How The Spaceship Got Its Shape

“Little Joe” capsules were the precursors of Alan Shepard’s Mercury spacecraft.
(NASA Langley Research Center)

From Air & Space Smithsonian:

In the 1950s Harvey Allen solved the problem of atmospheric entry. But first he had to convince his colleagues.

The cover of the March 22, 1952 issue of Collier’s magazine made an audacious promise. “Man Will Conquer Space Soon,” blared the headline, above a painting of a multi-stage rocket with engines blazing, bound for orbit. Designed by German rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun, whose name was still unknown to most Americans, the Collier’s spaceship was a sleek, needle-nosed beauty; its winged third stage would be piloted to a runway landing. But it was all wrong.

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Today's Babies Could Live To 22nd Century

Babies born today have a good chance of making to 100 years of age, says a new study. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

PARIS: More than half of the babies born today in rich countries will live to 100 years if current trends of life expectancy continue, says a study in the medical journal The Lancet.

In the 20th century, most developed countries saw an increase of around 30 years in life expectancy, according to the paper led by Kaare Christensen, a professor at the Danish Ageing Research Centre at the University of Southern Denmark.

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Protein That Enhances Long-term Memory By Controlling Rest Intervals Identified

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2009) — As most good students realize, repeated studying produces good memory. Those who study a lot realize, further, that what they learn tends to be preserved longer in memory if they space out learning sessions between rest intervals. Neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have now discovered how this so-called "spacing effect" is controlled in the brain at the level of individual molecules.

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Only 3 Countries In The World Have More People Than Facebook

From Pingdom:

The Facebook phenomenon continues. Yesterday Facebook announced that it has a whopping 300 million active users.

Three. Hundred. Million. Users.

For some perspective on how huge that is:

* There are only THREE countries in the entire world that have a population of more than 300 million. Those are China (1.33 billion), India (1.17 billion) and USA (307 million).
* Russia has a population of 142 million. That’s not even half of Facebook’s user base.
* Facebook has almost five times as many users as the entire population of the UK (62 million).

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Scientists Discover What Makes The Same Type Of Cells Different

Cell-to-cell variability in clathrin-mediated endocytosis (green signal) is determined by local cell density. (Credit: Image courtesy of ETH Zurich)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 3, 2009) — A research team led by Lucas Pelkmans at ETH Zürich has managed to decipher a well-known phenomenon that had, until now, remained unexplained: why cells of the same type can react differently, and what the reason for this is.

The properties of a cell population determine the different cell activities observed in cells of the same type. This is the conclusion drawn by a research team lead by Lucas Pelkmans, professor at the Institute for Molecular Systems Biology at ETH Zürich.

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Paleo-Case Solved: Ancient Sharks Fed on Giant Reptile

This artist's rendering reveals what an ancient marine reptile called a plesiosaur discovered in Antarctica may have looked like. The plesiosaur described in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, though not the same species, also sported four fins and a long neck. Analyses of shark teeth embedded in the reptile's bones suggest a feeding frenzy of sorts once the reptile died. Credit: Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation.

From Live Science:

This artist's rendering reveals what an ancient marine reptile called a plesiosaur discovered in Antarctica may have looked like. The plesiosaur described in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, though not the same species, also sported four fins and a long neck. Analyses of shark teeth embedded in the reptile's bones suggest a feeding frenzy of sorts once the reptile died. Credit: Nicolle Rager, National Science Foundation.

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Twitter CEO On The Future Of Twitter

Photo: Twitter co-founder Evan Williams (Twitter)

From CBS:

Co-Founder Evan Williams on New Innovations For Popular Networking Site.

(CBS) The co-founder of Twitter unveiled new innovations on the horizon for the popular social networking site, including user-generated lists to follow tweets from many originators on a particular subject, and geographical location datelines to show where tweets are coming from.

Evan Williams, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who co-founded Twitter, also said Twitter is working on a reputation validating system to address isues of credibility for the site. Twitter became a major newsmaker this year when Iranians sent tweets about the brutal Iranian government crackdown on protesters.

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Amazon Agrees To Kindle Suit Settlement

Photo: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Amazon.com has agreed that it won't remove e-books from U.S. users' Kindle electronic readers without their permission, as part of a proposed settlement of a lawsuit over the online retailer's deletion of a George Orwell novel from a high school student's e-reader.

Justin D. Gawronski, a 17-year-old student in Shelby Township, Michigan, sued Amazon after it erased copies of the Orwell works "1984" and "Animal Farm" from customers' Kindles in July. Gawronski's suit claimed removing "1984" from his Kindle made electronic notes he had taken on the e-reader useless. He was reading the book for an advanced placement course in which he had to turn in "reflections" on each 100 pages of text.

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Pirate Bay Suffers Outage, Site Back Up

The Pirate Bay founders: Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm
(Credit: The Pirate Bay)

From CNET:

The Pirate Bay was down across the U.S. for at least three hours on Friday, an outage that comes as the site's latest bandwidth provider comes under pressure from entertainment companies.

CNET noted that the site was down at 1:22 p.m. PDT but appeared to come back up at 4:50 p.m. PDT. The cause for the blackout was unclear. Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, one of The Pirate Bay's co-founders did not respond to interview requests.

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Update: Google: Pirate Bay booted off search by mistake -- CNET

Why Don’t Pregnant Women Tip Over? Ask An Ig Noble Winner.

Photo: Fumiaki Taguchi, professor emeritus at the graduate school of medical sciences in Kitasato University, makes a speech during the Ig Noble awards ceremony at Harvard University's historic Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Oct. 1. Taguchi is among this year's winners of the Ig Nobel Prize for developing a method to cut kitchen refuse using bacteria derived from giant panda feces.

From The Christian Science Monitor:

At Harvard University, a select group of researchers receive their Ig Noble awards.

It’s October again, which means it’s time for the Ig Nobles – a set of prizes awarded to discoveries “that cannot, or should not, be reproduced.” The Ig Nobels were dished out last night at Sanders Theater, on the campus of Harvard University, and the awards, which cover categories ranging from physics to physiology, appear to have gone to the appropriate “innovators.”

Here’s the full list of winners, courtesy of the Associated Press:

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Herschel Scans Hidden Milky Way

Herschel trains two eyes, Pacs and Spire, on our Galaxy's centre

From The BBC:

A remarkable view of our Galaxy has been obtained by Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Observatory.

The telescope was put in a special scanning mode to map a patch of sky.

The images reveal in exquisite detail the dense, contorted clouds of cold gas that are collapsing in on themselves to form new stars.

Herschel, which has the largest mirror ever put on an orbiting telescope, was launched in May as a flagship mission of the European Space Agency.

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GOCE Harnesses Ion Propulsion To Capture First 'Gravity Map' Of Earth

Ion-Propelled Gradiometer GOCE must remain in stable free fall at low orbit, so an electric ion propulsion engine constantly provides small bursts of thrusts to counteract any air resistance the craft encounters. ESA - AOES Medialab

From Popular Science:

After six months of testing and very careful calibration, the European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite is sending back its first data sets as it now begins precisely mapping tiny variations in Earth’s magnetic field. How does one go about mapping the Earth’s fundamental force? As it turns out, very, very carefully.

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The Shining: What We Still Have To Learn About The Northern Lights.

A typical Alaskan sky, photographed from Eielson Air Force Base, 25 miles southeast of Fairbanks, displays auroral structures and motions that scientists still find mystifying. (USAF/ Senior Airman Joshua Strang)

From Air & Space Smithsonian:

What first appeared almost an hour ago as a strange green cloud in the northeast has now spread across most of the sky near Alaska’s Poker Flat Research Range. Sheets of green light shimmer in front of the stars, waxing and waning, as electrons from the solar wind rain down through Earth’s atmosphere, colliding with atoms and creating the aurora. Here, watching the light show under a zillion stars, I get a strong, almost physical awareness of being on a planet—a planet orbiting a star and connected to it, despite the 93 million miles of space separating them.

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e-Wolf's e2 Next-Gen EV Supercar a Handsome Powerhouse

e-Wolf's e2 Electric Vehicle: With a top speed of 155 mph and 0-60 acceleration in under four seconds, the e2's performance is nothing to scoff at (for an EV especially). e-Wolf

From Popular Science:

No sooner does Tesla announce that it's expanding its vision to include minivans and crossovers, e-Wolf unveils an EV supercar that’s so sporty we’ve forgotten what Tesla’s Roadster even looks like. With a top speed of 155 miles per hour and a 0-60 acceleration that clocks in under four seconds, it has the performance to (somewhat) match its Italian playboy good looks, and its all-wheel drive (each wheel is powered by an independent electric motor) should be able to keep all 2,000 pounds of it on the road.

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Scientists Develop Nasal Spray That Improves Memory

Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night's sleep follows. (Credit: iStockphoto/Ana Blazic)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2009) — Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night's sleep follows. In a research report featured as the cover story of the October 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, these scientists show that a molecule from the body's immune system (interleukin-6) when administered through the nose helps the brain retain emotional and procedural memories during REM sleep.

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Dinosaur-killing Space Rock Barely Rattled Algae

A close-up view of the 40-centimeter-wide Fish Clay boundary layer. Credit: J. Sepúlveda.

From Live Science:

The asteroid impact that many researchers claim was the cause of the dinosaur die-off was bad news for marine life at the time as well. But new research shows that microalgae – one of the primary producers in the ocean – bounced back from the global extinction in about 100 years or less.

Most of the research on the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-P) extinction event, previously called the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) event, has involved charting the loss of organisms that had bones or shells.

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Sedatives May Slow Recovery From Trauma

Benzodiazepines may not be the answer for soldiers suffering stress from the horrors of war (Image: Sipa Press/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

GIVING sleeping pills to soldiers and earthquake victims is common practice, yet it could be doing more harm than good. That's the suggestion from a study of traumatised rats, which seemed to show that the drugs suppressed the rodent's natural mechanisms for coping with trauma.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs says it will consider this and other studies when preparing new guidelines on treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If their results are strong enough, it may recommend withholding sedatives in the aftermath of traumatic events. The findings are also throwing up new possibilities for preventing PTSD (see "Fight stress with stress").

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Nature's Clones: What Twins Have Taught Us

Studies on twins have revealed the genetic nature of many medical conditions, including autism and ADHD. Now they're giving us unnerving insights into many behavioural traits too.Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

Is it our experiences or our genes that make us who we are? Studying twins has revealed unexpected, and often unnerving, insights into the nature versus nurture debate.

Imagine receiving a phone call out of the blue. You find the voice on the other end eerily familiar as it tells you some life-changing news: you are, in fact, a twin. And when it comes time to meet face-to-face, you find it’s like gazing into a mirror. You share a similar dress sense, hairstyle and even idiosyncratic gestures and expressions you thought were uniquely yours.

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Meeting Pretty Women Makes Men Feel Good

Psychologists found that just a five minute talk with an attractive women raised the levels of testosterone by 14 per cent Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Flirting with an attractive woman really does make men feel good, scientists find, as they discover it causes a surge in health-giving hormones.

Researchers found that just being in the presence of a pretty member of the opposite sex causes a temporary boost in levels of testosterone and cortisol – both hormones associated with alertness and wellbeing.

However hanging around with other men has the opposite affect – reducing the levels of both substances in the body.

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The Secrets Of Ancient Rome

Rose Ferraby from the University of Southampton works on a three-seat communal toilet discovered at the site of the ancient port of the Roman Empire Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

From The Guardian:

The discovery of a major new archaeological site in Italy is a reminder that the world is still stuffed with secrets.

Look down from a height at any landscape in this slanting autumn light, and you'll see that the ground is only a thin blanket thrown over the remains of the past. The faint marks of fields and walls, houses and roads, show up even in the heart of cities – in relics as humble as the outline of a lost Edwardian rose bed, marring the bland green perfection of a suburban lawn.

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