and protecting tools from rust.

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Unsung Heroes Save Net From Chaos

The same social structures that drive Wikipedia also keep the net healthy

From BBC:

Crack teams of volunteers keep the net online and functioning, according to leading internet lawyer Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard University.

The way data is divided up and sent around the internet in many jumps makes it "delicate and vulnerable" to attacks or mistakes, he said.

However, he added, the "random acts of kindness" of these unsung heroes quietly keep the net in working order.

Professor Zittrain's comments came at the TED Global conference in Oxford.

Incidents such as when the Pakistan government took YouTube offline in 2008 exposed the web's underlying fragility, he explained.

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For Scientists, Moon Rocks Tell Story Of A Young Earth

From Philadelphia Inquirer:

For 40 years, the rocks hauled back from the moon have been changing the history of the Earth as we knew it.

The lunar rocks suggest that a smaller planet slammed into ours 4.5 billion years ago, creating the moon and enlarging the Earth. They tell the tale of a storm of space debris violently pounding both the Earth and moon, perhaps triggered by a dramatic reshuffling of the entire solar system.

Scientists today are still studying those rocks, hoping to decipher whether life had already emerged before the near-apocalyptic pummeling 3.9 billion years ago - and, incredibly, survived.

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Scientists Capitalize On Extended Solar Eclipse

On Wednesday, 2009 July 22, a total eclipse of the Sun is visible from within a narrow corridor that traverses half of Earth. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins in India and crosses through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China. After leaving mainland Asia, the path crosses Japan's Ryukyu Islands and curves southeast through the Pacific Ocean where the maximum duration of totality reaches 6 min 39 s. A partial eclipse is seen within the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes most of eastern Asia, Indonesia, and the Pacific Ocean. (Credit: F. Espenak / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 22, 2009) — Scientists at an observatory outside Hangzhou joined residents and tourists across China and India in observing the longest total solar eclipse in a century and probably the most-viewed ever.

The moon's shadow traced a path across the world's two most populous countries before racing across the Pacific, providing a view of totality for five minutes and 36 seconds for scientists gathered here from around the world as part of the Williams College Eclipse Expedition.

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Human Stabbed A Neanderthal, Evidence Suggests

Steven Churchill of Duke University is holding a replica of a Neanderthal-type spear (left hand) and a spear thrower and dart (right hand) that would have been similar to weapons used by early modern humans tens of thousands of years ago. Credit: Duke Photo by Les Todd.

From Live Science:

Newly analyzed remains suggest that a modern human killed a Neanderthal man in what is now Iraq between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago. The finding is scant but tantalizing evidence for a theory that modern humans helped to kill off the Neanderthals.

The probable weapon of choice: A thrown spear.

The evidence: A lethal wound on the remains of a Neanderthal skeleton.

The victim: A 40- to 50-year-old male, now called Shanidar 3, with signs of arthritis and a sharp, deep slice in his left ninth rib.

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My Comment: I am skeptical that one can say that it was a "human" who did it .... but it is still intriguing.

Made In China: The Monster Dust Cloud That Completed A Full Circle Of The Globe In Just Thirteen Days

Phenomenal: An enormous dust cyclone swirls over northeastern China

From The Daily Mail:

It was a natural phenomenon that would have tested the limits of even Mr Muscle.

Scientists in Japan have found that clouds generated by a massive dust storm in China's Taklimakan desert in 2007 completed more than one full circle around the planet in just 13 days.

And measuring around 1.9 miles vertically and up to 1,242 miles horizontally, the dust cloud - which formed in the northwestern region of Xinjiang - stayed in that formation the whole way.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1201213/Made-China-The-monster-dust-cloud-completed-circle-globe-just-thirteen-days.html#ixzz0LzeVp8N7

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How To Use Your iMac As A Second Screen

The 17in iMac on display at Macworld 2002 in New York.
(Photograph by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

From Popular Mechanics:

Can you use your iMac's built-in monitor as a second screen for another computer? The answer is yes. Here's how.

Q:
My iMac has a built-in monitor. Is there a way of using this as a second screen for another computer?

A:
When it comes to screen space, you can never go overboard. Large monitor and multiscreen set-ups make it easy to multitask, and have been shown by a number of studies to boost productivity. It’s a shame, then, that Apple doesn’t build video input jacks into its iMacs—these all-in-one computers have a built-in monitor, and it’d be nice to be able to use it with other systems. This would be particularly useful for laptop users looking for a way to expand screen space when they aren’t on the road.

But even without an input jack, you can still put an iMac to work as an external monitor for another com­puter. You’ll need a program called ScreenRecycler, which employs what is called the VNC, or Virtual Network Computing, protocol. VNC is usually used as a way to allow one computer to remotely access and control ­another, but ScreenRecycler uses it to turn the second computer into an adjunct monitor. Note, though, that while the second screen can come from any type of computer (even a laptop), the com­puter you’re working on has to be a Mac.

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A Reprogrammable Space Probe Design For Mission Multitasking in Orbit

The Juno Space Probe: Honest to blog courtesy of NASA

From Popsci.com:

Multi-purpose hardware lets Japanese satellite change its mission on the fly.

Right now, thousands of satellites are circling the Earth. They're a diverse bunch. Some relay telephone calls, some spy on North Korea, some monitor the weather. But they all have one thing in common: each can only do one thing. A spy satellite can't suddenly start forecasting storms, and a communications satellite can't study asteroids.

Well, that's all about to change.

Researchers at the Institute of Space Systems at the University of Stuttgart, Germany, have designed a variable-function satellite that can alter its mission on the fly.

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Thinkers Meet To Plot The Future

From BBC:

Leading thinkers in technology, design and science are gathering in Oxford to share their ideas about the future.

TED Global (Technology, Entertainment and Design) is the European cousin of an already established top US event.

The invitation-only conferences are dedicated to "ideas worth spreading" and have seen talks by former US presidents and Nobel Laureates.

This year's event will explore questions in neuroscience, astrophysics and economics.

"It is about all the hidden, invisible, not yet discovered or fully explored parts of our lives, society and the world," said Bruno Giussani, European director of TED.

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How Do You Sneeze In A Spacesuit? Very Carefully

In this 19 July 2009 photo provided by NASA shows Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette float onto the mid deck of the space shuttle Endeavour, where she joins astronaut Dave Wolf, who makes an entry on a laptop computer. The two STS-127 mission specialists are part of a seven member shuttle crew currently visiting the International Space Station, which is now docked with the shuttle. (AP Photo/NASA)

From Yahoo News/AP:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – When it comes to sneezing in a spacesuit while in the void of space, it is best to aim well.

That's the advice lead spacewalker David Wolf offered Tuesday while answering one of the questions posted on YouTube for the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor.

"I've done it quite a few times, most recently yesterday," said Wolf, who led the mission's second spacewalk Monday and was set to go on a third spacewalk Wednesday. "You learn in training, and I don't know how to say this, aim well. It can mess up your view and there is no way to clear it."

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Everest Revealed From Above In British Balloonist's Breathtaking Panoramic Shot Of World's Highest Peaks

(Click Image to Enlarge)
'Best snap on Earth': Everest dominates the picture, shot from 36,000ft and in -56C temperatures by Leo Dickinson on the world's first-ever balloon flight over the highest mountain. The curvature of the planet is exaggerated by the wide-angle lens

From The Daily Mail:

This awe-inspiring photograph captures the majesty of Mount Everest as you've never seen it before - from more than a mile above.

The spectacular panorama shows the breathtaking landscape of the Himalayas from six miles above sea level.

It was shot by an intrepid British photographer wearing breathing apparatus in -56C temperatures 36,000 feet up.

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10 Reasons Why Apollo 11 Moon Landing Was Awesome

From Wired News/Geek Dad:

Yesterday marked the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Forty years ago mission commander Neil A. Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin Eugene ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, Jr. walked on the moon while command module pilot Michael Collins orbited above. Today however, marks the 40th anniversary of the day people really reacted to what just happened. As with all major events in time, there is always a day of reflection. I’d like to honor that day of reflection with my top 10 thoughts about the Apollo 11 moon landing.

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Eclipse Of The Century Live Online Tonight

From Wired Science:

The century’s most dramatic solar eclipse will be visible along a narrow swath of Asia and the Pacific Ocean later today. And, thanks to some University of North Dakota researchers, it’ll be visible on the internet, too. The live webcast begins at 5:15 p.m. Pacific time.

The eclipse will last six minutes and 39 seconds, which is near the theoretical maximum duration for a solar eclipse of seven minutes and 31 seconds. For everyone except Ray Kurzweil and the other singulatarians, this will be the longest eclipse of our lifetimes. The Earth won’t see an eclipse this long until June 13, 2132.

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Evolutionary Origins of Your Right and Left Brain

In the human brain the left hemisphere controls language, the dexterity of the right hand, the ability to classify, and routine behavior in general. The right hemisphere specializes in reacting to emergencies, organizing items spatially, recognizing faces and processing emotions.
Photoillustration by TWIST CREATIVE; MedicalRF.com Corbis (brain); Medioimages Getty Images (calculator); Joerg Steffens Corbis (faces); Westend61 Corbis (woman smiling); Dougal Waters Getty Images (ballerina); Mike Kemp Getty Images (rattlesnake); C Squared Studios Getty Images (palette); Vladimir Godnik Getty Images (paintbrushes); Carrie Boretz Corbis (girls whispering); Robert Llewellyn Corbis (calipers)

From Scientific American:

The division of labor by the two cerebral hemispheres—once thought to be uniquely human—predates us by half a billion years. Speech, right-handedness, facial recognition and the processing of spatial relations can be traced to brain asymmetries in early vertebrates

The left hemisphere of the human brain controls language, arguably our greatest mental attribute. It also controls the remarkable dexterity of the human right hand. The right hemisphere is dominant in the control of, among other things, our sense of how objects interrelate in space. Forty years ago the broad scientific consensus held that, in addition to language, right-handedness and the specialization of just one side of the brain for processing spatial relations occur in humans alone. Other animals, it was thought, have no hemispheric specializations of any kind.

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China Dust Cloud Circled Globe In 13 days

People ride amid sandstorms in Turpan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region May 26, 2009.
REUTERS/China Daily

From Reuters:

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Dust clouds generated by a huge dust storm in China's Taklimakan desert in 2007 made more than one full circle around the globe in just 13 days, a Japanese study using a NASA satellite has found.

When the cloud reached the Pacific Ocean the second time, it descended and deposited some of its dust into the sea, showing how a natural phenomenon can impact the environment far away.

"Asian dust is usually deposited near the Yellow Sea, around the Japan area, while Sahara dust ends up around the Atlantic Ocean and coast of Africa," said Itsushi Uno of Kyushu University's Research Institute for Applied Mechanics.

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Risk Of Huge Pacific Ocean Tsunami On West Coast Of America Greater Than Previously Thought

The city of Sitka, Alaska. The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of America may be greater than previously thought, according to a new study of geological evidence along the Gulf of Alaska coast. (Credit: iStockphoto/Brandon Laufenberg)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 20, 2009) — The potential for a huge Pacific Ocean tsunami on the West Coast of America may be greater than previously thought, according to a new study of geological evidence along the Gulf of Alaska coast.

The new research suggests that future tsunamis could reach a scale far beyond that suffered in the tsunami generated by the great 1964 Alaskan earthquake. Official figures put the number of deaths caused by the earthquake at around 130: 114 in Alaska and 16 in Oregon and California. The tsunami killed 35 people directly and caused extensive damage in Alaska, British Columbia, and the US Pacific region*.

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Comet Killed Ice Age Beasts

The nanodiamonds were found on the island of Santa Rosa, which was linked to three of the Northern Channel Islands off the southern California coast in a landmass known as Santarosae (encircled at top). Credit: Courtesy NOAA and UC Santa Barbara.

From Live Science:

Space rocks that slammed into the glaciers of eastern Canada some 12,900 years ago likely helped wiped out mega-animals like woolly mammoths and possibly the continent's first human inhabitants called the Clovis people, according to a new study that adds to evidence that a trio of factors were involved.

The new evidence comes from recently discovered nano-sized diamonds, which researchers say are the strongest clues to date for an argument that could explain the region's die-off during the late Pleistocene epoch.

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