Biggest Meteor Shower of the Year Peaks Tonight

From Wired News:

Stay up past midnight, grab a blanket and go stargazing tonight: The year’s most spectacular meteor shower is expected to peak Wednesday morning around 1 a.m., and then again just before dawn.

The Perseid meteor shower happens every year in August, when the Earth travels through a cloud of debris left by the periodic comet Swift-Tuttle, which last approached the Earth in 1992. Under optimal conditions, up to 80 shooting stars can be seen every hour, although how many you’ll see tonight depends on cloud cover, the brightness of the moon and the proximity of city lights.

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Isotope Shortage Means A Healthcare Crisis

Click on Image to Expand

From The L.A. Times:

The radioisotope is needed to scan for heart disease and cancer. Two nuclear reactors that produce it have been shut down, severely limiting the supply, and alternatives are scant.

The abrupt shutdown of two aging nuclear reactors that produce a radioisotope widely used in medical imaging has forced physicians in the U.S. and abroad into a crisis, requiring them to postpone or cancel necessary scans for heart disease and cancer, or turn to alternative tests that are not as accurate, take longer and expose patients to higher doses of radiation.

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The Flu Hunters: Racing To Outsmart A Pandemic

Research student Nick Cattle, working in the flu lab at the World Influenza Centre
Philip Hollis for TIME

From Time Magazine:

On April 25, Rod Daniels, the deputy director of the World Influenza Centre in London, was at a meeting in Germany when he received a call from a co-worker: an influenza outbreak had been reported in Mexico and the first samples of the virus were on their way to London for examination. A virologist who has studied flu for more than 30 years, Daniels knew exactly what he was looking for. Influenza A viruses — the type that can cause pandemics — use a protein called hemagglutinin to bind to the cells of their animal hosts. When a virus jumps from animals to humans, its contagiousness is largely determined by what is called the "binding specificity" of this protein. An alpha-2,3 binding specificity means the virus is well suited to the cells in an animal respiratory tract but probably not human cells. An alpha-2,6 binding specificity, on the other hand, means the virus can easily bind to human cells.

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Traffic Jam In Brain Causes Schizophrenia Symptoms; First Mouse To Develop Disease As Teenager, Just Like Humans

There are fewer pathways (green strands) for information to flow between neurons in the brain of a mouse bred to exhibit symptoms of schizophrenia compared to a normal mouse. Fewer pathways make it hard for information to flow between neurons and results in the symptoms of schizophrenia. (Credit: Peter Penzes, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 11, 2009) — Schizophrenia waits silently until a seemingly normal child becomes a teenager or young adult. Then it swoops down and derails a young life.

Scientists have not understood what causes the severe mental disorder, which affects up to 1 percent of the population and results in hallucinations, memory loss and social withdrawal.

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Hole In The Earth

The Aorounga crater is spproximately 345–370 million years old based on the age of the sedimentary rocks deformed by the impact.

From Live Science:

A meteorite that rocked the Sahara desert over 300 million years ago left behind quite a scar that's been photographed before.

New satellite images released by NASA this week provide a closer view of the Aorounga Impact Crater in north-central Chad, one of the best preserved impact structures in the world.

The crater measures 10 miles (17 kilometers) across with a peak that is surrounded by a small sand-filled trough. This feature is surrounded by an even larger circular trough. Winds at the site blow from the northeast and sand dunes formed between the ridges are actively migrating to the southwest. Measuring 10 miles (17 kilometers) across,

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Saturn's Rings to Disappear Tuesday

Magnificent blue and gold Saturn is seen in 2007, as one of its moons, Dione, hangs in the distance. A day on Saturn is pretty short, and it just got shorter. The time it takes the beringed behemoth to complete a spin on its axis has just been calculated by astrophysicists at 10 hours, 34 minutes and 13 seconds, more than five minutes shorter than previous estimates. (AFP/NASA-HO/File)

From Yahoo News/Space:

In a celestial feat any magician would appreciate, Saturn will make its wide but thin ring system disappear from our view Aug. 11.

Saturn's rings, loaded with ice and mud, boulders and tiny moons, is 170,000 miles wide. But the shimmering setup is only about 30 feet thick. The rings harbor 35 trillion-trillion tons of ice, dust and rock, scientists estimate.

The rings shine because they reflect sunlight. But every 15 years, the rings turn edge-on to the sun and reflect almost no sunlight.

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Perseid Meteors To Shower Down Late Tuesday, Early Wednesday

From Salt Lake Tribune:

The most-watched meteor shower of the year is coming back late Tuesday and into Wednesday morning, and this year, stargazers may be treated to even more fiery streaks of light zooming across the night sky.

Under the right conditions, observers away from city light pollution are sometimes able to see an average of one and sometimes two Perseid meteors per minute, said Patrick Wiggins, NASA solar system ambassador to Utah.

"But this year," he said, "NASA is predicting the possibility of an enhanced shower Wednesday morning between 2 and 3 a.m."

The more frequent meteor sightings could happen if the Earth passes through what astronomers suspect to be a particularly rich pocket of meteor-producing particles cast off by the shower's parent comet nearly 400 years ago in 1610.

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Oldest Known Paralyzed Human Discovered

The remains of the world's oldest known paralyzed human are excavated in Vietnam. Researchers have found that the man suffered from a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, a condition involving congenital fusion of the spine.

From Discovery:

The remains of a man who could be the world's oldest known paralysis victim have been unearthed by Australian bio-archaeologists in northern Vietnam.

Found at the Neolithic cemetery site of Man Bac, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Hanoi, the remains are between 3,500 and 4,000 years old and belong to an adult male who died around age 25.

Called Man Bac Burial 9, or simply M9, the young man suffered from paraplegia or possibly quadriplegia due to a rare disorder called Klippel-Feil Syndrome, a condition involving congenital fusion of the spine.

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Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

Whether because exercise makes us hungry or because we want to reward ourselves, many people eat more — and eat more junk food, like doughnuts — after going to the gym. Ben Bloom / Getty

From Time Magazine:

As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I'll spend five minutes warming up on the VersaClimber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I'll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy — an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from which I will push myself up in various hateful ways for an hour. Friday will bring a 5.5-mile run, the extra half-mile my grueling expiation of any gastronomical indulgences during the week.

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Earth Rotational Periods Cause Ice Ages And Warmings

From Future Pundit:

Changes in how large planets such as Jupiter and Saturn pull at the Earth's rotation cause the Earth to go into periodic cooling and warming periods.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years – they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused by predictable changes in Earth's rotation and axis.

In a publication to be released Friday in the journal Science, researchers from Oregon State University and other institutions conclude that the known wobbles in Earth's rotation caused global ice levels to reach their peak about 26,000 years ago, stabilize for 7,000 years and then begin melting 19,000 years ago, eventually bringing to an end the last ice age.

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Social Networking Has Hidden Dangers For Teens

Many teens who post risque material online come to regret it.
Photo: Chris Jackson / Getty Images

From San Francisco Chronicle:

From behind their bedroom doors, more than 1 out of every 10 teenagers has posted a nude or seminude picture of themselves or others online - a "digital tattoo" that could haunt them for the rest of their lives, according to a poll being released today.

Aside from the nudity, the survey also found that at least a quarter of the young people polled had posted something they later regretted, made fun of others or created a false identity online.

While teens are spending more and more time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace - with 22 percent saying they check their sites more than 10 times a day - they don't seem to be aware of the long-term personal havoc they could create with a click of a button.

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Mysterious Object Rips Through One of Saturn's Rings

Saturn Gets Served: A mysterious object passing through Saturn's "Ring F"

NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

From Popular Science:

Saturn's approaching equinox reveals a possible ring collision with a small object.

An unknown object appears to have punched through one of Saturn's rings and left a calling card in the form of trailing debris. NASA's Cassini spacecraft snapped the image on June 11, 2009 during its ongoing tour of Saturn and its moons.

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Why Every Geek Should be Hoping For A Mac Tablet

Image: Memory Alpha

From Geekdad/Wired:

We’ve all heard the rumors: Apple is going to be releasing some kind of touchscreen tablet computer, either in September or 1st quarter 2010 (depending upon the source). It could be a fully functioning computer, like a MacBook with a touchscreen, or an extra-large iPod Touch/iPhone. What I do know is that for a geek like me, another little piece of sci-fi futurism from my youth is about to hit the market, and I couldn’t be more excited.

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The Top Seven Social Networking Sites For Kids

(Peter Dazeley)

From Times Online:

Forget Facebook. Tweet off, Twitter. We find out where today's children are really logging on.

How do you know when a social networking site isn’t cool anymore? The day that your dad joins up. A new study has found that young people are turning their backs on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, the number of 35 to 54-year-olds using such sites has rocketed by 25 per cent in the last year.

So what can you do if you don’t want to be poked by your mum or added by your gran? Here’s a round up of the coolest sites and virtual worlds for children – just make sure you hide this page from your parents.

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Swine Flu: 'Tamiflu Harm Outweighs Benefits For Children'

Their study found that Tamiflu caused vomiting in some children, which can lead to dehydration and complications Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

Children should not be given the anti-viral drug Tamiflu for swine flu because its harms outweigh any benefits, Oxford researchers have said.

They called on the Department of Health to have an urgent rethink of its current policy in the swine flu pandemic.

Their study found that Tamiflu caused vomiting in some children, which can lead to dehydration and complications.

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An Operating System For The Cloud

Credit: Brian Stauffer

From Technology Review:

Google is developing a new computing platform equal to the Internet era. Should Microsoft be worried?

From early in their company's history, Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wanted to develop a computer operating system and browser.

They believed it would help make personal computing less expensive, because Google would give away the software free of charge. They wanted to shrug off 20 years of accumulated software history (what the information technology industry calls the "legacy") by building an OS and browser from scratch. Finally, they hoped the combined technology would be an alternative to Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, providing a new platform for developers to write Web applications and unleashing the creativity of programmers for the benefit of the masses.

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Hole in the Earth

FROM LIVE SCIENCE

A meteorite that rocked the Sahara

A meteorite that rocked the Sahara desert over 300 million years ago left behind quite a scar that's been photographed before.

New satellite images released by NASA this week provide a closer view of the Aorounga Impact Crater in north-central Chad, one of the best preserved impact structures in the world.

The crater measures 10 miles (17 kilometers) across with a peak that is surrounded by a small sand-filled trough. This feature is surrounded by an even larger circular trough. Winds at the site blow from the northeast and sand dunes formed between the ridges are actively migrating to the southwest. Measuring 10 miles (17 kilometers) across,

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Machismo Cuts Men's Lives Short

FROM: LIVE SCIENCE

Why they don't go


Tough guys who buy into ideals of masculinity are much less likely to seek preventive healthcare services, such as a prostate exam, compared with other men.

The new finding, based on survey data, reveals that such manly beliefs could help to explain the lower life expectancy of men compared with women.

In the United States in 2005, life expectancy for women averaged about 80 years, while for men it was about 75 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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NOAA Lowers Hurricane Season Outlook

(Click Above Image to Enlarge)
While NOAA is lowering forecasts, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) from FSU COAPS is also quite low. Ryan Maue’s Tropical web page at Florida State University has this graph that shows accumulated cyclone energy (ACE)

From Watts Up With That?

According to its August Atlantic hurricane season outlook, NOAA now expects a near- to below-normal Atlantic hurricane season, as the calming effects of El Niño continue to develop. But scientists say the season’s quiet start does not guarantee quiet times ahead. The season, which began June 1, is entering its historical peak period of August through October, when most storms form.

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Swimming With Sharks

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