Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes

Tomatoes are now known to absorb nutrients from insects they have trapped.
PAUL RICHARD / AFP GETTY

From The Independent:

Botanists at Kew discover the plant is carnivorous, with ability to trap insects.

Vegetarians, look away now.

Potatoes and tomatoes make good eating but they may also have a vicious side that makes them deadly killers on a par with venus fly traps and pitcher plants.

They have been identified as among a host of plants thought to have been overlooked by botanists and explorers searching the world’s remotest regions for carnivorous species.

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Coders, Exploits, Nics And Drops – Welcome To The World Of Web Crime

From Times Online:

The image of online criminals as amateur hackers, breaking into computer systems for kicks, has been out of date for some time. Online crime is dominated by professional criminals and has even given rise to distinct career paths that would-be criminals can choose to pursue from the outset.

On the technical side, “coders” specialise in writing malicious software designed to steal passwords and other personal data; others develop “exploits” designed to defeat security systems and hijack home or corporate PCs. Others provide the infrastructure — the networks, servers and internet connectivity — needed to launch attacks that steal personal information.

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Google Property Portal Threatens Online Housing Market

The service currently operates in Australia, where buyers
can use Google to view properties for sale

From The Daily Mail:

Homebuyers looking to buy a property may be able to use Google under radical plans being considered by the world's most popular website.

The American website giant is understood to be planning to launch an online property portal in the next few months.

If the plan goes ahead, anybody looking to buy a property will be able to use Google to search for properties for sale in any part of the country.

Estate agents said they have been talking to the company about the plans.

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Four-Country Study Finds No Cancer Link To Cellphone Usage

From USA Today:

A large new study is the latest to find no link between rising cellphone use and rates of brain cancer.

Researchers in four Scandinavian countries found no increase in brain tumor diagnoses from 1998 to 2003, when cellphone use in those countries grew sharply, according to a study published online Thursday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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UN Panel Promises To Investigate Leaked 'Climategate' E-Mails

Photo: (Yves Herman/Reuters). Rajendra Pachauri: IPCC chief

From Times Online:

The United Nations panel on climate change has promised to investigate claims that scientists at a British university deliberately manipulated data to support the theory of man-made global warming.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that the allegations raised by leaked e-mails in the so-called "climategate" controversy were too serious to ignore.

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Copenhagen Climate Conference: World Risks 4C Rise Even If There Is A Deal

The rise in temperature will mean melting of the glaciers, sea level rise,
mass droughts and flooding Photo: PA

From The Telegraph:

The world could suffer catastrophic climate change even if there is a deal at Copenhagen, scientists have warned.

The UN summit in the Danish capital is likely to end in a global deal to limit greenhouse gases in order to control global warming.

But writing in the journal Nature, a group of leading academics, have warned that unless countries meet their most ambitious targets temperature rises will go above 3.6F (2C).

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The World's 18 Strangest Roadways: Gallery

Hana Highway: Maui, Hawaii

From Popular Mechanics:

The most direct path between two points is a straight line, but roads are rarely straight, and the ones that are can be terminally boring. Engineers around the world must calculate the most efficient routes over massive mountains, through densely populated cities and around unavoidable bodies of water, all while accounting for the ecological and financial cost of such projects. The results can be astonishing. Here are some of the world's most notable roads and why they stand out.

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Cheaper, Smaller Network Of Spy Satellites Gives Troops On The Ground Their Own Eye In The Sky

Don't You Wish You Knew What's Beyond that Ridge? With Kestrel Eye satellites, grunts on the ground will be able to check out surrounding terrain from a bird's eye view in near real time. USMC

From Popular Science:

Imagine your unit is working through a valley in Eastern Afghanistan trying to root out an insurgent group that’s been operating from the mountains above. It would be strategically advantageous to know exactly who and what awaits you on the other side of each ridge, but the nearest Predator drone is busy monitoring a key mountain pass miles away. What would really be nice is a satellite – your own little eye in the sky – to beam down some real time images of the surrounding landscape. Kestrel Eye, a system of multiple lightweight, low-cost imaging satellites that can be repositioned from the field, aims to do just that.

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A Uranium Shortage Could Derail Plans To Go Nuclear To Cut Carbon Emissions

From The Economist:

THERE is an awesome amount of energy tied up in an atom of uranium. Because of that, projections of the price of nuclear power tend to focus on the cost of building the plant rather than that of fuelling it. But proponents of nuclear energy—who argue, correctly, that such plants emit little carbon dioxide—would do well to remember that, like coal and oil, uranium is a finite resource.

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What Happens When An Enormous Star Blows Up?

Kepler's supernova remnant. The explosion of a star is a catastrophic event. The blast rips the star apart and unleashes a roughly spherical shock wave that expands outward at more than 35 million kilometers per hour (22 million mph) like an interstellar tsunami. What might happen when a really gargantuan star -- one hundreds of times bigger than our sun -- blows up? (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 4, 2009) — What happens when a really gargantuan star -- one hundreds of times bigger than our sun -- blows up? Although a theory developed years ago describes what the explosion of such an enormous star should look like, no one had actually observed one -- until now.

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Ancient Volcano's Devastating Effects Confirmed

This satellite image shows smoldering underground fires that took place at Toba in 1997. A devastating volcanic eruption occurred at the site roughly 73,000 years ago. Credit: NASA

From Live Science:

A massive volcanic eruption that occurred in the distant past killed off much of central India's forests and may have pushed humans to the brink of extinction, according to a new study that adds evidence to a controversial topic.

The Toba eruption, which took place on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia about 73,000 years ago, released an estimated 800 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere that blanketed the skies and blocked out sunlight for six years. In the aftermath, global temperatures dropped by as much as 16 degrees centigrade (28 degrees Fahrenheit) and life on Earth plunged deeper into an ice age that lasted around 1,800 years.

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Richard Branson Joins The Space Race

An artist's impression of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo transported by WhiteKnightTwo.

From The Guardian:

For $200,000, you too could soon be blasting out of the Earth's atmosphere thanks to Richard Branson. But is this really a revolution in space travel?

The Mojave desert, 160km north of Los Angeles, is best known for its unforgiving weather and ancient, almost alien, landscape. On Monday, however, it will play host to a very modern spectacle when Sir Richard Branson unveils the latest stage of his scheme to transform space travel into a cheap, commercial proposition.

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Both Of NASA's Mars Orbiters Are Down For The Count

Engineers are working to restore NASA's two Mars orbiters, Mars Odyssey (shown) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to normal operation (Illustration: NASA/JPL)

From New Scientist:

The Red Planet is experiencing a partial radio blackout this week, as both of NASA's Mars orbiters have been felled by technical glitches. Until one of the probes can be brought back online later this week, the outages will delay operation of the twin Mars rovers, which use the orbiters to efficiently relay data back to Earth.

The main blow to rover operations comes from NASA's Mars Odyssey, which reached the Red Planet in 2001 and has been the prime communications relay for the rovers Spirit and Opportunity since they landed in 2004.

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Intel Shows 48-Core Processor For Research

From Gadget Lab:

Intel’s six- and eight-core processors are the fastest chips that consumers can get their hands on. But if you are among the research elite, the company has a new experimental chip that can offer nearly 20 times the computing power.

Intel showed an 48-core processor nicknamed the “single-chip cloud computer” that consumes about the same power as desktop processors available currently. The fully programmable 48 processing cores are the most Intel has ever had on a single silicon chip, says the company.

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New Technique To "Revolutionise" Astronomy

Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: There is a frustrating amount of light pollution in the night sky. But a new invention could "revolutionise" the way astronomers see the stars, said an Australian-German collaboration last night.

"Once up and running it will exceed the power of the James Webb telescope [which will be the successor to Hubble]," said project leader, astronomer Joss Bland-Hawthorn from the University of Sydney in Australia.

Space telescopes are able to view the stars without the interference of the Earth's atmosphere. On Earth, however, interference from the atmosphere can hinder astronomical 'seeing'.

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World’s Tallest Building, Burj Dubai Tower, Opens As A Golden Era Closes

From Christian Science Monitor:

Dubai Tower opens next month. But will this crowning jewel also be the city's high watermark?

Burj Dubai Tower, the world’s tallest building, is a spire of superlatives.

The 160-story skyscraper will open on January 4, the fourth anniversary of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashed al-Maktoum’s rule in Dubai.

Under the Sheikh, Dubai has seen a boom in record breakers, impressive firsts, and baffling spectacles. For example, the city is or will be home to the world’s first refrigerated beach, a twirling tower, the world’s largest arch-supported bridge, and artificial islands in the shape of the world map.

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Human Genetic Revelations Coming In 2010

From Future Pundit:

Writing in The Economist Geoffrey Miller says in 2010 human genetic research results will show some politically incorrect beliefs about human nature are correct. Looking ahead to 2010 and beyond I am reminded of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's 5 stages of death. I think these apply to beliefs as well.

Human geneticists have reached a private crisis of conscience, and it will become public knowledge in 2010. The crisis has depressing health implications and alarming political ones. In a nutshell: the new genetics will reveal much less than hoped about how to cure disease, and much more than feared about human evolution and inequality, including genetic differences between classes, ethnicities and races.

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Forensics Machine To Boost Hunt For Bomb Fragments

Millimetre-sized fragments are examined in fume cabinets.

From BBC News:

The guidance for visitors informs us that we will receive a warning prior to the detonation of an explosive device.

It urges us not to be alarmed and to "be prepared for a bang".

The advice is welcome, if not entirely unexpected. It's a reminder of the vital and hazardous work carried out here at the UK's Forensic Explosives Laboratory (FEL).

Situated in Kent's leafy North Downs, FEL is the world's oldest forensic science laboratory, established 130 years ago.

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Bad Teeth Tormented Ancient Egyptians

Photo: The mummy of Seqenenre Tao II, shown here, was among 3,000 specimens analyzed for cause of death. The mask shows the marks from the axe blow and the two spear thrusts that brought about his death. Getty Images

From Discover News:

A systematic review of more than 3,000 mummy analyses reveal ancient Egyptians suffered from periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities.

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years.

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Synthetic Magnetic Fields 'Trick' Neutral Atoms Into Acting As If Electrically Charged

A pair of laser beams (red arrows) impinges upon an ultracold gas cloud of rubidum atoms (green oval) to create synthetic magnetic fields (labeled Beff). (Inset) The beams, combined with an external magnetic field (not shown) cause the atoms to "feel" a rotational force; the swirling atoms create vortices in the gas. (Credit: JQI)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 3, 2009) — Achieving an important new capability in ultracold atomic gases, researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute, a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland, have created "synthetic" magnetic fields for ultracold gas atoms, in effect "tricking" neutral atoms into acting as if they are electrically charged particles subjected to a real magnetic field.

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