4 Forgotten Facts About Combat UAVs

MQ-9 Reaper

From Popular Mechanics:

CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nev.—The U.S. Air Force squadrons that form the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing here are the first that exist only to fly unmanned aerial vehicles. The base, which currently hosts training and operations for MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers, is trailblazing modern military aviation. It's a perfect place for practitioners who fly UAVs every day to set the record straight on some common misconceptions about UAVs.

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My Comment: No real surprises .... but for those who are still new to what UAVs are capable of, this is a good read.

Ancient Oceans Offer New Insight Into Origins Of Animal Life

In prehistoric times, Earth experienced two periods of large increases and fluctuations in the oxygen level of the atmosphere and oceans. These fluctuations also led to an explosion of multicellular organisms in the oceans, which are the predecessors for life as we know it today. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sebastian Meckelmann)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Sep. 10, 2009) — Analysis of a rock type found only in the world's oldest oceans has shed new light on how large animals first got a foothold on Earth.

A scientific team led by Professor Robert Frei at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and including scientists from Newcastle University, UK, and universities in Uruguay and Southern Denmark, have for the first time managed to plot the rise and fall of oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere over the last 3.8 billion years.

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To Hot Rocks in Earth, Just Add Water

Steam rises from cooling towers as U.S. Geothermal's Raft River geothermal power plant near Malta, Idaho. Researchers from the University of Utah's Energy and Geoscience Institute will inject cool water and pressurized water into a "dry" geothermal well at the site during a $10.2 million study aimed at making existing power plants more productive and making geothermal power feasible nationwide. Credit: U.S. Geothermal, Inc.

From Live Science:

Researchers will inject cool water and pressurized water into a “dry” geothermal well during a five-year, $10.2 million study aimed at boosting the productivity of geothermal power plants and making them feasible nationwide.

“Using these techniques to increase pathways in the rock for hot water and steam would increase availability of geothermal energy across the country,” says geologist Ray Levey, director of the Energy & Geoscience Institute (EGI) at the University of Utah.

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The Red Meat Footprint

Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

Our diets revolve around meat. But rumours abound that being vegetarian is better for the environment. Could there be some truth to it? We investigate the evidence.

Death row inmates put a lot of thought into their final meal choice. After all, it's the last food they will eat on this Earth. And their choice is telling for overwhelmingly, in the United States at least, they want meat.

Pork chops, filet mignon, steak, hamburger, meatloaf, fried chicken, sausages… with not a lentil, slice of haloumi or vegetarian lasagne in sight. Prisoners on death row might not be the most representative of groups, but their choices give an inkling of the central role meat plays in our diet.

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Where Does Sex Live In The Brain? From Top To Bottom.

Image: iStockphoto

From Discover Magazine:

Neuroscientists explore the mind's sexual side and discover that desire is not quite what we thought it was.

On April 11, 1944, a doctor named T. C. Erickson addressed the Chicago Neurological Society about a patient he called Mrs. C. W. At age 43 she had started to wake up many nights feeling as if she were having sex—or as she put it to Erickson, feeling “hot all over.” As the years passed her hot spells struck more often, even in the daytime, and began to be followed by seizures that left her unable to speak. Erickson examined Mrs. C. W. when she was 54 and diagnosed her with nymphomania. He prescribed a treatment that was shockingly common at the time: He blasted her ovaries with X-rays.

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Last Days of Big American Physics: One More Triumph, Or Just Another Heartbreak?

From The Wire Science:

BATAVIA, Illinois — High-energy particle physicists around the world are collectively holding their breath waiting for the Large Hadron Collider to come online and start unlocking the most elusive secrets of the universe. It’s as if time is standing still until their shiny new toy is ready to play with.

But not at Fermilab. Here, physicists are in the scientific equivalent of an all-out sprint, still clinging to the ever-thinning hope that before the LHC ramps up to full power, their own 28-year old particle collider, the Tevatron, will catch the coveted Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that is at the heart of the Standard Model of physics.

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Space Junk Forces Shuttle Discovery To Dodge On Way Home

Earth is seen behind Space Shuttle Discovery in this image photographed by an Expedition 20 crew member on the International Space Station soon after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking relative separation in this NASA handout photo taken September 8, 2009. The STS-128 and Expedition 20 crew concluded nine days of cooperative work onboard the shuttle and station before undocking the two spacecraft. REUTERS/NASA/Handout

From Yahoo News/Space.com:

The space shuttle Discovery will have to dodge a mysterious piece of orbital trash before trying to land in Florida Thursday.

Shuttle commander Rick Sturckow and pilot Kevin Ford will fire Discovery's thrusters at about 12:02 p.m. EDT (1605 GMT) to move their spacecraft clear of the space junk and continue on with their planned landing attempt today.

The "mystery orbital debris," as Mission Control called it, apparently came free from the shuttle or the International Space Station while both vehicles were linked during a spacewalk on Saturday. NASA engineers do not know what the object is or its size, but it has been creeping ever closer to Discovery since the shuttle fired its engines to leave the station's orbital neighborhood Tuesday.

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Japan's Space Truck Ready To Fly

From The BBC:

Japan is ready to launch its new space freighter from the Tanegashima base in the south of the country.

The 16.5-tonne unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) will haul cargo to the International Space station (ISS).

Its success is vitally important to the station project, which is set to lose the servicing capability of the US shuttle fleet next year.

When the orbiters retire, re-supply will be in the hands of a number of robotic vessels - the HTV included.

The logistics demands of a fully crewed, fully functional ISS will require all of the freighters to play their part.

Lift-off for the HTV is timed for 0201 local time on Friday (1701 GMT, Thursday).

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Nasa Scientists Levitate Mice With Magnet

Scientists have previously managed to levitate frogs and grasshoppers

From The Telegraph:

Nasa-backed scientists have successfully levitated mice, as part of research into the conditions endured by astronauts in space.

The mice were made to float using a superconducting magnet that produces a field strong enough to rival the pull of gravity.

After initial tests on baby mice left them frantically spinning in the air, the scientists decided to sedate the rodents to make their weightless ordeals less disturbing.

Describing the first test on a three-week-old baby mouse, researcher Yuanming Liu of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said: "It actually kicked around and started to spin.

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Apple Launches iPod Nano With Video Camera And iTunes9 As Steve Jobs Makes Surprise Appearance

The new iPod nano with video camera comes in
nine different colours and is as slim as the old model

From The Daily Mail:

Steve Jobs made a surprise entrance at Apple's 'It’s only rock and roll' event in San Francisco to launch the company's latest products today.

Looking gaunt, Apple's co-founder unveiled a new version of the iPod Nano now with a video camera, microphone, and speaker built in.

It also comes with an FM radio, which can be paused, and a pedometer which can be synchronised to run at the beat of the music track being played. It also features iTunes Tagging, where users tag a song they like and can purchase it when they sync to iTunes.

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New Malaria 'Poses Human Threat'

From The BBC:

An emerging new form of malaria poses a deadly threat to humans, research has shown.

It had been thought the parasite Plasmodium knowlesi infected only monkeys.

But it has recently been found to be widespread in humans in Malaysia, and the latest study confirms that it can kill if not treated quickly.

The work, by an international team, appears in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

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Bacteria Used To Make Radioactive Metals Inert

Judy Wall, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Missouri, is working with bacteria that convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances.

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 9, 2009) — The Lost Orphan Mine below the Grand Canyon hasn't produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but Judy Wall, a biochemistry professor at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is researching the use of sulfate-reducing bacteria to convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances, a much more economical solution.

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Infection Could Hasten Alzheimer's Memory Loss

From Live Science:

Catching a cold or any other infection could cause more memory loss in people with Alzheimer's disease, a new study suggests.

Alzheimer's is a form of dementia generally diagnosed in some people over 65. While it can result in everything from mood swings to language breakdown and loss of bodily functions, the most familiar hallmark of the disease is memory loss.

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Robot To Be Controlled By Human Brain Cells

Artist's impression of the surge of electrical activity from certain brain cells that causes an epileptic seizure (Image: DAVID MACK / SPL)

From New Scientist:

A robot controlled by human brain cells could soon be trundling around a British lab, New Scientist has learned.

Kevin Warwick and Ben Whalley at the University of Reading, UK, have already used rat brain cells to control a simple wheeled robotMovie Camera.

Some 300,000 rat neurons grown in a nutrient broth and producing spikes of electrical activity were connected to the output of the robot's distance sensors. The neurons proved capable of steering the robot around a small enclosure (see videoMovie Camera).

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Panel Urges NASA to Reset Priorities

Astronaut Nicole Stott works on the International Space Station last week. Reuters

From The Wall Street Journal:

A blue-ribbon panel is recommending that NASA shelve its goal of rapidly returning to the moon and instead focus on nurturing a robust commercial space industry that can handle short-term objectives of the nation's space program, such as ferrying cargo and crew to the international space station.

The panel, called the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee, headed by former Lockheed Martin Corp. Chairman Norman Augustine, was convened by the Obama administration earlier this year to provide an independent assessment of the priorities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. It presented its findings to the White House Tuesday.

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Steve Jobs Is Back On The Job

China Plans World's Largest Solar Power Plant

First Solar: Here the company installs a 2 megawatt solar plant in California. Up next, one that's one thousand times the wattage, in China. First Solar

From Popular Science:

First Solar just signed an agreement with China to build the biggest solar power plant yet, according to a statement released today by the company. The 2-gigawatt plant in the Mongolian desert will generate enough electricity to power three million homes.

That's a heck of a lot of cadmium telluride, the semiconductor they use for their thin film cells.

The largest solar plant currently in operation is a mere 60-megawatt plant in Spain, according to pvresources.com.

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Buzz Aldrin to NASA: U.S. Space Policy Is on the Wrong Track

Platon photographed Buzz Aldrin for PM in Los Angeles, May 2009. “It’s mankind’s destiny to walk on another planet,” Aldrin says. “We can achieve it, but we’ve got to have the right plan.” (Photograph by Platon)

From Popular Mechanics:

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin has a problem with NASA’s current manned space plan: Namely, the five-year gap between the shuttle’s scheduled retirement next year and the debut of the Ares I rocket and the Orion spacecraft, which will take us no further than the moon—a place we’ve already been. Aldrin thinks NASA can do better. His plan is to scrap Ares I, stretch out the remaining six shuttle flights and fast-track the Orion to fly on a Delta IV or Atlas V. Then, set our sites on colonizing Mars. Here, Buzz challenges NASA to take on his bolder mission.

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After Repairs, New Space Images From Hubble

The Hubble's new Wide Field Camera 3 peered into one of the more crowded places in the universe in this view of a small region inside the globular cluster Omega Centauri, which has nearly 10 million stars. NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

From New York Times:

The cosmic postcards are back.

Astronomers on Wednesday unveiled new pictures and observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. With the exception of a picture last month of the bruise on Jupiter caused by a comet, they were the first data obtained with the telescope since a crew spent 13 days in orbit last May replacing, refurbishing and rebuilding its vital components.

“This is truly Hubble’s new beginning,” Edward Weiler, the associate administrator for science at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said at a news conference in Washington.

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How Air Pollution Can Damage The Heart

Brooks Kraft / Corbis for TIME

From Time Magazine:

Sitting in traffic can certainly be infuriating enough to raise your blood pressure. But new research shows that traffic can raise your blood pressure and put your heart at risk in a more direct way — by exposing you to the pollution in exhaust fumes.

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