Space Shuttle Discovery Cleared For Lift-Off

Space Shuttle Discovery

From AFP:

WASHINGTON — The space shuttle Discovery will blast off next Tuesday on a mission to the International Space Station, NASA said, clearing the launch after days of debate over safety issues.

Lift-off was set for 0536 GMT from the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral in Florida, NASA said, after two days of meetings between mission officials.

"It was a very effective review. I think we're ready to go fly," Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for space operations, told a briefing.

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Full Steam Ahead As British Supercar Prepares To Smash Land-Speed Record

The 25ft-long car will race across the desert in California to try and break a land speed record.

From The Daily Mail:

Enthusiasts behind a British-built steam supercar will attempt to break a century-old world land speed record for steam-powered vehicles tomorrow afternoon.

The 25ft-long car - dubbed the 'fastest kettle in the world' - aims to go faster than 127mph - the speed reached by American Fred Marriott in a Stanley steam car in 1906 at the Daytona Beach Road Course.
The team will begin their attempt at 6am tomorrow morning in California, or 2pm UK time.

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Wi-Fi via White Spaces

Photo: White spaces: Accessing the Internet over unused portions of TV spectrum could provide good long-range connectivity in rural areas, and help fill in gaps in city networks. Microsoft researchers tested a new protocol, called White Fi, using the device shown here. Credit: Microsoft Research

From Technology Review:

A network design that uses old TV spectrum could produce better long-range wireless connectivity.

Long-range, low-cost wireless Internet could soon be delivered using radio spectrum once reserved for use by TV stations. The blueprints for a computer network that uses "white spaces," which are empty fragments of the spectrum scattered between used frequencies, will be presented today at ACM SIGCOMM 2009, a communications conference held in Barcelona, Spain.

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NASA Successfully Tests Nuclear Reactor to Power Future Moon Bases

Gone Fission : See it bigger. John MacNeil

From Popular Science:

For a while now, NASA has been planning to use a nuclear fission reactor to power future bases on the Moon and Mars. They have now finally begun testing a Stirling engine-based system, subjecting it to simulated extraterrestrial conditions to examine how it would fare as a lunar power generator.

The fission reactor uses a sodium-potassium liquid metal mixture to transfer heat to a Stirling engine, which then uses gas pressure for electricity conversion. Testing has been successful so far, as researchers have been able to generate a constant 2.3 kilowatts of power from the engine, using a non-nuclear heat source. With the full nuclear reactor running, their goal is to produce 40 kilowatts of power.

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Tight Budget Quashes US Space Ambitions: Panel

Orion Exploration Vehicle

From Breitbart/AFP:

US ambitions for manned space exploration have hit a major hurdle in the wake of severe budget constraints, according to preliminary findings of a panel appointed by President Barack Obama.

Reaching Mars was deemed too risky while returning to the Moon by 2020 was ruled out barring an additional three billion dollars per year to replace the retiring space shuttle fleet and build bigger rockets, according to the group led by Norm Augustine, a former CEO of US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

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New DNA Test Uses Nanotechnology To Find Early Signs Of Cancer

In this illustration by Yi Zhang, quantum dots are depicted as gold spheres that attract DNA strands linked to cancer risks. When the quantum dots are exposed to certain types of light, they transfer the energy to fluorescent molecules, shown as pink globes, that emit a glow. This enables researchers to detect and count the DNA strands linked to cancer. (Credit: Image courtesy of Johns Hopkins University)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2009) — Using tiny crystals called quantum dots, Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a highly sensitive test to look for DNA attachments that often are early warning signs of cancer. This test, which detects both the presence and the quantity of certain DNA changes, could alert people who are at risk of developing the disease and could tell doctors how well a particular cancer treatment is working.

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Hunting: So Easy A Cave Man Could Do It

Anthropologists work to excavate Qesem Cave, where early human hunters carved up their prey. The cave was discovered in Israel about nine years ago. Credit: Qesem Cave Project

From Live Science:

Early humans who lived in caves more than 250,000 years ago were just as good at bringing home the bacon as their later human descendents of the Paleolithic era, though their dining habits were a little less refined, a new study suggests.

The remains of early human dinners were found in Qesem Cave in Israel, which was discovered during road construction in hilly limestone terrain, 7 miles (11 km) east of Tel Aviv about nine years ago. ("Qesem" means "surprise.")

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How To Turn Seawater Into Jet Fuel

Turning water into jet fuel (Image: Stocktrek Images/Getty)

From New Scientist:

Faced with global warming and potential oil shortages, the US navy is experimenting with making jet fuel from seawater.

Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into kerosene-based jet fuel. But they will have to find a clean energy source to power the reactions if the end product is to be carbon neutral.

The process involves extracting carbon dioxide dissolved in the water and combining it with hydrogen – obtained by splitting water molecules using electricity – to make a hydrocarbon fuel.

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My Comment: It seems that they must put a lot of energy into the process to convert the sea water into usable energy. Not useful from a practical point of view .... so far.

Good Vibrations Generate Electricity

PARTS LIST: Relying on the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which certain crystals and other materials generate electricity when twisted or flexed, this new device harvests energy from tiny vibrations. Credit: ISNS

From Live Science:

A new device that can harvest useful energy from extremely tiny vibrations may allow new ways to power remote electronic devices with batteries that need replacing less often, or are actually self-charging. The "vibration-to-electricity" device could capture up to 10 times more energy than is possible with the conventional device.

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Egypt Warns Pharaohs' Tombs Could Disappear

A view of King Tutenkhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, close to Luxor in 2007. The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned. (AFP/File/Cris Bouroncle)

From Yahoo News/AFP:

LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) – The ornate pharaonic tombs in Egypt's Valley of the Kings are doomed to disappear within 150 to 500 years if they remain open to tourists, the head of antiquities has warned.

Zahi Hawass said humidity and fungus are eating into the walls of the royal tombs in the huge necropolis on the west bank of the Nile across from Luxor, which is swamped daily by several thousand tourists.

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DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

From The New York Times:

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

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The Most Exciting Cars of 2010

STAN HONDA / AFP / Getty

From Time Magazine:

The popularity of the Jeep Grand Cherokee was instrumental in launching the SUV boom of the 1990s. America's love affair with big, gas-guzzling hulks is pretty much over, but Chrysler believes there's a new chapter for this rugged classic. Jeep's engineers have shortened the vehicle, given it a more aerodynamic shape and equipped it with a more luxurious interior, featuring more expensive materials and higher-grade controls. It also comes with a more efficient V-6 engine while trying to remain faithful to Jeep's can-do heritage. The introduction of the Jeep Grand Cherokee is now scheduled for the second quarter of 2010.

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Strep Throat May Have Killed Mozart

FILE - This is an undated portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What killed Mozart so suddenly in 1791? A report in Tuesday's Annals of Internal Medicine, a medical journal published in Philadelphia, suggests it might have been something far more common: a strep infection. (AP Photo)

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The death of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 35 may have been caused by complications stemming from strep throat, according to a Dutch study published on Monday. Since the composer's death in 1791, there have been various theories about the cause of his untimely end, from intentional poisoning, to rheumatic fever, to trichinosis, a parasitic disease caused by eating raw or undercooked pork.

On his death certificate it was officially recorded that the cause of death was hitziges Frieselfieber, or "heated miliary fever," referring to a rash that looks like millet seeds.

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In The Pursuit Of Easy Money

Legal pounds Photo: CORBIS

From The Telegraph:

One in every fifty £1 coins is a fake, but the dark art of counterfeiting has been fascinating forgers for centuries.

On the morning of March 22, 1699 a prisoner in Newgate was brought to the hanging tree at Tyburn, now Marble Arch. He played to the crowd, praying loudly and then placing his own hood over his head before the executioner’s men pulled the ladder out from under him. He dangled, twitching and choking for minutes – the trapdoor gallows would not come into routine use in Britain for another 50 years – until at last he drooped.

Thus died William Chaloner, the most notorious counterfeiter of his day, brought to his death by the Warden of the Royal Mint – a former Cambridge don named Isaac Newton.

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Honey-bee Aggression Study Suggests Nurture Alters Nature

The study looked at bee aggression in European (pictured) and Africanized honey bees. (Credit: Photo by Diana Yates)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Aug. 18, 2009) — A new study reveals that changes in gene expression in the brain of the honey bee in response to an immediate threat have much in common with more long-term and even evolutionary differences in honey-bee aggression. The findings lend support to the idea that nurture (an organism's environment) may ultimately influence nature (its genetic inheritance).

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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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