Mysterious Bright Spot Found On Venus

A new, bright spot in the clouds of Venus was found by amateur astronomer Frank Melillo on 19 July (Illustration: Melillo/Maxson/ESA/University of Wisconsin-Madison/ALPO)

From New Scientist:

A strange spot emerged on Venus last week, and astronomers are not sure what caused it. They hope future observations will reveal whether volcanic activity, turbulence in the planet's atmosphere, or charged particles from the sun are to blame.

Amateur astronomer Frank Melillo of Holtsville, New York, first spotted the new feature, which is brighter than its surroundings at ultraviolet wavelengths, on the planet's southern hemisphere on 19 July. That same day, an amateur observer in Australia found a dark spot on Jupiter that had been caused by a meteoroid impact.

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Red Hot: Ferrari Previews F430 Successor

Ferrari 458 Italia Set for Frankfurt Debut this Fall: Ferrari today revealed its latest V8-powered sports car, the Pininfarina-designed 458 Italia. A successor to the current F430, the 458 gets a new, high-compression 4.5-liter V8 producing 570 horsepower and 398 pounds-feet of torque. Top Speed: 202 mph. Ferrari

From Popsci.com:

There's nothing like the curves of a new Ferrari to bring optimism back to the table. Ferrari today revealed its latest V8-powered sports car, the 458 Italia. The new model will succeed the current V8 hottie, the F430. Sporting a sexy new design by long-time Ferrari styling partner Pininfarina, the 458 Italia gets a new, high-compression 4.5-liter V8 producing 570 horsepower and 398 pounds-feet of torque. Top Speed: 202 mph. That makes it the first stock V8 Ferrari to break the 200-mph mark.

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Will Comets Wipe Out Life On Planet Earth? -- News Roundup

According to scientists Jupiter and Saturn have protected life on Earth for hundreds of millions of years by catching and batting away dangerous comets Photo: PA

Comet 'Unlikely To Wipe Out Earth' -- The Telegraph

The Earth is being protected from comets, thanks to the gravitational pulls of Saturn and Jupiter, according to new research

It is the plot of many a Hollywood science fiction thriller - a comet on a direct collision course with Earth destined to wipe out all known life.

But the producers of Deep Impact and other blockbusters might be wide of the mark, scientists have found, as new evidence suggests comets pose less of a threat to life on earth than previously imagined.

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More News On Comets And Striking The Earth

Comets probably won't destroy life on Earth, researchers say -- National Post
Comets probably won't cause the end of life as we know it: study -- AFP
Comets Not So Likely to Smash Into Earth and Kill Us All -- Discover Magazine
Comets From Edge of Solar System Unlikely to Hit Earth -- Space.com
Comet Collisions Won’t Spark The End Of The World -- Red Orbit
Doomsday Comet Less Likely, Calculations Show -- Discovery
Crashing Comets Not Likely The Cause Of Earth's Mass Extinctions -- Science Daily

White Roofs Catch On as Energy Cost Cutters

A Wal-Mart store in Chino, Calif., has both a cool roof and solar panels to cut its energy use. J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — Returning to their ranch-style house in Sacramento after a long summer workday, Jon and Kim Waldrep were routinely met by a wall of heat.

“We’d come home in the summer, and the house would be 115 degrees, stifling,” said Mr. Waldrep, a regional manager for a national company.

He or his wife would race to the thermostat and turn on the air-conditioning as their four small children, just picked up from day care, awaited relief.

All that changed last month. “Now we come home on days when it’s over 100 degrees outside, and the house is at 80 degrees,” Mr. Waldrep said.

Their solution was a new roof: a shiny plasticized white covering that experts say is not only an energy saver but also a way to help cool the planet.

Relying on the centuries-old principle that white objects absorb less heat than dark ones, homeowners like the Waldreps are in the vanguard of a movement embracing “cool roofs” as one of the most affordable weapons against climate change.

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Fiery Images As Killer Volcano That Claimed 36,000 Lives Stirs Once More

Ticking timebomb: Islanders thought they had avoided
another disaster after things went quiet last year

From The Telegraph:

An amateur photographer has captured new images of the re-awakening of the world's most famous volcano.

In a breathtaking series Marco Fulle, who specialises in shots of comets, has photographed the Anak Krakatoa against a backdrop of constellations such as the Big Dipper.

These stunning pictures show the latest activity during the rebirth of the infamous volcano which holds a long-standing record for causing the highest number of human deaths ever - a staggering 36,000 in 1883.

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Who Should Get the H1N1 Vaccine First?

A doctor at the Centers for Disease Control examines specimens in an effort to develop new influenza vaccines. James Gathany / CDC / Reuters

From Time Magazine:

World health officials are carefully watching the H1N1/09 swine flu virus as it makes it way through the Southern Hemisphere, which is currently in the thick of its flu season. They are particularly interested in seeing how severely the virus affects infected people in parts of Africa, South America and Australia, since their illnesses could be a good predictor of how aggressive the virus will be when flu season returns to the rest of the world in the fall.

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Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds

The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sebastian Kaulitzki)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 30, 2009) — The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity.

The brain’s tendency to call upon these connections could help explain the curious phenomenon of “referred sensations,” in which a person with an amputated arm “feels” sensations in the missing limb when he or she is touched on the face. Scientists believe this happens because the part of the brain that normally receives input from the arm begins “referring” to signals coming from a nearby brain region that receives information from the face.

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WD-40: Strange Facts and Myths

From Live Science:

John S. Barry, the man "who masterminded the spread of WD-40," as The New York Times puts it, has died at age 84. The product he promoted is more popular than an iPod.

WD-40 can be found in 4 out of 5 American households, the company claims. Its ingredients are a secret, and it has generated its share of myths and strange applications over the years.

Barry didn't invent the stuff. "Norm Larsen, founder of Rocket Chemical Company, is considered the original founder of WD-40," according to wd40.com.

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Beyond The Solar System

Far out: Pluto’s methane ice boils off into its thin atmosphere in a misty scene no human has observed. In the background are Pluto moons Charon and tiny Nix (upper left). Beyond lies the Kuiper Belt, one of the solar system’s most mysterious regions. (Illustration by Ron Miller

Where the Wild Things Are -- Air & Space

We’re about to get a peek at the solar system’s final frontier.

Twenty years ago, the existence of a distant wilderness beyond Neptune—seeded with tiny planets, dormant comets, and bits of ice and rock —was mere conjecture. There was Pluto, discovered practically by luck in 1930, and that was it. Astronomers photographed squares of the night sky and compared the images to see if anything was moving, but either their technology was not good enough, or they were searching in the wrong place. Or there was nothing more to find.

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Can The Military Find The Answer To Alternative Energy?

From Business Week:

DARPA, the Defense Dept. agency that helped invent the Internet, is setting its sights on cleantech.

Nine years ago, Robert J. Nowak, an electro-chemicals expert for the Defense Dept., learned that senior generals weren't happy with their troops' electronic gear. While the night-vision, laser, and GPS devices worked well, the batteries that powered them weighed some 25 pounds per soldier, heavy enough to hurt some of the troops.

So Nowak, who worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Dept.'s famous research branch, solicited bids for a new device that would power a soldier's gear at a tenth of the weight and a fraction of the $100 cost of the batteries. Today, the original 18 companies that took up Nowak's challenge have been whittled down to two: Livermore (Calif.)-based UltraCell and Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor, Mich. Their solution: small, sturdy fuel cells that can power a soldier's clutch of mobile devices for a week on a gallon or so of methanol or propane. Battle-ready versions of the fuel cells will be available this year.

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My Comment: The military are the biggest consumers of energy. If they can find a way to provide alternative energy, this will go a long way to help the everyday consumer.

Organic 'Has No Health Benefits'

From The BBC:

Organic food is no healthier than ordinary food, a large independent review has concluded.

There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found.

The Food Standards Agency who commissioned the report said the findings would help people make an "informed choice".

But the Soil Association criticised the study and called for better research.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at all the evidence on nutrition and health benefits from the past 50 years.

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Humans Time Blinks So They Don't Miss Information

From The Telegraph:

Humans subconsciously time their blinks so not to miss useful information, scientists have found.

A study of eighteen volunteers found they synchronized their blinks while watching video clips taken from the comedy TV show Mr Bean.

But the same phenomenon did not occur when they viewed a background video or listened to an audio recording of a Harry Potter book.

Dr Tamami Nakano, of Tokyo University, said: "We seem to be unconsciously searching for a good timing for a blink to minimize the chance of losing critical information during the blink."

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Neuroscientist's Research Holds Clues About Short-Term Memory

George Mason graduate student John Fedota, right, takes the kind of memory test that helped identify Subject 7 at Raja Parasuraman's lab. "Ninety percent of neuroscience work has been done on animals. The techniques are all invasive and cannot be used on humans. But in the last 20 years we’ve developed noninvasive techniques to study human brain functions," says Parasuraman.

From Popular Mechanics:

What is a cognitive superstar? One grad student's exceptional brain could help settle the debate of nature versus nurture. For a full interview with neuroscientist Raja Parasuraman.

Last year, Raja Parasuraman was conducting a study of brain function among 650 participants at George Mason University in Virginia, when he stumbled across what he calls a “cognitive superstar.” The university professor studies neuroergonomics—a merger of neuroscience, the study of the brain, with ergonomics, the study of how to design systems and tech-nologies to be more compatible with users. Parasuraman hooks subjects to MRI, EEG and other brain scanners while conducting memory and attention tests to see what parts of the brain activate.

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Why Those Nigerian Scam Emails Have Decreased In Frequency

Damaged Cable Causes Internet Blackout In Four West African Countries -- Open Net Initiative

Five days ago, the Appfrica tech blog reported an Internet blackout in Benin, a West African country roughly the size of Ohio. The outage, which also affected neighboring Togo, Niger and Nigeria, was caused by damage to the SAT-3 submarine communications cable, which links Portugal and Spain to South Africa via the West African coastline.

The Internet blackout left Benin, Togo and Niger without an optical fiber link to the outside world, meaning Internet users in these countries have been forced to rely on rare, expensive satellite connections to get online. Appfrica managing editor Theresa Carpenter Sondjo, who is based in Benin, writes:

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The Long And Short Of How Men And Women See

Eye for the ladies: Women are better at short-range focusing, says a study

From The Daily Mail:

If your husband accuses you of missing the bigger picture or your wife says you have no eye for detail, there may be more than an element of truth to it.

Scientists have shown that men are better at processing distant targets, while women
are good at short-range focusing.

The finding reflects the way men and women’s brains evolved thousands of years
ago. Hunters, traditionally the men, needed an ability to spot targets from afar.

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World's First Computer May Be Even Older Than Thought

From New Scientist:

From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, the desire to impress with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000 years.

This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer, dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track the timing of the Olympic games.

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First Photos Inside Virgin Galactic's Mothership Cockpit

WhiteKnight Two Left Seat copyright Flightglobal/Reed Business Information

From Popsci.com:

We previously showed you construction of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnight Two, the mothership that will help launch SpaceShipTwo into sub-orbit. However, Flight Global was able to sneak in some exclusive photos and video from inside the cockpit.

WhiteKnightTwo flew for the public on Tuesday at Wisconsin's massive Oshkosh AirVenture show, complete with head honcho Sir Richard Branson strapped into the jump seat. Without knowing it's a custom-fabbed Rutan space tourism mothership, it may look like any other new airliner's all-glass cockpit. But if you're thinking of dropping millions on one of Virgin Galactic's first seats, it's good to know everything about what will carry you into the heavens.

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World Temperatures Set For Record Highs

From The Telegraph:

World temperatures are set to rise much faster than expected as a result of climate change over the next ten years, according to meteorologists.

In the last few years the world has experienced a "cooler period" since record high temperatures in summer 1998.

This has been used by global warming sceptics as proof that greenhouse gases are not causing a rise in temperatures.

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My Comment: Temperatures go up .... temperatures go down .... golly gee, this has been going on for billions of years. But the idea that "experts" can figure out the weather a few years from now when they have trouble predicting the weather for next week .... sighhhh .... you get the picture.

'Brain-Reading' Methods Developed

Scientists have developed a highly accurate way to peer into the brain to uncover a person's mental state and what sort of information is being processed before it reaches awareness. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — It is widely known that the brain perceives information before it reaches a person’s awareness. But until now, there was little way to determine what specific mental tasks were taking place prior to the point of conscious awareness.

That has changed with the findings of scientists at Rutgers University in Newark and the University of California, Los Angeles who have developed a highly accurate way to peer into the brain to uncover a person’s mental state and what sort of information is being processed before it reaches awareness. With this new window into the brain, scientists now also are provided with the means of developing a more accurate model of the inner functions of the brain.

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Why We Get Lost in Books

From Live Science:

Any avid reader knows the power of a book to transport you into another world, be it the wizard realm of "Harry Potter" or the legal intrigue of the latest John Grisham.

Part of the reason we get lost in these imaginary worlds might be because our brains effectively simulate the events of the book in the same way they process events in the real world, a new study suggests.

The new study, detailed in the July 21 issue of the journal Psychological Science, builds on previous work that links the way our brains process images and written words to the way they process actions we perform ourselves.

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