High-Speed Video of Locusts Could Help Make Better Flying Robots

From Wired Science:

A new study may inspire aeronautical engineers to be more flexible with their designs. That’s because the bends and twists in locusts’ flexible, flapping wings power the insects’ extraordinary long-distance flights, a Sept. 18 Science paper reveals.

Even though researchers have been studying how insects and other creatures fly for a long time, “we still don’t completely understand the aerodynamics and architectures of wings,” comments Tom Daniel of the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not involved in the new study. The new work, Daniel says, uncovers the flight signatures of flapping, flexible wings.

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Mosquito-borne African Virus A New Threat To West

A man walks behind a model of an Anopheles mosquito in the new Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, in London September 8, 2009. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Europe face a new health threat from a mosquito-borne disease far more unpleasant than the West Nile virus that swept into North America a decade ago, a U.S. expert said on Friday.

Chikungunya virus has spread beyond Africa since 2005, causing outbreaks and scores of fatalities in India and the French island of Reunion. It also has been detected in Italy, where it has begun to spread locally, as well as France.

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'First Clown In Space' Promises To Bring Humour To Astronauts

Canadian billionaire Guy Laliberte, who owns Cirque du Soleil, is set to become the world's seventh and Canada's first space tourist Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

The man who plans to be "the first clown in space" has said he will liven up the atmosphere on the international space station by playing pranks on the astronauts.

Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, told reporters he plans to tickle the professional astronauts while they're sleeping, and he's will also bring a consignment of red clown noses aboard.

"I'm a person with a pretty high spirit, who's there to crack jokes and make jokes to those guys, and while they're sleeping, you know, I'll be tickling them," Mr Laliberte said.

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Smoking, High Blood Pressure And Cholesterol Cut Men's Life Expectancy By 10 Years

From The Guardian:

Major risk factors for heart disease are likely to slash 10-15 years off a man's life, a 40-year study shows.

Men with high blood pressure who smoke and have raised cholesterol levels are likely to die 10 to 15 years early, according to a study of men's lifestyle and health over the last 40 years.

The Whitehall study recruited more than 19,000 men working in the civil service in London between 1967 and 1970, when they were aged between 40 and 69. The latest of a number of influential published papers used the health records of the cohort to establish the life expectancy of middle-aged men who had a number of risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

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Scientists Complete First Geological Global Map Of Jupiter's Satellite Ganymede

Top: A global mosaic of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, constructed from the best images collected during flybys of the Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and Galileo spacecraft. Bottom: A few layers of the geologic map of Ganymede, showing the boundaries between light terrain (white) and dark terrain (brown), and the massive number of tectonic features in the light terrain (black lines). The map is being used to analyze stress fields that could have been responsible for ripping apart the surface of Ganymede in the past (red arrows). (Credit: Image courtesy of Europlanet Media Centre)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 18, 2009) — Scientists have assembled the first global geological map of the Solar System’s largest moon – and in doing so have gathered new evidence into the formation of the large, icy satellite.

Wes Patterson, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, led a seven-year effort to craft a detailed map of geological features on Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter. Patterson and a half-dozen scientists from several institutions compiled the global map – only the third ever completed of a moon, after Earth’s moon and Jupiter’s cratered satellite Callisto – using images from NASA’s historic Voyager and Galileo missions.

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Why Some People Can't Keep Weight Off

From Live Science:

Studies have shown that people who lose weight and keep it off tend to watch what they eat, whereas those who pack the pounds back on are less meticulous. A new study, albeit a small one, suggests brain differences are at work.

When people who had lost weight and kept it off for years were shown photos of food, they were more likely to engage the areas of the brain associated with behavioral control, compared with obese and normal weight participants.

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Sharks Swarmed on Ancient Sea Monster

Voracious Predator. Cretalamna appendiculata, was an early relative of today's great white shark, shown here. Getty Images

From Discovery Channel:

Sept. 17, 2009 -- Remains of a shark-bitten, 85-million-year-old plesiosaur reveal that around seven sharks likely consumed the enormous dinosaur-era marine reptile in a feeding frenzy, leaving some of their shark teeth stuck in the plesiosaur's bones, according to a new study.

The findings, which will be presented at next week's 69th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, are the first direct evidence of the diet and feeding behavior of Cretalamna appendiculata, a now-extinct early relative of today's great white sharks.

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Deadly Second Wave Of Swine Flu 'On Its Way', Scientists Warn

Disruption: A woman walks through London with a surgical mask in an attempt to protect her from swine flu (file picture). Scientists fear the deadly second wave of swine flu is on its way.

From The Daily Mail:

A second wave of swine flu could be on its way, scientists warned last night after the number of new cases rose for the first time since July.

The jump, from an estimated 3,000 to 5,000, comes a fortnight after children - key spreaders of the disease - returned to school.

There have been outbreaks at six schools in England, but health chiefs repeated that there are no plans to close schools as it would do little to contain the disease.

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Wide Angle: Supplying The Space Station

The space station needs supplies, and now Japan is helping NASA, Roscosmos and ESA to feed the crew and ferry equipment to and from Earth orbit. However, concerns about the US space agency's funding issues could spell trouble in the future. Credit: JAXA

From Discovery Space:

Regardless of the trials and tribulations going on down here on Earth, the International Space Station continues to orbit the planet. Forget NASA's problems with funding for the moment and remember there are six permanent astronauts and cosmonauts manning this extreme outpost... and they need to eat and drink. How is the space station resupplied? Which nations are ferrying food and water into low-Earth orbit? What plans are there for the future?

In this Wide Angle, we will investigate these questions while learning about the implications the Augustine Commission and how the committee's findings may affect this expensive piece of real estate...

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Real-Time Hackers Foil Two-Factor Security

Credit: Technology Review

From Technology Review:

One-time passwords are vulnerable to new hacking techniques.

In mid-July, an account manager at Ferma, a construction firm in Mountain View, CA, logged in to the company's bank account to pay bills, using a one-time password to make the transactions more secure.

Yet the manager's computer had a hitchhiker. A forensic analysis performed later would reveal that an earlier visit to another website had allowed a malicious program to invade his computer. While the manager issued legitimate payments, the program initiated 27 transactions to various bank accounts, siphoning off $447,000 in a matter of minutes. "They not only got into my system here, they were able to ascertain how much they could draw, so they drew the limit," says Roy Ferrari, Ferma's president.

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Planck Telescope's First Glimpse

Planck maps tiny temperature variations (the mottled colours in the strip) in nine frequency ranges overlaid here. These fluctuations correspond to the matter distribution in the early cosmos. Planck needs six months to complete a full sky map. Esa released more detailed data on the square regions.

From The BBC:

The European telescope sent far from Earth to study the oldest light in the Universe has returned its first images.

The Planck observatory, launched in May, is surveying radiation that first swept out across space just 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

The light holds details about the age, contents and evolution of the cosmos.

The new images show off Planck's capabilities now that it has been set up, although major science results are not expected for a couple of years.

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The 33 Most Deadly Substances On Earth

From The Toy Zone:

Keep well away from the following 33 substances unless you want to end up 6 feet under.

1. Amanitas – Destroying Angel

Location: Europe and in the United States.

In Europe, the blossoms vary in color from pale-green or yellow-olive and along both the east and west coasts in the United States. However, they range from white to light brown in the rest of the United States.

Amanitin can be detected in the blood almost immediately. The first physical symptoms are usually nausea, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea. After an early feeling of slight discomfort, there is a sudden onset of extreme stomach pain, violent vomiting, intense thirst, and cyanosis of the extremities. Jaundice of the eyes and skin can also occur if the liver is badly affected. The patient remains conscious almost to the end, with only brief intervals of unconsciousness occurring between long lucid periods before lapsing into a coma followed by death.

Antidotes and Treatments: There are no known antidotes for Amanita poisoning; however, victims have survived after receiving liver transplants.

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Brunel, Locke And Stephenson: The Engineering Giants Who Shaped Our World

Paddington station: designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and opened in 1847
Photo: PA

From The Telegraph:

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Joseph Locke and Robert Stephenson are past giants of engineering whose legacy remains one hundred and fifty years on, says Michael Bailey.

One hundred and fifty years ago today, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, one of the greatest engineers in history, died at the age of just 53. His funeral in Kensal Green cemetery was attended by several hundred people, including Joseph Locke who, with Brunel, had opened up Britain to the railway. He was buried a year later, also in Kensal Green.

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Colour Blindness Breakthrough In Gene Therapy Experiment

Squirrel monkey Dalton, who was successfully treated for red-green colour blindness. The image on the left simulates what the scene would have looked like to a monkey or human before the treatment. Photograph: Neitz Laboratory

From The Guardian:

Two squirrel monkeys that were colour-blind from birth have had their vision restored after receiving gene therapy.

The experiment paves the way for the treatment of a range of genetic eye disorders in humans, including some that cause full or partial blindness in millions of people worldwide.

Sam and Dalton, two male squirrel monkeys, were able to see the world in full colour five months after being treated, doctors said. The animals were born without an ability to see the colour red.

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Patterns In Mars Crater Floors Give Picture Of Drying Lakes

Detailed image of large-scale crater floor polygons, caused by desiccation process, with smaller polygons caused by thermal contraction inside. The central polygon is 160 metres in diameter, smaller ones range 10 to 15 metres in width and the cracks are 5-10 metres across. (Credit: NASA/JPL)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2009) — Networks of giant polygonal troughs etched across crater basins on Mars have been identified as desiccation cracks caused by evaporating lakes, providing further evidence of a warmer, wetter martian past.

The findings were presented at the European Planetary Science Congress by PhD student Mr M Ramy El Maarry of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research.

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What Are The Signs of Diabetes?

From Live Science:

This Week's Question: I've been very thirsty lately and someone mentioned to me that this
is a symptom for diabetes. Is that true?

An intense thirst is one diabetes symptom. Here are others: frequent urination, strong hunger, fatigue, unintended weight loss, slow-healing sores, dry and itchy skin, numbness or tingling in your feet, and blurred vision. However, some people with diabetes do not have symptoms.

Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases characterized by high levels of blood sugar. Diabetes can create serious health problems, but diabetics can control the disease.

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China Says Will Push Space Programme To Catch Up West

From Breitbart/AFP:

China said Thursday its rapidly growing space programme was the crowning achievement of the nation's high-tech transformation and pledged to continue to develop it to close the gap with Western countries.

"I believe a space programme represents a country's high technology and I believe China has already become a major country in high technology," Vice Minister of Science and Technology Li Xueyong told reporters.

"Our success shows not only the progress of the space programme but also our overall level of science and technology," he said at a press briefing.

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Fossil Find Challenges Theories on T. Rex

The bones of Raptorex were discovered in northern China. Mike Hettwer

From The New York Times:

Paleontologists said Thursday that they had discovered what amounted to a miniature prototype of Tyrannosaurus rex, complete with the oversize head, powerful jaws, long legs — and, as every schoolchild knows, puny arms — that were hallmarks of the king of the dinosaurs.

But this scaled-down version, which was about nine feet long and weighed only 150 pounds, lived 125 million years ago, about 35 million years before giant Tyrannosaurs roamed the earth. So the discovery calls into question theories about the evolution of T. rex, which was about five times longer and almost 100 times heavier.

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Pictured: Three Bald Eagles Lock Talons As They Plunge To The Ground In Mid-Air Battle

The three hungry bald eagles lock talons in a vicious mid-air battle for a fish supper

From The Daily Mail:

Locked in desperate mid-air battle, the three eagles plunge towards the ground in a contest to see who will let go last.

Between their claws lies a gasping fish freshly plucked from an Alaskan lake, now the target of fearsome talons as each eagle grapples for supper.

This is not so much a desperate bid for food - instead it's a macho show of strength between three birds who want to show who's who in the pecking order.

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Counting Money 'Makes People Feel Better About Themselves'

Research suggests that counting cash makes people feel better about themselves.

From The Telegraph:

Counting money can make you feel good about yourself – even if it isn't your own, according to a new study.

Just handling and thinking about money can actually lessen pain and even ease the social stigma of having no friends, researchers believe.

The psychological benefits increase feelings of internal strength, fearlessness and confidence.

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