Sleep Deprivation Cut Mental Function

From Future Pundit:

The brain downshifts to simpler ways of processing information when lacking sleep.

Westchester, Ill. —A study in the Nov.1 issue of the journal Sleep shows that sleep deprivation causes some people to shift from a more automatic, implicit process of information categorization (information-integration) to a more controlled, explicit process (rule-based). This use of rule-based strategies in a task in which information-integration strategies are optimal can lead to potentially devastating errors when quick and accurate categorization is fundamental to survival.

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Autopia Planes, Trains, Automobiles And The Future of Transportation Little X-Plane Pushes Bottom Edge Of The Envelope

From Autopia:

Flight test programs at Edwards Air Force Base and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center usually are off-limits to outsiders, but we got a peek at one of its coolest programs, the X-48B, when the Air Force recently threw open the gates for an open house.

The X-48B is the latest in a long line of experimental X-planes, and the joint venture between NASA and Boeing’s Phantom Works is unlike most that came before. The blended wing-body aircraft isn’t some sort of sierra hotel fighter jet, it doesn’t have a pilot on board and it’s not even full-size. Despite being an

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Why Three Buses Come At Once, And How To Avoid It

Bused up. Commuters can help keep transport moving (Image: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features)

From New Scientist:

Anyone who has waited for a bus knows the routine: you wait far longer than you should, then three come along at once. The problem, called "platooning", plagues buses, trains and even elevators.

Now systems complexity researchers Carlos Gershenson and Luis Pineda of the National Autonomous University of Mexico have devised a mathematical model that shows how the problem might be prevented: transport managers need to get a little meaner about boarding times, and passengers should realise that jumping on the first train or bus that arrives won't always help them reach a destination faster.

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California Searchers Scour for Survivors of Midair Crash

From Popular Mechanics:

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Aircraft and ships are scouring the ocean off San Diego for any signs of survivors of a nighttime collision of a Coast Guard C-130 airplane and a Marine Corps attack helicopter.

A crew of seven was aboard the airplane and two were aboard the helicopter when the aircraft collided Thursday night 50 miles west of the San Diego County coast and 15 miles east of San Clemente Island, a Navy training site.

Coast Guard Petty Officer Levi Read says the search is focused on the area of a debris field.

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Zoooooom via University of Utah

From Popular Science:

One of the most difficult aspects of science is conceptualizing some of the unbelievably large, (and unimaginably small) numbers that routinely pop up. The Universe is 5.5 x 10^23 miles across. A human hair is about 7 x 10^-4 inches across. Hard to imagine how things like cells, proteins and atoms all relate to one another. Now, at least for the very small things, the University of Utah has developed a fun little Flash graphic to make sense of all of it.

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Clinical Immortality And Space Settlement

Galactic space lines may not be as far fetched as they sound. (credit: Virgin Galactic)

From The Space Review:

There was a recent article in the New York Times, “Three Score and Ten”, which was inspired by a Lancet paper that predicted the median life expectancy for babies born in America in 2007 is greater than or equal to 104. In 3000 BC, it was 24 and stayed there almost until the industrial revolution. In 1850, it was 38. In 1909, it was 50. In 1959, it was 67. Current demographics indicate it’s only 78. The extra 26 years that Lancet predicts comes from anticipated future improvements in reducing death rates (morbidity).

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Scientists Discover Influenza's Achilles Heel: Antioxidants

This digitally-colorized negative-stained transmission electron micograph (TEM) depicted a number of influenza A virions. (Credit: CDC/F. A. Murphy)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2009) — As the nation copes with a shortage of vaccines for H1N1 influenza, a team of Alabama researchers have raised hopes that they have found an Achilles' heel for all strains of the flu -- antioxidants.

In an article appearing in the November 2009 print issue of the FASEB Journal, they show that antioxidants -- the same substances found in plant-based foods -- might hold the key in preventing the flu virus from wreaking havoc on our lungs.

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Rest Easy: Retirement (and Money) Can Improve Sleep

Insomnia is the most common sleep complaint at any age. It affects almost half of adults 60 and older, according to the National Institutes of Health. Credit: © Marcin Kempski |Dreamstime.com"

From Live Science:

It's no secret the stress of work can keep you up at nights. Now research shows that retirement can spur less fitful sleep, at least for people who are financially stable.

The prevalence of sleep disturbances among 14,714 study participants in France — all of whom had pensions that continued to pay 80 percent of their salaries — fell from 24.2 percent in the last year before retirement to 17.8 percent in the first year after retiring.

The finding may not apply to retirees who lack financial stability, however.

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Second Chance For Large Hadron Collider To Deliver Universe's Secrets

The view from the central axis of the Large Hadron Collider. Photograph: CERN

From The Guardian:

One year after £30m meltdown, 'God Machine' is ready to run again in Switzerland.

At first glance, the piece of metal in Steve Myers's hands could be taken for a harmonica or a pen. Only on closer inspection can you make out its true nature. Myers, director of accelerators at the Cern particle physics laboratory outside Geneva, is clutching a section of copper piping from which a flat electrical cable is protruding.

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YouTube Cashes In On One Billion Weekly Views

From The Telegraph:

YouTube is now making money from one billion video views per week.

The Google-owned video sharing site has more than tripled the amount of views it is now able to monetise, since the same period last year.

Google would not reveal how many individual clips make up the one billion views, nor would it disclose how much revenue those views are generating.

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Pictured: The Fridge-Sized Computer That Sent The Very First Email 40 Years Ago

The computer from which 40 years ago the first message was sent on the internet, between the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford University

From The Daily Mail:

The very first message to be sent between two computers - a breakthrough that helped usher in the internet and Mail Online - was sent exactly 40 years ago.

And to mark the occasion, celebrities, computer experts and entrepreneurs joined the man behind that first message for a bit of a party.

UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock said: 'It's the 40th year since the infant internet first spoke.'

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Russia Becomes The World's Taxicab To Space

Photo: Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberté flashes a V-sign after he returned Oct. 11 from a trip to space as a tourist in a Russian Soyuz capsule. Sergei Remezoz/ Reuters

From Christian Science Monitor:

Though its program is nothing like it once was, the country uses its fleet of rockets to ferry tourists and satellites into orbit.

Moscow - For better or mirth, it has become one of those indelible images from space: Canadian circus billionaire Guy Laliberté floating around the International Space Station wearing a red clown nose.

The stunt earlier this month by the founder of Cirque du Soleil, who once performed as a fire breather, was intended to provide a moment of levity for his wife and children during a video linkup. But it also served a more serious purpose: to draw attention to the crusade for which he paid $35 million to journey into orbit – the need for clean water on Earth.

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Culture (Not Just Genes) Drives Evolution

Genetic Geography. Cultural differences have manifested themselves in the DNA of distinct, regional populations, according to a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The above illustration shows a DNA sequence beside a helix model. Getty Images

From Discovery News:

Culture, not just genes, can drive evolutionary outcomes, according to a study released Wednesday that compares individualist and group-oriented societies across the globe.

Bridging a rarely-crossed border between natural and social sciences, the study looks at the interplay across 29 countries of two sets of data, one genetic and the other cultural.

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Creative Is Latest To Tackle E-book Readers

From CNET:

The question is, who isn't getting in on the e-book reader action these days? Less than two weeks after we met Barnes & Nobles' Nook and just a few days after hearing of tire maker Bridgestone's plans for a flexible e-reader, our friends at Crave UK alerted us that Creative may be hopping on the e-reader bandwagon as well.

Creative fan site EpiZenter.net (so named for Creative's family of popular Zen MP3 players) reports that the company showed off a working model of its first e-book reader, tentatively named the MediaBook, at its annual general meeting Thursday in Singapore. The device reportedly has a touch screen, text-to-speech function, and an SD memory card slot. It will run on Creative's Zii System-On-Chip technology and will be Internet-enabled.

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English Wine Gets Help From Space

The system can help to optimise harvests, and hopefully wine quality

From BBC:

A number of English vineyards have signed up to make use of a satellite imaging service to boost harvests.

The satellite measures a vineyard's reflectivity in a number of colours in the visible and infrared.

The Oenoview system, first launched in France last year, analyses the images to determine vine leaf density, soil water content and grape bunch sizes.

The English Wine Producers trade group said that wines made using the system could be available as early as 2011.

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Heaven Can Wait

Patients recount near-death experiences in drawings

From Newsweek:

A new book promises incontrovertible proof of the afterlife. That's cold comfort to those of us left behind.

On a spring day last year, three months after the death of my younger son, Max, I opened my front door and saw a butterfly resting on the steps—an Eastern tiger swallowtail, I later determined, a species native to the Northeast but not one I remembered seeing before in the middle of Brooklyn. The date stuck in my mind because, as it happens, it was also my birthday. The butterfly, with its otherworldly beauty and silence, is, of course, a common metaphor for the soul. Its emergence from entombment as a chrysalis may have inspired ideas about human resurrection.

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Regeneration Can Be Achieved After Chronic Spinal Cord Injury

Mark Tuszynski, MD, PhD. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - San Diego)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Oct. 31, 2009) — Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report that regeneration of central nervous system axons can be achieved in rats even when treatment delayed is more than a year after the original spinal cord injury.

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Oldest Known Spider Webs Discovered

This light micrograph shows spider web threads coated with sticky droplets (left panel) and threads with helical twists (right panel) that were preserved inside amber for about 140 million years. Credit: Martin Brasier.

From Live Science:

Silken spider webs dating back some 140 million years have been discovered preserved in amber, scientists announce today.

The viscous tree sap flowed over the spider webs before hardening and preserving the contents, which were discovered in Sussex, England. Other bits sealed up in the amber included plant matter, insect droppings and ancient microbes.

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Earhart's Final Resting Place Believed Found

Amelia Earhart appears above in her flight gear in this undated photo. Legendary aviator Amelia Earhart mostly likely died on an tropical island in the southwestern Pacific. AP

From Discovery News:

Oct. 23, 2009 -- Legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart most likely died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).

Tall, slender, blonde and brave, Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Her final resting place has long been a mystery.

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Researchers Ask How Best To Engineer The Planet

From CNET:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--A group of academics on Friday considered the ultimate engineering challenge: building machines to stabilize the earth's climate.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology convened a symposium here to discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of geoengineering, also called climate engineering. Everything from shooting light-blocking particles into the atmosphere to "artificial trees" is being seriously studied, despite trepidation among researchers and opposition from others.

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