Spying On A Stolen Laptop

From CNET:

Imagine your laptop gets stolen. Wouldn't it be great to remotely spy on the machine and get it back?

Clair Fleener, chief executive of IT outsourcer InertLogic, got that chance after a laptop belonging to a customer was stolen.

Fleener was instrumental in the investigation that led to the recovery of the laptop, monitoring the activities of the laptop user for two weeks using remote software and sharing the information with law enforcement in Omaha, Neb.

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Sales Of Virtual Goods Boom In US

From The BBC:

Americans look set to spend $1bn (£600m) on virtual goods in 2009, claims a report.

The cash will be spent on add-ons for online games, digital gifts and other items that exist only as data.

Total spend on such items is expected to be up by 100% over 2008 and to double again by the end of 2010, said the analysts behind the report.

In related news, Facebook is updating its gift store so it offers a wider variety of virtual presents.

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Solar Power Cost Decline Steeper

From Future Pundit:

The cost of solar panels dropped almost in half in the last year in Germany.

In the last year — solar panel prices dropped to $2.10 a watt from about $4.10 in Germany — and only about half the global manufacturing capacity is being used, said Steve O'Rouke, an analyst with Deutsche Bank.

"We've seen an awful lot of angst and difficulty," O'Rouke said. "You have to expect some companies to go out of business."

Deutsche Bank is forecasting a structural over-supply in the market until at least 2011.

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Now Playing At A Museum Near You, The “Day After Tomorrow Map”

Click Image to Enlarge

From Watts Up With That?

Here’s the view of the future in a new science museum according to the Telegraph. No mention if NYC’s West Side Highway will be underwater or not. They call it the “Day after tomorrow map”.

The article by Louise Gray says:

The apocalyptic map was launched by Government ministers at the opening of a new exhibition at the Science Museum.

‘Prove it – everything you need to know to believe in climate change’ is aimed at educating the public about the dangers of uncontrollable global warming.

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"Albedo Yachts" And Marine Clouds: A Cure For Climate Change?

SHIP TRACKS: Could ships spraying sea mist to boost cloud reflectivity cure climate change? Already, ship tracks can be picked out in marine clouds, as pictured here, thanks to the interaction of ships' exhaust and water vapor in the atmosphere. Courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team.

From Scientific American:

A deep dive into one of the least scary geoengineering schemes to control global warming.

Here's an idea to cool Earth: make marine clouds into better reflectors of sunlight. After all, clouds already reflect more of the sun's radiation back into space than the amount trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide. So why not make them even more effective?

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Flu-Like Illnesses Now Higher Than At Peak Of Seasonal Flu Season

From the L.A. Times:

Federal officials report 8,200 hospitalizations for infections from the H1N1 virus, and 411 deaths. But reports of 1 in 5 kids being infected are wrong, they add.

Influenza-like illnesses are now higher throughout the country than levels generally seen at the peak of the seasonal flu season, federal health officials said Friday. But they dismissed media reports from a day earlier that 1 in 5 children had contracted swine flu during the first weeks of October.

Pandemic H1N1 influenza activity continues to spread throughout the country, with 46 states reporting widespread activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

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Ancient Secrets Of Super-Cement May Lead To A Shield Against Bunker Busters

Super-Concrete Let's see if they can break this Air Force Office of Scientific Research

From Popular Science:

Super-cements similar to those used to build the pyramids could harden bunkers against missiles.

Super-cements similar to the ancient concrete used to build the pyramids might defeat even the U.S. Air Force's largest non-nuclear bunker buster to date.

Wired's Danger Room has a rundown on how French researcher Joseph Davidovits uncovered the chemistry of geopolymers, or super-cements. Davidovits also put forth the theory that the Egyptian pyramids were built using a similar type of geopolymer limestone concrete -- an idea supported by X-ray and microscopic study samples.

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The Case Against Magnetic Screwdrivers

Click Image to Enlarge

From Popular Mechanics:

A reader writes in wondering where he can find magnetic screwdrivers like the one his mechanic has. But PM senior automotive editor Mike Allen thinks that tool is unnecessary. Here is his case against magnetic screwdrivers.

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Is Unknown Force In Universe Acting On Dark Matter?

M63: The Sunflower Galaxy. (Credit: Satoshi Miyazaki (NAOJ), Suprime-Cam, Subaru Telescope, NOAJ)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 23, 2009) — An international team of astronomers have found an unexpected link between mysterious 'dark matter' and the visible stars and gas in galaxies that could revolutionise our current understanding of gravity.

One of the astronomers, Dr Hongsheng Zhao of the SUPA Centre of Gravity, University of St. Andrews, suggests that an unknown force is acting on dark matter. The findings are published this week in the scientific journal Nature.

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What Really Scares People: Top 10 Phobias

From Live Science:

Whether you jump at the sight of a spider or work up a sweat at the mere mention of getting on an airplane, fears and phobias abound. About 19.2 million American adults ages 18 and over, or some 8.7 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have some type of specific phobia, or extreme fear. Here are some of the worst.

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Mars May Have Caves, Scientists Say

Mars colonists could use caves for protection from potentially deadly cosmic rays streaming down from space. (NASA / October 24, 2009)

From The L.A. Times:

Images of ancient lava flows from the Arsia Mons volcano suggest an extensive system near the Red Planet's equator. Caves could one day aid space explorers.

Caves were some of the earliest refuges for human beings on Earth. Could the same be true for future pioneers on Mars?

Glen Cushing, a space scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, thinks so. He said he has found evidence of an extensive cave system among ancient volcanoes at Mars' equator.

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Controversial Moon Origin Theory Rewrites History

Origin Story. A new study challenges the giant impact hypothesis, which suggested the moon formed from a cosmic collision. NASA

From Discovery:

Oct. 22, 2009 -- The moon may have been adopted by our planet instead of descended from it.

If a new twist on a decades-old theory is right, conditions in the early solar system suggest the moon formed inside Mercury's orbit and migrated out until it was roped into orbit around Earth.

The idea flies in the face of scientific consensus, known as the giant impact hypothesis, which holds that the moon formed from red-hot debris left over after a Mars-sized object collided with Earth around 4.5 billion years ago.

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Obama: U.S. Needs To Lead Clean-Energy Race

President Obama speaking on clean energy at MIT on Friday.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

From CNET:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--President Barack Obama on Friday called on the U.S. Congress to pass energy-and-climate legislation, a move he said would stimulate technology innovation and improve the economic competitiveness of the United States.

Obama delivered a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology here after touring student laboratories and before attending a fund-raiser for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

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Epic Humpback Whale Battle Filmed

From The BBC:

It is the greatest animal battle on the planet, and it has finally been caught on camera.

A BBC natural history crew has filmed the "humpback whale heat run", where 15m long, 40 tonne male whales fight it out to mate with even larger females.

During the first complete sequence of this behaviour ever captured, the male humpbacks swim at high speed behind the female, violently jostling for access.

The collisions between the males can be violent enough to kill.

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Panel Calls For Big Detour In NASA’s Moon Plans

NASA artwork traces each phase of a future mission to the moon and back.

From MSNBC:

Asteroids, Martian moons suggested as alternate destinations.

WASHINGTON - NASA needs to make a major detour in its effort to return astronauts to the moon, a special independent panel told the White House Thursday.

Under current plans, NASA has picked the wrong destination with the wrong rocket, the panel's chairman said. A test-flight version of the rocket, the new Ares I, is on a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, awaiting liftoff next week for its first experimental flight.

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Will The Pill Be Responsible For The Death Of Humanity?

From Blog Critics:

For years, gays have been looking for a gene that would legitimately give them the right to say nature has turned them into the opposite sex. As a result, they believe same-sex marriage should be a natural thing. To gays, same-sex marriage should be something beautiful, natural, and part of God’s big plan. But the reasons may be anything but natural.

A few years ago, right after the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, a large number of chemical ‘cocktails’ that inhibit the function of the male hormone testosterone were found in United Kingdom rivers.

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Did Dryas Comet Really Kill Off Mammoth?

Did a comet impact really kill off megafauna such as the mammoth,
mastodan and sabre-tooth tiger? Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

PORTLAND, OREGON: Debate on the existence of a Younger Dryas comet impact, 12,900 years ago, and whether it is linked to mass extinctions of large mammals and early humans in North America reopened this week.

The Younger Dryas was a 1,300-year-long cold snap that affected climate in much of the Northern Hemisphere. In 2007, a team led by Richard Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the U.S., argued that it was caused by the impact of a comet.

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Google's Android Allows Soldiers To Put Drones On Buddy List

Phones for Warfighters U.S. Army/Tech. Sgt. Cohen A. Young

From Popular Science:

Defense giant Raytheon has turned Google's mobile operating system into a military application.

Google's Android operating system for cell phones could allow soldiers to track fellow squad members and even unmanned drones in real time on a map -- as long as the humans and robots are on their buddy list.

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Scientists Reveals Secrets Of Drought Resistance

Soybean sprouts struggling in dry conditions. Biologists have now solved the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. (Credit: iStockphoto/Matt Niebuhr)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 23, 2009) — A team of biologists in California led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of California (UC), San Diego has solved the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts. Understanding the inner workings of this molecule may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide, aiding biofuels production on marginal lands and mitigating drought's human and economic costs.

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Why Some Men Can't Control Arousal

From Live Science:

Is sex a state of mind? A recent study from the University of British Columbia finds that while most men can regulate their physical and mental sexual arousal to some degree, the men most able to do so are able to control their other emotions as well.

“We suspect that if an individual is good at regulating one type of emotional response, he/she is probably good at regulating other emotional responses,” says Jason Winters, the study’s research head. “This has never been shown before.”

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