Spying For Science: Military Satellites Aid Civilian Research

From Popular Mechanics:

American spy satellites have captured an exhaustive array of images of the Earth. After all, they have been taking photographs since the early days of the space race. In the 1990s, when climate change and other earth science issues came to the forefront, researchers began to realize that the government's unparalleled data could be a huge boon—if scientists were allowed access to classified images. Jeff Dozier was one of the first permitted behind the veil of secrecy. In the early 1990s Dozier, then a prof at the University of California, Santa Barbara, briefed Al Gore, then a Senator from Tennessee, about the opportunities that intelligence satellite photos could present to science. Gore wrote a letter to then-CIA director Robert Gates (now the Secretary of Defense), and this effort gave birth to the Medea program. A few dozen scientists, Dozier included, gained clearance to view spy satellite photos for their research, and shortly thereafter Pres. Bill Clinton declassified all spy satellite photos taken before 1972. Here are five times spy photos contributed to science, even when the photos themselves remained classified.

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Radio Telescopes Turn The Moon Into World's Largest Neutrino Detector

Neutrino Detector? courtesy of NASA

From Popular Science:

Neutrinos, the infinitesimally small particles so faint physicists used to call them "the ghost particle," have driven scientists to construct immense underground facilities simply to catch a glimpse of a single one. Now, with even the most massive detectors failing to trap certain high-energy neutrinos, astronomers have turned to a larger filter: the Moon.

Teams of scientists on the supercomputer-linked LOFAR radio telescope in Holland, and on the Very Large Array (VLA) telescope in the U.S. have both turned their attention to the Moon in hopes of recording rare neutrino interactions.

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5 Tips For Raising Your Girl Geek

From Geekdad/Wired:

As geek parents, we often have rosy colored notions about our children growing up. We actually want them to be geeks. From the earliest of ages we dress them in WoW gear, teach them to quote Star Wars and wonder when is too early to start reading The Hobbit. We nurture them in the way of the Geek, hoping that, when the time comes for them to choose their path, they won’t stray far.

But being a geek kid isn’t easy; and being a geek girl might even be harder. Here are some things to keep in mind if you are raising a geek girl that might help her–and you–get through the school years.

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Oldest Map In Western Europe Found Engraved On 14,000-Year-Old Chunk Of Rock

The Journal of Human Evolution has released pictures of what Spanish scientists say is a map etched in stone dating back some 13,660 years

From The Daily Mail:

We all rely on maps, be they the sat nav in your car or a traditional A-Z, and archaeologists have found our ancient ancestors were no different.
They have unearthed what they believe to be the oldest map in Western Europe, in a Spanish cave steeped in legend.

The complex etchings were engraved on a hand-sized rock 13,660 years ago, probably by Magdalenian hunter-gatherers.

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Bird Experiment Shows Aesop's Fable May Be True

An undated photo released by The University of Cambridge shows a rook, a member of the crow family, as it drops stones into a tube to raise the water level and bring a worm into reach, at the Sub-department of Animal Behaviour at University of Cambridge. In Aesop's fable 'The crow and the pitcher' a thirsty crow uses stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher to quench its thirst. A new study published online Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009 in the journal Current Biology demonstrates that rooks, birds belonging to the corvid, or crow family, are able to solve complex problems using tools and can easily master the same technique demonstrated in Aesop's fable. (AP Photo/The University of Cambridge)

From Yahoo News/AP:

NEW YORK – From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop's fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened.

It's the fable about a thirsty crow. The bird comes across a pitcher with the water level too low for him to reach. The crow raises the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher. (Moral: Little by little does the trick, or in other retellings, necessity is the mother of invention.)

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Kepler Spacecraft Sees Its First Exoplanets

Kepler's computer has mysteriously entered a standby, or "safe", mode twice since launch - possibly because it was hit by charged particles from space called cosmic rays (Illustration: NASA)

From New Scientist:

The planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has found its first extrasolar planets: three alien worlds that had been previously discovered with ground-based telescopes. The finds confirm that Kepler's instruments are sensitive enough to detect Earth-like planets around sun-like stars – but they might also be unexpectedly sensitive to charged particles in space that can zap circuitry.

Kepler launched on 6 March with a simple charge: Stare at a swatch of sky for three and a half years, and look for Earths. The telescope will hunt transiting exoplanets, planets that pass in front of their stars and dim their brightness at regular intervals.

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Growing Evidence Of Marijuana Smoke's Potential Dangers

Smoking marijuana causes more damage to cells and DNA than smoking tobacco, scientists say. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2009) — In a finding that challenges the increasingly popular belief that smoking marijuana is less harmful to health than smoking tobacco, researchers in Canada are reporting that smoking marijuana, like smoking tobacco, has toxic effects on cells.

Rebecca Maertens and colleagues note that people often view marijuana as a "natural" product and less harmful than tobacco. As public attitudes toward marijuana change and legal restrictions ease in some countries, use of marijuana is increasing.

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10 Profound Innovations Ahead

From Live Science:

Today's world looks increasingly like the future. Robots work factory assembly lines and fight alongside human warriors on the battlefield, while tiny computers assist in everything from driving cars to flying airplanes. Surgeons use the latest technological tools to accomplish incredible feats, and researchers push the frontiers of medicine with bioengineering. Science fiction stories about cloning and resurrecting extinct animals look increasingly like relevant cautionary tales.

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Twitter Hit By 'Denial-Of-Service' Attack

From Wall Street Journal:

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Twitter Inc., the fast-growing microblogging service, was inaccessible Thursday morning, struck by a "denial-of-service" attack, the company said on its status blog.

"We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly," the company said in a post shortly before 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) Thursday.

In an update to the blog post, Twitter said the site is back online, but that the company is "continuing to defend against and recover from this attack." The site will remain slow for users attempting to access it while Twitter attempts to recover.

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Update: Facebook Confirms Problems, But Is It an Attack? -- PC Magazine

Less May Be More for Wind Turbines

Photo: Less to lift: Nordic Windpower’s N1000 wind turbines use two blades to generate up to 1,000 megawatts of power, making them cheaper to build than a conventional three-bladed machine. Credit: Nordic Windpower

From Technology Review:

Nordic Windpower's two-bladed rotors depart from conventional wind-power design.

One of the first R&D grants to a renewable-energy developer from the economic-stimulus funds approved by Congress this spring could have a dramatic impact on the design of wind turbines. The $16 million loan guarantee offered by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to Berkeley, CA-based Nordic Windpower will accelerate commercialization of the company's Swedish-designed, two-bladed wind turbines, marking the first utility-scale alternative to the industry's dominant three-bladed design in over a decade.

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Rural Well Water Linked to Parkinson's Disease

HEALTHY FIELDS, SICK WATER: Pesticides implicated in Parkinson's Disease are believed to travel from farms to humans via private wells. FLICKR/RWKVISUAL

From Scientific American:

California finding bolsters theory linking neurological ailment to insecticides.

Rural residents who drink water from private wells are much more likely to have Parkinson’s disease, a finding that bolsters theories that farm pesticides may be partially to blame, according to a new California study.

Nearly one million people in the United States--one of every 300--have the incurable neurological disease. Beginning with a slight tremor, Parkinson’s often progresses to severe muscle control problems that leave patients struggling to walk and talk.

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The 10 Mysteries Of Human Behaviour That Science Can't Explain

Mood-improving endorphins are released when we laugh. Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Scientists have split the atom, put men on the moon and discovered the DNA of which we are made, but there are 10 key mysteries of human behaviour which they have failed to fully explain.

The New Scientist magazine compiled a list of the everyday aspects of life which continue to confound the world's greatest brains, including the reasons behind kissing, blushing and even picking your nose.

An editorial in the publication said: "There is nothing more fascinating to most of us than ourselves.

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Wealthy Nations See Unexpected Baby Boom

From Cosmos:

PARIS: The ironclad axiom that the wealthier a nation the lower its birthrate may reverse when countries pass a certain threshold of development, reports a new study.

Most of the two dozen nations that have passed this tipping point – including Australia, Sweden, France, the United States and Britain – are enjoying modest baby booms, breaking a pattern of declining fertility that has held for decades if not longer.

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Opinion: Do You Believe In Miracles?

Photo: Do miracles depend on definitions of the laws of nature? (Image: Carsten Koall / Getty)

From New Scientist:

THESE days most people think it unscientific to believe in "miracles", and irreligious not to believe in them. But would the occurrence of miracles really violate the principles of science? And would their non-occurrence really undermine religion? David Hume and Richard Dawkins have attempted to answer these questions in their different ways, but I am not convinced by their arguments, and for me they remain open questions.

In 1748, in one of his key essays, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, the Scottish philosopher David Hume gave an account of the philosophy of miracles that impressed and influenced many thinkers. Hume defines a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature...a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent".

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How To Delay Doomsday In A Dying Solar System

From Space Daily:

With this essay by Ray Villard, news director for the Hubble Space Telescope, Astrobiology Magazine presents another in our series of 'Gedanken', or thought, experiments - musings by noted scientists on scientific mysteries in a series of "what if" scenarios. Gedanken experiments, which have been used for hundreds of years by scientists and philosophers to ponder thorny problems, rely on the power of one's imagination to project these scenarios to logical conclusions.

They do not involve lab equipment or, often, even experimental data. They can be thought of as focused daydreams. Yet, as in the famous case of Einstein's Gedanken experiments about what it would be like to hitch a ride on a light wave, they have often led to important scientific breakthroughs.

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Another League Under the Sea: Tomorrow's Research Subs Open Earth's Final Frontier

Flying Low: The Deep Flight II sub uses stubby wings that propel it down like an airplane goes up. Nick Kaloterakis

From Popular Science:

Armed with better batteries and stronger materials, new submersibles aim to go deeper than ever before and open up the whole of the unexplored ocean to human eyes.

By liberal estimates, we’ve explored about 5 percent of the seas, and nearly all of that in the first 1,000 feet. That’s the familiar blue part, penetrated by sunlight, home to the colorful reefs and just about every fish you’ve ever seen. Beyond that is the deep—a pitch-black region that stretches down to roughly 35,800 feet, the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Nearly all the major oceanographic finds made in that region—hydrothermal vents and the rare life-forms that thrive in the extreme temperatures there, sponges that can treat tumors, thousands of new species, the Titanic—have occurred above 15,000 feet, the lower limit of the world’s handful of manned submersibles for most of the past 50 years.

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Solar Industry: No Breakthroughs Needed

Photo: Cheaper solar: First Solar’s improvements in manufacturing photovoltaics have helped lead to big drops in cost. A worker at a First Solar factory in Frankfurt, Germany, moves one of the company's solar panels. Credit: First Solar

From Technology Review:

The solar industry says incremental advances have made transformational technologies unnecessary.

The federal government is behind the times when it comes to making decisions about advancing the solar industry, according to several solar-industry experts. This has led, they argue, to a misplaced emphasis on research into futuristic new technologies, rather than support for scaling up existing ones. That was the prevailing opinion at a symposium last week put together by the National Academies in Washington, DC, on the topic of scaling up the solar industry.

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Computer Technology Brings 300million-Year-Old Spider Fossils Back To Life

A CT scan of Eophrynus, an ancient spider that lived 300 million years ago. Scientists used a computer technology to generate 3D images

From The Daily Mail:

Fossils of 300million-year-old spiders have been brought to life with computer technology.

Scientists used a CT scan to generate three dimensional images of two of the creatures, Cryptomartus hindi and Eophrynus prestivicii.

Both were around the size of a 50p piece and they lived during the Carboniferous period, before the age of the dinosaurs.

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Brain Difference In Psychopaths Identified

Scientists have found differences in the brain which may provide a biological explanation for psychopathy. (Credit: iStockphoto/Hayden Bird)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 5, 2009) — Professor Declan Murphy and colleagues Dr Michael Craig and Dr Marco Catani from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London have found differences in the brain which may provide a biological explanation for psychopathy.

The research investigated the brain biology of psychopaths with convictions that included attempted murder, manslaughter, multiple rape with strangulation and false imprisonment. Using a powerful imaging technique (DT-MRI) the researchers have highlighted biological differences in the brain which may underpin these types of behaviour and provide a more comprehensive understanding of criminal psychopathy.

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Experts Predict Quieter Atlantic Hurricane Season

This NOAA satellite image shows Hurricane Ike in 2008. Weather experts on Wednesday reduced the number of projected hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season to four, two of them major hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour.(AFP/NOAA/File)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

MIAMI (AFP) – Weather experts on Wednesday reduced the number of projected hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season to four, two of them major hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometers (111 miles) per hour.

After one of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade, the experts from Colorado State University said the development of an El Nino effect in the Pacific had caused them to scale back their projections for the Atlantic.

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