How It Works: Protecting New Orleans With The World's Largest Water Pump

Foiling the Flood Graham Murdoch

From Popular Science:

New Orleans sits smack dab between the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Pontchartrain, and when a hurricane comes rolling in, those bodies of water tend to spill into the streets. This summer, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started construction on a barrier that can block a 16-foot swell blown in from the Gulf and a massive pumping station that will blast floodwaters back to sea.

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Internet 'Immune System' Could Block Viruses

Getting ISPs to cooperate could help in the fight against worms (Image: Thomas Northcut/Getty)

From New Scientist:

IT IS 0530 UTC, 25 January 2003. A computer worm named Slammer has just unleashed one of the most devastating attacks on the internet ever. Within minutes, it infects nearly 90 per cent of vulnerable computers. Major net links break down, ATM machines fail and airlines have to cancel flights.

What was impressive about Slammer was the overwhelming speed of infection. There was no chance to intervene. Six years on, our defences are little better.

Scott Coull of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Boleslaw Szymanski of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, want to change that. They have devised a system to combat highly virulent, malicious worms by embedding defence mechanisms in key parts of the internet - akin to endowing it with an immune system.

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The Science Behind That Fresh Seaside Smell

The smell of fresh sea air is unmistakable Photo: Getty

From The Telegraph:

A tiny molecule lurks behind the evocative smell of the seaside.

Think of the tangy smell of the sea, so evocative of summer holidays, the scream of seagulls and sand between your toes. Where does it come from? Ozone? Fresh sea air? Actually, the truth is slightly less tantalising: it's a gas released by bacteria.

Two years ago Andy Johnston, a professor of biology at the University of East Anglia, identified that the smell of the sea came from a molecule called dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Now, he has managed to crack the entire biochemical pathway by which the scent is produced. DMS turns out to be an important chemical found in many natural processes, such as cloud formation. Birds love the smell and will flock towards tiny concentrations. It's even added to processed foods to give a savoury note: small amounts can impart the flavour of cabbages, tomatoes, butter and cream – even lemons or roast chicken, according to Prof Johnston.

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Can Geoengineering Help Slow Global Warming?

From Time Magazine:

As we pump billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, we're doing more than warming the planet and scrambling the climate. We're also conducting what climatologist James Hansen has called a "vast uncontrolled experiment." In effect, we're on our way to engineering a world very different from the one we were handed. Belatedly, we're trying to turn off the carbon spigot, hoping that by incrementally reducing the emissions we've spent a couple of centuries pouring into the air we can stop the climate slide before it's too late.

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Popcorn And Cereals – The New Superfoods?

Popcorn contains high levels of antioxidants, according to a study by US chemical experts.

From The Guardian:

Scientists discover surprisingly high levels of health-boosting antioxidants in 'junk' food.

Popcorn and breakfast cereals, frequently derided as junk food, may contain "surprisingly large" servings of healthy antioxidants, according to chemical researchers.

Any nutritional value of snack foods was previously thought to rest on their high fibre content – a virtue regularly trumpeted by manufacturers on food packaging.

But a study presented today to the American Chemical Society (ACS) suggests the benefit of grain-based foods lies in the significant presence of antioxidants known as polyphenols.

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How Fast Can Man Run?

Click Image to Enlarge

From The Daily Mail:

As Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt smashes his own world record, are there ANY limits to what the human body can achieve?.

The question is, just how fast can he go? We asked this back in August last year when he smashed his own 100metres world record at the Beijing Olympics.

Then, he did it in 9.69 seconds, but his insouciant, hands-aloft stroll over the finishing line made many suspect that there was more to go.

And on Sunday, a year to the day after setting that extraordinary record in China, Usain Bolt showed that there was - more than a tenth of a second, in fact. Now, if he could only sort out his dodgy start, he might be able to break the record once more.

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New Nanolaser Key To Future Optical Computers And Technologies

Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago. Because the new device, called a "spaser," is the first of its kind to emit visible light, it represents a critical component for possible future technologies based on "nanophotonic" circuitry. The color diagram (a) shows the nanolaser's design: a gold core surrounded by a glasslike shell filled with green dye. Scanning electron microscope images (b and c) show that the gold core and the thickness of the silica shell were about 14 nanometers and 15 nanometers, respectively. A simulation of the SPASER (d) shows the device emitting visible light with a wavelength of 525 nanometers. (Credit: Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009) — Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago, paving the way for a host of innovations, including superfast computers that use light instead of electrons to process information, advanced sensors and imaging.

Because the new device, called a "spaser," is the first of its kind to emit visible light, it represents a critical component for possible future technologies based on "nanophotonic" circuitry, said Vladimir Shalaev, the Robert and Anne Burnett Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University.

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Cloaking Technology May Protect From Natural Disasters

Like sound or light waves, tsunamis have a wavelength, crests and troughs that could be cancelled out to effectively cloak, say, an oil rig and protect it from the waves, based on new technology. But practically pulling such complex cloaking off will require a lot more research. Credit: Stockxpert

From Live Science:

Cloaking, that perennial technology of comic books and sci-fi series, may be one step closer to reality.

Researchers have developed a new cloaking method that may someday prevent submarines and fighter jets from being detected by sonar and radar. It might also be used to shield buildings and oil rigs from the devastating effects of earthquakes and tsunamis.

As it is often depicted in sci-fi movies and books, cloaking involves making an object partly or completely invisible to incoming radiation such as light or radio waves.

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Cockroaches Future-Proofed Against Climate Change

Climate change? Not bothered (Image: Natalie Schimpf)

From New Scientist:

Hate cockroaches? Best pour yourself a stiff drink. The widely loathed insects can hold their breath to save water, a new study has found – and the trick could help them to thrive in the face of climate change.

When cockroaches are resting, they periodically stop breathing for as long as 40 minutes, though why they do so has been unclear.

To investigate the mystery, Natalie Schimpf and her colleagues at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, examined whether speckled cockroaches (Nauphoeta cinerea) change their breathing pattern in response to changes in carbon dioxide or oxygen concentration, or humidity.

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The Smallest Laser Ever Made

Tiny laser: This simulation shows the intensity of light around a new type of laser, called a spaser, when operating in a plasmon-producing mode. The concentration of plasmons is most intense at the gold sphere that makes up its core. The inner black circle indicates the position of the sphere, which is coated with a dye-embedded silica shell, marked by the outer black line. Credit: Nature

From Technology Review:

Surface-plasmon lasers could enable a new generation of computers based on nanophotonics.

Researchers have demonstrated the smallest laser ever, consisting of a nanoparticle just 44 nanometers across. The device is dubbed a "spaser" because it generates a form of radiation called surface plasmons. The technique allows light to be confined in very small spaces, and some physicists believe that spasers could form the basis of future optical computers just as transistors are the basis of today's electronics.

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IBM Sees Future Of Microchips In DNA

From Breitbart/AFP:

IBM said it was looking to DNA "origami" for a powerful new generation of ultra-tiny microchips.

The US computer giant collaborated with California Institute of Technology researchers to develop a way to design microchips that mimic how chains of DNA molecules fold, allowing for processors far smaller and denser than any seen today.

"This is a way to assemble an electronics device of the future," said Bill Hinsberg, manager of the lithography group at IBM's Almaden Research Center in California, on Monday.

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Sony Plans to Adopt Common Format for E-Books

From The New York Times:

Paper books may be low tech, but no one will tell you how and where you can read them.

For many people, the problem with electronic books is that they come loaded with just those kinds of restrictions. Digital books bought today from Amazon.com, for example, can be read only on Amazon’s Kindle device or its iPhone software.

Some restrictions on the use of e-books are likely to remain a fact of life. But some publishers and consumer electronics makers are aiming to give e-book buyers more flexibility by rallying around a single technology standard for the books. That would also help them counter Amazon, which has taken an early lead in the nascent market.

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Twitter Tweets Are 40% 'Babble'

From The BBC:

A short-term study of Twitter has found that 40% of the messages sent via it are "pointless babble."

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system.

The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest.

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Kenya Losing 100 Lions Every Year: Conservation Group

An African Lion yawns next to a lioness in the Maasai Mara, approximately 400 kilometres southwest of Nairobi, in 2006. Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades. (AFP/File/Tony Karumba)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

NAIROBI (AFP) – Kenya's lion population has been dropping by an average 100 lions each year since 2002, the Kenya Wildlife Service announced Monday, warning that the big cats could be extinct in the next two decades.

Cattle herders who kill the lions in retaliation for attacks on their stock have been blamed for much of the decline, the organisation's spokesman Paul Udoto told AFP.

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Internet Giants Could Slash Energy Costs 40 Percent With Smart Rerouting Algorithm

Xbox Live Lives Here Simon Norfolk via The New York Times

From Popular Science:

A routing algorithm can channel Internet data to locations where electricity prices are cheapest

Moving computing from the desktop to the 24/7 data centers of the "cloud" may be the way forward (just ask Google), but it will come with a hefty energy price. Teams at MIT and Carnegie Mellon University, however, are developing a smart algorithm that could reroute Internet traffic to where energy is cheapest at any given moment, potentially saving millions of dollars in energy usage.

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'Smell Of Death' Research Could Help Recover Bodies In Disasters And Solve Crimes

Researchers say that a chemical profile of decomposition could eventually lead to a portable device for detecting human bodies at crime scenes and disaster areas. (Credit: Adam Dylewski, American Chemical Society)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 2009) — In an advance toward the first portable device for detecting human bodies buried in disasters and at crime scenes, scientists today report early results from a project to establish the chemical fingerprint of death. Speaking at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they said a profile of the chemicals released from decomposing bodies could also lead to a valuable new addition to the forensic toolkit: An electronic device that could determine the time elapsed since death quickly, accurately and onsite.

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Terrifying 'Sleep Paralysis' Needs More Attention

From Live Science:

Sleep paralysis can be a terrifying experience for the near 50 percent of people who have had an episode. It's the middle of the night, your eyes are open, dark shapes are gathering around you, something has grabbed your feet, and you can't move. You can't even scream.

A new article by British researchers calls for more attention to be paid in the medical community to sleep paralysis, also known as "night terrors."

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Black Hole Parasites Explain Cosmic Flashes

From New Scientist:

SOME of the brightest flashes in the universe may be the result of black holes burrowing into stars and devouring them from inside.

The flashes are known as gamma-ray bursts because most of their energy is in the form of high-energy radiation, including gamma rays and X-rays. The longer flashes, lasting at least a few seconds, have long been thought to signal the deaths of massive stars that have run out of fuel, causing them to collapse to form black holes, unleashing powerful jets of radiation in the process.

Now an alternative explanation has been given new lease of life: a black hole may instead be an external attacker that dives into the belly of a massive star and consumes it.

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DNA May Help Build Next Generation of Chips

From Gadget Lab:

In the race to keep Moore’s Law alive, researchers are turning to an unlikely ally: DNA molecules that can be positioned on wafers to create smaller, faster and more energy-efficient chips.

Researchers at IBM have made a significant breakthrough in their quest to combine DNA strands with conventional lithographic techniques to create tiny circuit boards. The breakthrough, which allows for the DNA structures to be positioned precisely on substrates, could help shrink computer chips to about a 6-nanometer scale. Intel’s latest chips, by comparison, are on a 32-nanometer scale.

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Isotope Crisis Threatens Medical Care

Domestic source-to-be?At 10 megawatts, the University of Missouri Research Reactor is the largest university research reactor in the country. Within two months, officials there will submit a proposal to the Energy Department to build a facility that would ultimately allow domestic production of a medical isotope that's currently in critically short supply.University of Missouri Research Reactor

From Science News:

Global production of the feedstock for the leading medical-imaging isotope is low and erratic, putting health care in jeopardy.

Within the next two weeks, the vast majority of radioactive-imaging medical tests could be delayed or replaced by less desirable procedures. The reason: temporary shutdowns of Canadian and Dutch reactors that together normally provide some 70 percent of the world’s supplies of the isotope molybdenum-99 and at least 80 percent of North American supplies.

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