Chinese-Made Turbines To Fill U.S. Wind Farm

From The Wall Street Journal:

A Chinese wind-turbine company, with financing help from Beijing, has struck a deal to be the exclusive supplier to one of the largest wind-farm developments in the U.S., a sign of how Chinese firms are aggressively capitalizing on America's clean-energy push.

The 36,000-acre development in West Texas would receive $1.5 billion in financing through Export-Import Bank of China. Shenyang Power Group, a five-month-old alliance, would supply the project with 240 of its 2.5-megawatt wind turbines, among the biggest made in the world.

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Real Estate Easier To Find In Google Maps

It's now easier to find unaffordable real estate in San Francisco's Mission District through Google Maps. (Credit: Google)

From CNET News:

Another day, another improvement to Google Maps that increases time spent on the site.

A few days after sending shock waves throughout the portable navigation industry, Google's back adding features to Google Maps that will once again draw the attention of the real-estate industry. Google Maps has been showing real estate listings since this summer, but the company added a few tweaks Thursday designed to make it easier to search for a new home with Google.

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20 Things You Didn't Know About... Sugar

From Discover Magazine:

We eat it, we love it, and it may have been a chemical precursor to life on Earth.

1 The average American eats 61 pounds of refined sugar each year, including 25 pounds of candy. Halloween accounts for at least two pounds of that.

2 Trick: Sugar may give you wrinkles via a process called glycation, in which excess blood sugar binds to collagen in the skin, making it less elastic.

3 Or treat: Cutting back on sugar may help your skin retain its flexibility. So actually, no treats.

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Timeline: The Secret History Of Swine Flu

16 August 1957: a nurse at Montefiore Hospital gets the first
Asian flu vaccine shot in New York (Image: Associated Press)

From New Scientist:

Six months ago, swine flu emerged as a massive threat to global health. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but our timeline explains how the origins of the H1N1 pandemic go back more than a century

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Is The Nuclear Material At Los Alamos Safe From An Earthquake?

From Scientific American:

Los Alamos National Laboratory conducts much of the nation's nuclear security research, and a new study has found that the plutonium facility may not be equipped to safely ride out an earthquake.

The lab, situated about 56 kilometers outside of Santa Fe, N.M., has long been known to be on a fault line, and builders have installed substantial fire safety measures. But recent planning for a new structure revealed that the fault could move much more than previously assumed, revealing a crack in the lab's safety plans, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Ares I-X: An Illustrated History

Going Up: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell)

From Popular Science:

I'm not quite ready to stop thinking about NASA's Ares I-X rocket test earlier this week--and neither is Boston.com's Big Picture blog, where a great collection of images today goes from the rocket's construction to its first launch.

We go from the shrink-wrapped delivery of its individual parts to its birth in the hangars Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Buidling, High Bay 4. From its engine tests in the Utah desert to its first real launch this past Wednesday, complete with a nice shot of its "shock egg" vapor plume.

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Being Boss Takes Its Toll On Health

People in higher positions are more likely to report conflicts with co-workers and say work intrudes on their home life (Source: iStockphoto)

From The ABC News (Australia):

Being the boss might mean more money and challenging work but it can also take a toll on physical and mental well-being, according to a Canadian study.

For years studies have shown people in lower-status jobs generally have higher rates of heart disease and other illnesses and die earlier than those in higher-status positions while job authority has shown no association with workers' health.

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ICANN Approves Non-Latin Domain Names

From CNET News:

The organization responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses has approved a new plan to allow non-Latin characters in Web extensions.

Known as Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), the system is designed to globalize the Net so regions around the world can use their own local alphabet characters to surf in cyberspace, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, said Friday.

Calling IDNs the "biggest technical change" to the Internet since its birth 40 years ago, ICANN unanimously approved the plan on the final day of its six-day conference in Seoul.

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How To Stop A Teapot Dribbling

Photo: No drips: At last, a way to take the mess out of making a cuppa

From The Telegraph:

Britain's tea lovers are raising a cup to scientists after they worked out how to stop a teapot dribbling.

A team of fluid dynamics experts have after exhaustive research concluded that the problem is a phenomenon known as the "hydro-capillary effect".

And the answer is to deploy a "superhydrophobic" material. In other words you could put butter down the spout.

They have deduced that at low pouring speeds tea starts to stick to the inside of the spout, causing the flow to momentarily stop and then start again – in other words to dribble.

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No Pain, No Gain: Mastering A Skill Makes Us Stressed In The Moment, Happy Long Term

No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 30, 2009) — No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, the study suggests.

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New Dinosaur Built Like A Sherman Tank

A newfound species of armored dinosaur, now called Tatankacephalus cooneyorum, may have showed off skin colored with subdued colors, the researchers speculate. Credit: Bill Parsons.

From Live Science:

A husband and wife team of paleontologists has discovered a newfound species of armored dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago in what is now Montana.

The duo, Bill and Kris Parsons of the Buffalo Museum of Science in New York, spotted the dinosaur's skull on the surface of a hillside in Montana in 1997. Over the next few years, they retrieved more of the now nearly complete skull along with skin plates, rib fragments, a vertebra and a possible limb bone from the dinosaur species.

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Testing Cheap Wind Power

Photo: Black box: This eight-kilowatt wind turbine uses a continuously variable transmission--the small, silver-colored unit on the left below the rotor--to regulate its power. The turbine’s developer, Cedar Park, TX-based Viryd Technologies, claims that its use of mechanical instead of digital power regulation will cut manufacturing costs by 20 percent and boost power output. Credit: Viryd Technologies

From Technology Review:

A continuously variable transmission could lead to cheaper wind power--if it is rugged enough.

Federal stimulus funds awarded to a wind-energy research consortium led by Illinois Institute of Technology will accelerate testing of small wind turbines that could point the way towards more efficient utility-scale machines. The eight-kilowatt turbines, the product of Cedar Park, TX-based Viryd Technologies, use a mechanical approach--continuously variable transmission (CVT) technology--to convert fluctuating wind speeds into the precise stream of alternating current required by power grids. If it can replace the pricey power electronics that regulate power in most turbines today, the same technology could cut the cost of wind-power generation at any scale.

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Trick or Tweet? Malware Abundant in Twitter URLs

From Threat Level/Wired:

As many as one in every 500 web addresses posted on Twitter lead to sites hosting malware, according to researchers at Kaspersky Labs who have deployed a tool that examines URLs circulating in tweets.

The spread of malware is aided by the popular use of shortened URLs on Twitter, which generally hide the real website address from users before they click on a link, preventing them from self-filtering links that appear to be dodgy.

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Russians To Ride A Nuclear-Powered Spacecraft To Mars

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, center, visits a space communications facility Wednesday in Medvezhye Ozera with Minister of Telecommunications Igor Shchyogolev at left. Medvedev urged his government to find resources for building a prospective nuclear-powered spaceship. (Vladimir Rodionov, RIA Novosti, Presidential Press Service/AP)

From Christian Science Monitor:

President Dmitry Medvedev says Russia will spend $600 million on a nuclear-powered spacecraft to take men to Mars, and beyond. Is it safe?

MOSCOW – A nuclear-powered spaceship that can carry passengers to Mars and beyond may sound like science fiction.

But Russian engineers say they have a breakthrough design for such a craft, which could leapfrog them way ahead in the international race to build a manned spacecraft that can cover vast interplanetary distances.

They claim they’ll be ready to build one as early as 2012.

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Internet Turns 40 Today: First Message Crashed System

Forty years after the first network message of "lo" crossed California (pictured, a mainframe computer later used to send the first person-to-person network email in 1971), the Internet has transformed how people live, experts said in October 2009. Photograph courtesy Dan Murphy via BBN Technologies, Inc.

From The National Geographic:

Everyone surfing for last-minute Halloween costumes and pictures of black Lolcats today—what you might call the 40th anniversary of the Internet—can give thanks to the simple network message that started it all: "lo."

On October 29, 1969, that message became the first ever to travel between two computers connected via the ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet.

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Hubble Captures Sparkling ‘Jewel Box’ Star Cluster

From Wired Science:

This stunning image of the Kappis Crucis Cluster, nicknamed the “Jewel Box,” was one of the last gifts from a retiring camera on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Just before NASA brought the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 back to Earth in mid-2009, it snapped this photo of the core of the NGC 4755 star cluster, the first comprehensive image of an open galactic cluster taken in multiple wavelengths. Using seven different filters, Hubble captured the Jewel Box cluster in far ultraviolet to near-infrared light. The different colors of the stars — from pale blue to bright ruby red — result from their differing intensities at various ultraviolet wavelengths.

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5 Frightening (But True) Space Stories

The First Seven Astronauts

From Discover Magazine:

There's nothing like a good horror story in space*. I grew up watching Sigourney Weaver outsmart xenomorphs in her underwear and subsequently spent a little too much time reading the likes of Stephen King's "I am the Doorway," H.P. Lovecraft's "In the Walls of Eryx" and John Steakley's "Armor."

As a result, it's hard for me to read about space exploration without thinking of about its darker possibilities -- and I don't just mean aliens and distant Hell worlds. Leaving Earth's atmosphere is a dangerous endeavor and, major tragedies aside, there have been a number of smaller terrifying, grotesque and absurd episodes to come out of it. So if you'll allow me to serve as your cosmic Crypt Keeper for a few minutes, I thought I'd run though a few of the ones that get under my skin.

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Beginner’s Guide To Skype

(Rich Clabaugh/Staff)

From The Christian Science Monitor:

For some 500 million users, Skype turns their PC into a phone.

International calls can get mighty pricey. Perhaps that’s why so many people use Skype, a free way to make calls – and even have video chats – all over the world from the comfort of their computer screens.

Skype isn’t new. It launched in 2003 and now boasts 483 million registered accounts. But if you haven’t tried it yet, don’t fret. Here’s what you need to know.

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Robins Can See Earth's Magnetic Field

German scientists studied 36 European robins and concluded that the birds can 'see' the Earth's magnetic field, allowing them to navigate Photo: PA

From The Telegraph:

Robins can 'see' the Earth's magnetic field which allows them to navigate, scientists believe.

The information, relayed to a specialised light-processing region of the brain called ''cluster N'', helps the robin find its way on migration flights.

Experts know birds possess an internal magnetic compass, but there is disagreement about what form it takes.

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Blast From The Past: Most Distant Stellar Object Gives Clues About Early Universe

Gamma-ray bursts longer than two seconds are caused by the detonation of a massive star at the end of its life. Jets of particles and gamma radiation are emitted in opposite directions from the stellar core as the star collapses. This animation shows what a gamma-ray burst might look like up close. Credit: (Credit: NASA/Swift/Cruz deWilde)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 29, 2009) — Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have gained tantalizing insights into the nature of the most distant object ever observed in the Universe -- a gigantic stellar explosion known as a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB).

The explosion was detected on April 23 by NASA's Swift satellite, and scientists soon realized that it was more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. It represents an event that occurred 630 million years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was only four percent of its current age of 13.7 billion years.

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