Fireball Picture: Meteor Explodes Over The Netherlands

From National Geographic:

October 15, 2009—When amateur photographer Robert Mikaelyan went out to snap an old Dutch sugar factory on Tuesday, he captured a rare treat: a huge exploding fireball in the sky.

Hundreds of people in the Netherlands and Germany reported seeing the fireball streak across the twilight skies around 7 p.m. local time on October 13.

Mikaelyan managed to capture several shots of the fireball as it swung low over the northern city of Groningen and began to break apart into smaller chunks.

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Scientists Try To Calm '2012' Hysteria

Amanda Peet, with Morgan Lily and Liam James, stars in "2012," opening next month. The movie's viral marketing campaign has blended seamlessly with websites spreading doomsday theories. (Columbia Pictures)

From The L.A. Times:

As an upcoming action movie fuels Internet rumors, several scientists make public statements: The world will not end in 2012, and Earth is not going to crash into a rogue planet.

Is 2012 the end of the world?

If you scan the Internet or believe the marketing campaign behind the movie "2012," scheduled for release in November, you might be forgiven for thinking so. Dozens of books and fake science websites are prophesying the arrival of doomsday that year, by means of a rogue planet colliding with the Earth or some other cataclysmic event.

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'Double Food Output To Stop World Starving,' Say Scientists

From the Independent:

Royal Society wants green revolution to deal with global population rise of 3 billion.

Global food production needs to be increased by between 50 and 100 per cent if widespread famine is to be avoided in the coming decades as the human population expands rapidly, leading scientists said.

A second "green revolution" is needed in agriculture to feed the extra 3 billion people who will be added to the existing population of 6 billion by 2050.

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West Antarctic Ice Sheet May Not Be Losing Ice As Fast As Once Thought

The West Antarctic ice sheet rests on a bed well below sea level and is drained by much larger outlet glaciers and ice streams that accelerate over distances of hundreds of kilometers before reaching the ocean, often through large floating ice shelves. (Credit: NASA/LIMA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 20, 2009) — New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest the rate of ice loss of the West Antarctic ice sheet has been slightly overestimated.

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Plants Recognize Rivals and Fight, Play Nice with Siblings

Harsh Bais, University of Delaware assistant professor of plant and soil sciences, and doctoral student Meredith Bierdrzycki with Arabidopsis plants in the laboratory at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. Credit: University of Delaware.

From Live Science:

Plants can't see or hear, but they can recognize their siblings, and now researchers have found out how: They use chemical signals secreted from their roots, according to a new study.

Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings – plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they "play nice" and don't send out more roots to compete with one another.

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Rocket Science For Kids

A pupil looks through a telescope at an afterschool astronomy club at Alexandra Park school, north London. Photograph: Rogan Macdonald

From The Guardian:

In the corner of a north London classroom, a huddle of year 7s are fizzing with excitement as they talk to each other about rocket science. Yes, you read that right. Some wander across the room to talk to the maths teacher about the forces required to propel the rockets they are building, while others start bundling up tiny parachutes into their rocket designs. A few more are busily adding fins to the sides of their rocket.

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Meet Future Woman: Shorter, Plumper, More Fertile

Tall, slim, and soon to be a museum piece.
(Image: Hugh Kretschmer / Stone + / Getty)

From New Scientist:

Women of the future are likely to be slightly shorter and plumper, have healthier hearts and longer reproductive windows. These changes are predicted by the strongest proof to date that humans are still evolving.

Medical advances mean that many people who once would have died young now live to a ripe old age. This has led to a belief that natural selection no longer affects humans and, therefore, that we have stopped evolving.

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U.S. Military Create Live Remote-Controlled Beetles To Bug Conversations

Researchers at UC Berkeley have implanted surveillance equipment into beetles
that allows them to control where they fly

From The Daily Mail:

Spies may soon be bugging conversations using actual insects, thanks to research funded by the US military.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent years developing a whole host of cyborg critters, in the hopes of creating the ultimate 'fly on the wall'.

Now a team of researchers led by Hirotaka Sato have created cyborg beetles which are guided wirelessly via a laptop.

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Total Recall Achieved

From Scientific American:

Activating a small fraction of neurons triggers complete memory.

Just as a whiff of pumpkin pie can unleash powerful memories of holiday dinners, the stimulation of a tiny number of neurons can evoke entire memories, new research in mice suggests.

Memories are stored in neurons distributed across a host of brain regions. When something triggers a memory, that diffuse information is immediately and cohesively reactivated, but it's unclear how the circuit gets kicked into full gear.

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2009 Orionid Meteor Shower Peak Begins

Halley's comet streaks through the twilight sky on January 9, 1986, in an image from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The annual Orionids meteor shower, created by debris left behind from Halley's comet, will peak on October 21, 2009. Photograph courtesy NOAO/AP

From National Geographic:

Earth is currently plowing through space debris left behind by a visitor that last swung by during the Reagan Administration.

Spawned by Halley's comet, which last buzzed the planet in 1986, the tiny space rocks are the seeds of the annual Orionid meteor shower.

At its peak before sunrise Wednesday morning, the Orionids shower should produce 20 to 25 meteors an hour—a "relatively decent show," according to astronomer Anita Cochran, of the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory.

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Is Barnes & Noble's Nook a Kindle killer?

(Credit: Barnes & Noble)

From Crave/CNET:

While information on Barnes & Noble's new e-book reader, the Nook, has been trickling out for several days, the company unveiled the new $259 device on its Web site Tuesday a few hours before the official launch event in New York.

As previously reported, the Nook, billed as the first Android-powered e-book reader, features not only a 6-inch E-ink screen but a color touch screen that allows you to navigate content and also can turn into a virtual keyboard for searches.

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Plants And Wasps Are Smarter Than You Think

A nest of the paper wasps used in the study (Polybia aequatorialis), taken in the field near Monteverde, Costa Rica. Colonies of several thousand adult workers live in a paper nest. Workers usually start with tasks inside the nest, then on the surface. They 'graduate' to become food foragers. (Courtesy of Sean O'Donnell/University of Washington)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Seedlings know when they're from the same plant, and wasps get smarter as they get tougher tasks, studies show.

Plants and pea brains can be smarter than you think. Plants like those that discriminate between siblings and strangers within their own species, that is. And pea brains like the tropical paper wasp that reorganizes its tiny brain to tackle increasingly complex tasks.

These research tidbits illustrate the fact that acquiring and using information is a fundamental aspect of organic life.

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Science To 'Stop Age Clock At 50'

From The BBC:

Centenarians with the bodies of 50-year-olds will one day be a realistic possibility, say scientists.

Half of babies now born in the UK will reach 100, thanks to higher living standards, but our bodies are wearing out at the same rate.

To achieve "50 active years after 50", experts at Leeds University are spending £50m over five years looking at innovative solutions.

They plan to provide pensioners with own-grown tissues and durable implants.

New hips, knees and heart valves are the starting points, but eventually they envisage most of the body parts that flounder with age could be upgraded.

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'Quick Test' For Airport Liquids And Liquid Explosives

Photo: Analysis of the results can be carried out on a small computer

From The BBC:

Scientists say they have developed a quick technique for detecting liquids that could be used as explosives.

If commercialised, the new method could potentially end restrictions on liquids carried onto commercial airlines.

The light-based approach uses cheap components and can reliably identify a range of liquids in just one-fifth of a second, the German scientists say.

The work, published in the journal Superconductor Science and Technology, could have additional applications.

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Carl Sagan Goes Techno Trance With Cosmos Video

From Underwire:

A popular new YouTube video is turning Carl Sagan into a funky hipster — even in his traditional professorial corduroy jacket and anachronistic mop-top.

“A Glorious Dawn: (Cosmos Remixed)” features the PBS star and scientist joining fellow genius Stephen Hawking in a new age rap ballad about the universe and humankind’s effort to explore it. Composed by John Boswell for his Colorpulse website, you can download the track for free here.

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Humans Are Still Evolving, Analysis Finds

Data collected as part of a 60-year study suggests that humans are likely to evolve at roughly the same rates as other living things. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 20, 2009) — Although advances in medical care have improved standards of living over time, humans aren't entirely sheltered from the forces of natural selection, a new study shows.

"There is this idea that because medicine has been so good at reducing mortality rates, that means that natural selection is no longer operating in humans," said Stephen Stearns of Yale University.

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First-Time Internet Use Alters Activity In Older Brains

Images show brain scans of those with minimal prior Internet experience compared to those with a lot of web experience. Note during the second brain scans, which is after Internet training, both Naives and Savvies have similar brain patterns. Credit: UCLA

From Live Science:

Adults with little internet experience show changes in their brain activity after just one week online, a new study finds.

The results suggest Internet training can stimulate neural activation patterns and could potentially enhance brain function and cognition in older adults.

As the brain ages, a number of structural and functional changes occur, including atrophy, or decay, reductions in cell activity and increases in complex things like deposits of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which can impact cognitive function.

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Darwin's Contribution To Geology Overlooked

Photo: A copy made by John Collier in 1883 of his 1881 portrait of Charles Darwin. Darwin was a geologist too, say experts. Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

PORTLAND, OREGON: Darwin was more than a biologist; he was first, and foremost, a geologist, say researchers who presented talks at the Geological Society of America's annual meeting.

Darwin is known mostly for his revolutionary work on understanding the process of evolution and natural selection. But Edward Evenson, a glacial geologist who gave a presentation at the meeting in Portland today, said: "I'm here to try to change that perception."

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Better To Live In Country With Rights-Possessing Robots?

Photo: Female Cylons from Battlestar Galactica

From The Future Pundit:

Robin Hanson doesn't want to live in a country where robots are held back from full sentience and autonomy.

On Tuesday I asked my law & econ undergrads what sort of future robots (AIs computers etc.) they would want, if they could have any sort they wanted. Most seemed to want weak vulnerable robots that would stay lower in status, e.g., short, stupid, short-lived, easily killed, and without independent values. When I asked “what if I chose to become a robot?”, they said I should lose all human privileges, and be treated like the other robots. I winced; seems anti-robot feelings are even stronger than anti-immigrant feelings, which bodes for a stormy robot transition.

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High-Stakes Test Looms for Space Shuttle Successor

NASA officials say they plan to install two dampening systems to control vibrations in the Ares I rocket (Illustration: NASA/MSFC)

From New Scientist:

Talk about pressure. As the troubled successor to NASA's space shuttle powers up for its first flight test, a White House panel is weighing up whether to cancel the project.

The Ares I rocket is designed to carry a crew capsule called Orion to Earth orbit, where it could dock with the International Space Station or form part of a mission to the moon. But it has been plagued with budget problems and technical hitches.

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