Night-Time Photos Shed Light On Growing Economies

Bright lights, big GDP (Image: NOAA/SPL)

From New Scientist:

NIGHT-TIME images taken from kilometres above the Earth could help us better understand the economies of some of the planet's least developed countries. So say the US economists behind a method for measuring changes GDP using the intensity of street lights and other night-time lighting.

A better way of estimating GDP is badly needed, especially for poorer nations. Data collected by national governments is weak when it comes to informal sectors of the economy, such as street markets. In some countries, such as Liberia, economic information systems are so poor that meaningful data is sometimes non-existent.

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Facebook Cornering Market on E-Friends

From The Washington Post:

Fight to Own Social Media Heats Up.

Facebook just bought the rights to nearly everything you do online. And it cost them only $47.5 million.

Facebook's purchase of FriendFeed, an obscure social-media platform, is potentially momentous. To understand why, we must understand FriendFeed, a start-up that is ubiquitous among techies and unknown to everybody else. It's a sleek application that acts as a clearinghouse for all of your social-media activities. Post something to Flickr? That will show up on your FriendFeed page. Digg something? FriendFeed will know. Post to Twitter from your phone? FriendFeed will syndicate your tweets. Once you initially tell it where to look, it will collect everything and tell it to the world.

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Cave Complex Allegedly Found Under Giza Pyramids

From Discovery News:

An enormous system of caves, chambers and tunnels lies hidden beneath the Pyramids of Giza, according to a British explorer who claims to have found the lost underworld of the pharaohs.

Populated by bats and venomous spiders, the underground complex was found in the limestone bedrock beneath the pyramid field at Giza.

"There is untouched archaeology down there, as well as a delicate ecosystem that includes colonies of bats and a species of spider which we have tentatively identified as the white widow," British explorer Andrew Collins said.

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Why Flamingoes Stand On One Leg

From The BBC:

It is one of the simplest, but most enigmatic mysteries of nature: just why do flamingoes like to stand on one leg?

The question is asked by zoo visitors and biologists alike, but while numerous theories abound, no-one has yet provided a definitive explanation.

Now after conducting an exhaustive study of captive Caribbean flamingoes, two scientists believe they finally have the answer.

Flamingoes stand on one leg to regulate their body temperature, they say.

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New Class Of Astronomical Object: Super Planetary Nebulae

An optical image from the 0.6-m University of Michigan/CTIO Curtis Schmidt telescope of the brightest Radio Planetary Nebula in the Small Magellanic Cloud, JD 04. The inset box shows a portion of this image overlaid with radio contours from the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The planetary nebula is a glowing record of the final death throes of the star. (Optical images are courtesy of the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS) team). (Credit: Image courtesy of Royal Astronomical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 16, 2009) — A team of scientists in Australia and the United States, led by Associate Professor Miroslav Filipović from the University of Western Sydney, has discovered a new class of object which they call “Super Planetary Nebulae.”

They report their work in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Planetary nebulae are shells of gas and dust expelled by stars near the end of their lives and are typically seen around stars comparable or smaller in size than the Sun.

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Pollution Reduces Rain Vital To Crops

From Live Science:

Air pollution in China has cut the amount of light rainfall by 23 percent over the past 50 years, a new study finds.

The cause: Particles in air pollution cause smaller drops of water to form, and smaller drops have a harder time making rain clouds.

The result: Bad air could hamper the country's ability to grow food.

It is the first such study to link pollution to altered climate that can directly affect agriculture.

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New Data: Mega-Quake Could Strike Near Seattle

Seattle Skyline

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Using sophisticated seismometers and GPS devices, scientists have been able to track minute movements along two massive tectonic plates colliding 25 miles or so underneath Washington state's Puget Sound basin. Their early findings suggest that a mega-earthquake could strike closer to the Seattle-Tacoma area, home to some 3.6 million people, than was thought earlier.

The deep tremors, which humans can't feel, occur routinely every 15 months or so and can continue for more than two weeks before they die back to undetectable levels.

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Hubble's Deepest Look Into Space, Now Rendered In 3D

From Popular Science:

Over a period of four months in late 2003, the Hubble telescope assembled an image that represents the deepest look into space every composed. The Ultra Deep Field image captures an estimated 10,000 galaxies, some as old as 13 billion years (just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, going by most estimates), all squeezed into a sliver of sky no bigger than what you'd see behind a 1-millimeter square postage stamp held one meter away.

Here's what it looks like in 3D.

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Longer Eyelashes Without Mascara, Thanks To Scientific Breakthrough

Long and luscious eyelashes have been considered a sign of beauty and glamour Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

Brushes and bottles of mascara could be consigned to the dustbin after scientists discovered a way of making eyelashes grow longer.

Since the time of the pharaohs, mascara has formed an essential part of many women's daily beauty regime.

But now researchers have developed a gel which extends the length of time individual eyelashes grow for before they fall out, leading to longer and bushier eyelashes.

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Defense Last In WH Science Goals

From DoD Buzz:

The Obama administration’s budget guidance for 2011 makes clear that basic research spending will stay flat in most areas or decline, including at the Pentagon.

Money will first go to research that can “drive economic recovery, job creation, and economic growth,” says the guidance issued in an Aug. 4 memo by White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag. The administration also makes clear that since they expect little new money for science and technology funding then government agencies must move dollars to what it calls four “practical challenges.”

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My Comment: Many of our greatest technological and engineering accomplishments have come from the labs of Darpa and other defense related laboratories. So much for the campaign rhetoric that the sciences will benefit from an Obama administration. In fact .... it is the science that conforms to the political agenda of the White House that will now get the funding.

Robotic Systems Help People with Disabilities

With the help of a remote human assistant, a person with disability pilots a robotic mobility and manipulation system and opens a refrigerator door to retrieve a pre-prepared meal from home. Cooperative control leaves the person with disability in command, and the ability to use the capabilities of both the local pilot and remote human assistant enable safe, effective, and efficient operation of the robotic system in natural environments. Credit: Rory Cooper, Department of Veterans Affairs/University of Pittsburgh

From Live Science:

People might be surprised to learn that about 50 million people in the world use, or could benefit from the use of, a wheelchair.

Wheelchairs are one of the most commonly used assistive devices for mobility, and they provide people with mobility within their homes and communities. While wheelchairs were once a symbol of inability and stigmatizing, they have evolved to be highly mobile forms of self-expression that are often fitted to each individual user.

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A New Superbug Found In Britain Is Major Concern: Government Scientists

From The Telegraph:

A new superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics has been brought into Britain by patients having surgery abroad, Government scientists said.

A new superbug that is resistant to all antibiotics has been brought into Britain by patients having surgery abroad, Government scientists said.

Doctors are urged to be vigilent for a new bug that has arriving in Britain with patients who have travelled to India and Pakistan for cosmetic surgery or organ transplants and is now circulating here.

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Physicists Hold Breath As Large Hadron Collider Prepares To Rise From Ashes

A region between two magnets in the LHC that was crushed in the incident on 19 September 2008. Photograph: Public Domain

From The Guardian:

If all goes to plan, the LHC will come back to life in November. Sam Wong explains the measures being taken to prevent another catastrophic failure, and gauges the mood of physicists at Cern. Can they bag the Higgs before the Americans?

It's been nearly a year since the world's biggest science experiment, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), was fired up for the first time in a flurry of excitement at Cern, the European Centre for Nuclear Research in Switzerland. But ever since a catastrophic explosion in the particle accelerator's tunnel just nine days after startup, the gargantuan machine has sat idling, to the acute frustration and no little embarrassment of all involved.

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New Sub "War" Range May Harm Rare Whales, Critics Say

A right whale mother and calf swim off Florida. Approved in August 2009, a planned U.S. submarine war-games zone has conservationists concerned for the survival of the North Atlantic right whale. The species numbers 300 to 350, and its only known calving ground is near the soon-to-be-built testing range. Photograph courtesy National Oceanic Atmospheric Association/AP

From National Geographic:

After considering several candidates, the U.S. Navy announced last week that it will build its latest submarine warfare training facility in the waters off Jacksonville, Florida. (See map.)

But even though the site won't open until 2014, the new tenant is already having trouble with its neighbors.

That's because the chosen site for the Undersea Warfare Training Range is just 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the only known calving grounds of the North Atlantic right whale.

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My Comment: I am sure that every other maritime power in the world .... from China to India, Russia to Venezuela .... are just as (cough cough) equally concerned about the whales.

From my point of view I say forget about these maritime powers, we should focus on the native peoples of America who kill scores of whales each year off the Alaskan and Canadian coasts for "traditional reasons".

But all I hear is silence.

Tech Heroes Of The Past: Where Are They Now?

From Pingdom:

Have you ever wondered what the guy who invented the World Wide Web is up to these days? What about the guys who created Photoshop, or the one who created the PHP scripting language?

You may not recognize all of these people, but you’ll definitely recognize what they’ve accomplished. These are people who have made great contributions to computer and Internet technology in the past… but what are they up to now?

This list is a starting point, so help us add to it in the comments!

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One Nano-Step Closer To Weighing A Single Atom

Composite image showing TEM images and schematic of bipyramid-shaped particles and time response of vibration. (Credit: Dr Matthew Pelton from the Centre for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2009) — By studying gold nanoparticles with highly uniform sizes and shapes, scientists now understand how they lose energy, a key step towards producing nanoscale detectors for weighing any single atom.

Such ultrasensitive measurements could ultimately be used in areas such as medical research and diagnostics, enabling the detection of minuscule disease-causing agents such as viruses and prions at the single molecule level.

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NASA Drops Probes Into Volatile Volcano

Mount St. Helens is one of the most active volcanoes in the United States. Credit: USGS

From Live Science:

High-tech sensor pods were recently air lifted into the mouth of a volcano to monitor hot spots and provide early warning if the peak starts to blow.

The sensors are part of a NASA project to study volcanoes from the inside.

On July 14 scientists lowered the pods into the mouth of Washington's Mount St. Helens, one of the most active volcanoes in the United States.

The project aims to improve our ability to predict impending eruptions, both on Earth and on other planets.

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Legacy B-52 To Launch Futuristic WaveRider

The X-51A WaveRider hypersonic flight test vehicle was uploaded to an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 for fit testing at Edwards Air Force Base. (Credit: USAF)

From CNET:

The X-51A WaveRider is one step closer to its inaugural test flight later this year, now that airmen at Edwards Air Force Base have successfully "mated" the scramjet-propelled vehicle to a B-52 Stratofortress.

In December, an Air Force Flight Test Center B-52 is scheduled to papoose the X-51A to 50,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean before cutting it loose. At that point, a solid rocket booster from an ATACMS missile will fire up, accelerating the X-51 to about Mach 4.5. That's when the supersonic combustion ramjet kicks in, pushing the WaveRider to more than Mach 6 for up to five minutes, longer than all of its predecessors combined. NASA tests have reached Mach 9.6, or nearly 7,000 mph, according to some reports, but not for very long. The previous record was less than 10 seconds. Flight data will be telemetered back to Edwards Force Base before the X-51A test vehicle crashes into the Pacific.

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NASA's Moon Plan Too Ambitious, Obama Panel Says

From The Miami Herald:

A panel reviewing NASA's current plans for human space flight will report that there is no realistic way to return to the moon by 2020 -- or even 2028.

WASHINGTON -- NASA doesn't have nearly enough money to meet its goal of putting astronauts back on the moon by 2020 -- and it might be the wrong place to go, anyway. That's one of the harsh messages emerging from a sweeping review of NASA's human space flight program.

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NASA Completes First Test Rocket to Replace Shuttle

From Yahoo News/Space:

NASA has finished building the first of its new Ares I rockets slated to replace the aging space shuttle fleet and return astronauts to the moon - a gleaming white booster due to blast off this fall.

The Ares I-X rocket is the inaugural booster in NASA's first new rocket line for crew transport in more than 25 years. It is scheduled to launch Oct. 31 on a demonstration flight to prove the viability of the Ares I rocket to haul NASA's new astronaut-carrying Orion spacecraft into orbit.

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