Like Hungry Teen, Life On Earth Had Big Growth Spurts

The Sequoia tree, the largest living thing on Earth, dwarfs humans and our ancient one-celled ancestors. Jane Wooldridge/Miami Herald/MCT

From McClatchy News:

WASHINGTON — Twice in the Earth's history, living creatures underwent astonishing growth spurts, and each time, new organisms emerged that were a million times larger than anything that had existed before.

Scientists say that's the way life on our planet expanded from tiny single-celled microbes billions of years ago to the ponderous whales and lofty sequoia trees that are today's biggest living things.

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Link Between Alcohol And Cancer Explained: Alcohol Activates Cellular Changes That Make Tumor Cells Spread

Researchers have identified a cellular pathway that may explain the link between alcohol consumption and cancer. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 27, 2009) — Alcohol consumption has long been linked to cancer and its spread, but the underlying mechanism has never been clear. Now, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have identified a cellular pathway that may explain the link.

In a study published in a recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the researchers found that alcohol stimulates what is called the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, in which run-of-the-mill cancer cells morph into a more aggressive form and begin to spread throughout the body.

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Why 'Sleeping On It' Helps

From Live Science:

We're often told, "You should sleep on it" before you make an important decision. Why is that? How does "sleeping on it" help your decision-making process?

Conventional wisdom suggests that by "sleeping on it," we clear our minds and relieve ourselves of the immediacy (and accompanying stress) of making a decision. Sleep also helps organize our memories, process the information of the day, and solve problems. Such wisdom also suggests that conscious deliberation helps decision making in general. But new research (Dijksterhuis et al., 2009) suggests something else might also be at work — our unconscious.

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Enzyme Blocker May Reverse Nerve Damage

The research could lead to a viable treatment option for a range of neurodegenerative disorders, says an expert (Source: iStockphoto)

From ABC News:

Blocking the action of a single enzyme prevents injured nerve cells dying and enables them to regrow, say scientists in the US.

Their findings, to be published this week in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, could have implications for sufferers of spinal injury and stroke, as well as neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

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How Arlington National Cemetery Came To Be

From The Smithsonian:

The fight over Robert E. Lee's beloved home—seized by the U.S. government during the Civil War—went on for decades

One afternoon in May 1861, a young Union Army officer went rushing into the mansion that commanded the hills across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. "You must pack up all you value immediately and send it off in the morning," Lt. Orton Williams told Mary Custis Lee, wife of Robert E. Lee, who was away mobilizing Virginia's military forces as the country hurtled toward the bloodiest war in its history.

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Time Travel Through The Brain

From Technology Review:

Over the last 100 years, the way we visualize and understand the complexity of the brain has evolved.

Over the 100-year history of modern neuroscience, the way we think about the brain has evolved with the sophistication of the techniques available to study it. Improvements in microscope design and manufacture, together with the development of cell-staining techniques, afforded neuroscientists their first glimpse at the specialized cells that make up the nervous system. Microscopes with more magnifying power enabled them to probe nerve cells in greater detail, revealing distinct compartments. Newer techniques expose the connections between nerve cells, revealing the complex organization of the brain.

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Awesome Pictures Of Saturn

From 20 degrees above the ring plane, Cassini's wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the sun's disk was exactly overhead at the planet's equator. The images were taken on Aug. 12, 2009, at a distance of approximately 847,000 km (526,000 mi) from Saturn. (NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Saturn At Equinox -- Boston.com

Checking in with NASA's Cassini spacecraft, our current emissary to Saturn, some 1.5 billion kilometers (932 million miles) distant from Earth, we find it recently gathering images of the Saturnian system at equinox. During the equinox, the sunlight casts long shadows across Saturn's rings, highlighting previously known phenomena and revealing a few never-before seen images. Cassini continues to orbit Saturn, part of its extended Equinox Mission, funded through through September 2010. A proposal for a further extension is under consideration, one that would keep Cassini in orbit until 2017, ending with a spectacular series of orbits inside the rings followed by a suicide plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017. (previously: 1, 2, 3). (23 photos total)

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Science Proves That Women Will Look Like Their Mothers When They Get Older

Generations ... Joy Whiting, daughter Amanda Masters and granddaughter Minnie.
Source: The Daily Telegraph

From The Daily Telegraph:

IT'S a question many women ask ... will they look like their mothers when they get older. Now science has provided the answer ... they will.

Plastic surgeons have used new technology to study the ageing process.

For the first time, surgeons in the US used 3D photographic images to quantify the differences in 29 pairs of mothers and daughters who were perceived as similar.

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Solar Superpower: Should Europe Run On Sahara Sun?

More energy than we could ever possibly need, but how can we tap into it?
(Image: Chris Anderson/Aurora/Plainpicture)

From New Scientist:

EVERY two weeks, the sun pours more energy onto the surface of our planet than we use from all sources in an entire year. It is an inexhaustible powerhouse that has remained largely untapped for human energy needs. That may soon change in a big way. If a consortium of German companies has its way, construction of the biggest solar project ever devised could soon begin in the Sahara desert. When completed, it would harvest energy from the sun shining over Africa and transform it into clean, green electricity for delivery to European homes and businesses.

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Augmented Reality Goggles Make Marine Mechanics More Efficient

AR Goggles Seeing the world differently through augmented reality, and becoming more efficient to boot Steven Feiner and Steven Henderson

From Popular Science:

Jarheads work almost 50 percent faster wearing heads-up display goggles that replace technical manuals.

New augmented reality goggles are helping Marine mechanics perform maintenance on vehicles in about half the usual time. The futuristic headgear displays precise instructions on top of real-world settings, and shows how to complete certain tasks, such as wiring up an ignition coil.

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My Comment: Something tells me that this headgear must cost a fortune.

Bumper Brains -- A Commentary

Credit: Andrew Lee/COSMOS

From Cosmos Magazine:

Science can help us stretch the limits of the human mind: but should we embrace brain enhancement, despite the risks?

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA in San Diego, researcher Mark Tuszynski and his colleagues have been studying the use of genetically modified neurons in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. In 2001, the scientists implanted neurons carrying extra copies of a gene that codes for nerve growth factor, or NGF, into the brains of patients.

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Mantis Shrimp Eyes Could Show Way To Better DVD And CD players

A mantis shrimp takes a peep from it's burrow in the Sulu sea.
(Credit: iStockphoto/Richard Ng)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 26, 2009) — The remarkable eyes of a marine crustacean could inspire the next generation of DVD and CD players, according to a new study from the University of Bristol published today in Nature Photonics.

The mantis shrimps in the study are found on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and have the most complex vision systems known to science. They can see in twelve colours (humans see in only three) and can distinguish between different forms of polarized light.

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Investigator Checks Out Haunted House For Sale

A haunted house in Cuchillo, New Mexico, being sold on eBay. Credit: Benjamin Radford

From Live Science:

There is no shortage of people seeking to turn ghosts into gold and spooks into silver. Hundreds of amateur ghost-hunting groups across the country offer tours of local haunts, allegedly spirit-infested hotels, mansions, cemeteries, and so on.

Ghosts generate a lot of green.

One of the most enterprising ghost entrepreneurs is an artist named Josh Bond, who lives in the tiny New Mexican town of Cuchillo. Bond is offering a genuine haunted house for sale — on eBay.

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New Processor Will Feature 100 Cores

From Gadget Lab:

Forget dual-core and quad-core processors: A semiconductor company promises to pack 100 cores into a processor that can be used in applications that require hefty computing punch, like video conferencing, wireless base stations and networking. By comparison, Intel’s latest chips are expected to have just eight cores.

“This is a general purpose chip that can run off-the-shelf programs almost unmodified,” says Anant Agarwal, chief technical officer of Tilera, the company that is making the 100-core chip. “And we can do that while offering at least four times the compute performance of an Intel Nehalem-Ex, while burning a third of the power as a Nehalem.”

The 100-core processor, fabricated using 40-nanometer technology, is expected to be available early next year.

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Getting It Wrong: Surprising Tips On How To Learn

CAN TWO WRONGS MAKE A RIGHT?: Not knowing the answer can be a good thing.
Magdalena Tworkowska

From Scientific American:

New research makes the case for hard tests, and suggests an unusual technique that anyone can use to learn.

For years, many educators have championed “errorless learning," advising teachers (and students) to create study conditions that do not permit errors. For example, a classroom teacher might drill students repeatedly on the same multiplication problem, with very little delay between the first and second presentations of the problem, ensuring that the student gets the answer correct each time.

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Best & Worst Destinations Rated, 2009

Photograph by Andrew H. Brown, National Geographic Stock

From National Geographic:

Still waters in Norang Fjord, shown in an undated picture, reflect the "well-preserved Norwegian rural life" that helped the region take top honors in the sixth annual "Destinations Rated" scorecard compiled by the National Geographic Society's Center for Sustainable Destinations.

The center convened an independent panel of 437 experts in fields from historic preservation and sustainable tourism to travel writing and archaeology to assess 133 iconic places around the world.

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End Of An Era For Early Websites

From BBC News:

A service that gave many people their first taste of building and owning a web page is set to close.

Yahoo-owned GeoCities once boasted millions of users and was the third most popular destination on the web.

The free site has since fallen out of fashion with users, who have switched to social networks.

Yahoo, which acquired the site for $3.57bn (£2.17bn) in 1999 at the height of the dotcom boom, said sites would no longer be accessible from 26th October.

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Video: Army’s Robot-Man Walks Like the Real Thing

From The Danger Room:

The makers of the eerily lifelike robotic mule have a new creation: a machine that walks around like a real human being. Boston Dynamics is building the “Petman” prototype for the U.S. Army, to test out protective clothing.

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LHC Reawakens, Sending Proton Beams Running At The Speed of Light

Recovery: Repairwork in an above-ground warehouse on the French-Swiss border Cern's damaged magnets underwent repairs at a nearby above-ground site. This man is working on the end of a dipole magnet, which contains six conductors, each of which carried 8,000 amps but were capable of conducting up to 13,000. In superconducting magnets like this one, the internal materials are kept at some of the lowest temperatures imaginable, decreasing resistance and allowing them to generate electricity with virtually no loss of heat. Courtesy Cern

From Popular Science:

Over the weekend, Cern ran particle beams through the Large Hadron Collider for the first time since it was shut down last September. After a helium leak caused magnets to overheat, operations at the LHC were suspended for cleanup and repairs. After tests on October 23 and 25, scientists hope to have the LHC running again in full by November.

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What Dangers Lurk in WWII-Era Nuclear Dumps?

Marker for the first nuclear test at Los Alamos

From Discover Magazine:

Here’s one direct and obvious effect of the economic stimulus package passed in February: The toxic sites where scientists ushered in the nuclear age are getting cleaned up. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, a dump that contains refuse of the Manhattan Project and that was sealed up decades ago is finally being explored, thanks to $212 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

But experts aren’t sure what they’ll find inside the dump. At the very least, there is probably a truck down there that was contaminated in 1945 at the Trinity test site, where the world’s first nuclear explosion seared the sky and melted the desert sand 200 miles south of here during World War II [The New York Times]. It may also contain explosive chemicals that could have become more dangerous over the years of burial.

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My Comment: Long after the war has ended, it's left overs are still affecting us.