Cool Science News

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Vatican Reveals Secret Archives

In a letter dated 1246 from Grand Khan Guyuk, pictured, to Pope Innocent IV, Genghis Khan's grandson demands that the Pontiff travel to central Asia in person

From The Telegraph:

A 13th-century letter from Genghis Khan’s grandson demanding homage from the pope is among a collection of documents from the Vatican’s Secret Archives that has been published for the first time.

The Holy See’s archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years.

High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen before in public, have now been published in a book. The Vatican Secret Archives features a papal letter to Hitler, an entreaty to Rome written on birch bark by a tribe of North American Indians, and a plea from Mary Queen of Scots.

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Domain Name Extension 'Could Boost Cyber-Crime'

From Times Online:

The introduction of internet addresses in non-Roman scripts could offer fresh opportunities to cyber-criminals, experts have warned.

Next year the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) will for the first time accept internet domain names in non-Roman scripts. The domain name is the part of a web address that precedes the “dot”, such as timesonline.

The new internationalised domain names will open up the internet as never before to users whose native language does not use the Roman alphabet. But Roman-reading users face a possible deluge of phishing and e-mail scams.

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Global Warming ALERT: British Experts Predicting Coldest Winter In 100 Years

From YID With LID:

Word to the British, you better buy a new winter coat. Experts are predicting that this will be one of the coldest winters in the past 100 years. This kind of weather was predicted by scientist, Mojib Latif who back in September predicted that earth was going to cool off for the next 20-30 years. Latif said the cooling would be the result of changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the NAO may be partly the cause of warming during the past 30 years.

Its ironic that in Britain, home of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, recently made famous by the climategate is facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years, experts predict temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius (+3 Fahrenheit).

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The Year Ahead: Science

After 10 years of study, the Census for Marine Life will finally publish its report into ocean life. Photograph: Mark Conlin/Alamy

From The Guardian:

Is this finally the year that artificial life will be created?

The year ahead is shaping up to be one long celebration for the world's oldest science academy. The Royal Society formed on a dreary night in London 350 years ago, when the acquisition of scientific knowledge was little more than a hobby for amateurs and polymaths. As part of the celebrations, world-leading researchers have been invited to Britain to thrash out the most pressing questions facing science today: what is consciousness? Where did the universe come from? How are we ever going to feed everybody? Whatever the scientists decide, it will reflect the agenda for the next two decades.

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Why The Powerful Lie, Cheat And Steal

Photo: Tiger Woods may have uncanny concentration when he's on the green, but that same focus doesn't appear to apply off the golf course. Credit: AP Photo

From Discovery News:

Cheating, lying and stealing certainly aren't new social practices, but they were apparently fashionable in 2009.

The year saw a string of scandals involving high-profile personalities from politicians (Gov. Mark Sanford, Sen. John Ensign, Rep. William Jefferson), to corporate executives (Bernie Madoff, Raj Rajaratnam, Allen Stanford) to one golfer pictured here.

Why are powerful people seemingly so powerless to prevent their own transgressions? A new study published in the upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science offers some explanation.

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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Champagne Is Good for Your Heart, Study Suggests -- But Only In Moderation

Champagne toast. (Credit: iStockphoto/Carolyn De Anda)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Research from the University of Reading suggests that two glasses of champagne a day may be good for your heart and circulation. The researchers have found that drinking champagne wine daily in moderate amounts causes improvements in the way blood vessels function.

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100 Years Ago: The Amazing Technology Of 1910

From Live Science:

The dawn of 2010 promises more amazing developments in the world of technology. Already, tourists can visit space, for a price, nearly everything and everyone is going digital, and medical science continues to test the boundaries of what makes us truly human.

One full century ago, the new technologies that had people talking were considered just as groundbreaking. Electricity led the charge of developments that were changing the way people lived every day, with transportation and chemistry not far behind.

As the clocks of 1909 ticked towards 1910, more exciting inventions were just around the corner.

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Six Wacky Robots From 2009 (photos)

From CNET:

Nurse robot Riba

What could be scarier than waking up in a hospital with a giant teddy bear robot nurse at your bedside? Perhaps a giant Hello Kitty robot nurse. But I digress.

Riba, short for Robot for Interactive Body Assistance, can lift elderly patients from wheelchairs and beds. Developers at Japan's state-run Riken research center are calling it the world's first robot to lift people in its arms.

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Have Books Turned Their Last Page?

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News:

Industry Experts Weigh In on How the Rise of E-Readers and E-Books Will Change the Publishing World.

(CBS) The era of the physical "book" may be ending.

This holiday season, Amazon.com says its E-reader, the Kindle, was its most-gifted item ever. And on Christmas Day, according to Amazon.com, E-books actually outsold physical books on the site.

Craig Berman, vice president of global communications at Amazon.com, said, "The best-selling, most wished for, most gifted product across the millions of products we have on Amazon is Amazon Kindle, our wireless e-reader."

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Advancing Through A Decade

Science shed light on mysteries of evolution, dark matter and the deep ocean.

From The BBC:

The noughties saw the discovery of key characters in the story of our own evolution, the full catalogue of the human genome and an enhanced understanding of mysterious dark matter.

The biggest physics experiment in the world switched on, broke down, and got up and running once again.

Here, some of the leading scientists at the forefront of the past decade's most significant research tell us what it all really means.

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Obama Set to Launch Vision For NASA

From USA Today:

WASHINGTON — President Obama will chart a course for NASA within weeks, based on the advice of a handful of key advisers in the administration and Congress.

Obama, who met Dec. 16 with NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, hasn't said when or how he'll announce his new policy.

The announcement likely will come by the time the president releases his fiscal 2011 budget in early February, because he must decide how much money the space agency should get.

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Concern As China Clamps Down On Rare Earth Exports

A neodymium magnet, commonly used in motors, loudspeakers and other appliances. Neodymium is a rare earth element. ALAMY

From The Independent:

Neodymium is one of 17 metals crucial to green technology. There’s only one snag – China produces 97% of the world’s supply. And they’re not selling.

Britain and other Western countries risk running out of supplies of certain highly sought-after rare metals that are vital to a host of green technologies, amid growing evidence that China, which has a monopoly on global production, is set to choke off exports of valuable compounds.

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Cracking The Majorana Code

From New Scientist:

A brilliant but fiercely eccentric Sicilian nuclear physicist writes a string of suicide notes, then disappears. He is never seen again. Yet he was carrying his passport and enough cash to start a new life.

Were the notes a clever decoy?

For decades, João Magueijo, a professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College London, has been obsessed by the story behind Ettore Majorana's disappearance.

"He's been with me throughout my scientific career as a shadow I've never been able to shake off," Magueijo declares in the prologue to A Brilliant Darkness. And so, to lay the ghost to rest, he has conducted his own investigation.

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Best Space Probe Photographers Of The Decade -- From Discovery News

Stuck in the Sand, But Enjoying the View -- On the other side of Mars, Opportunity's twin rover Spirit is stuck in a sand trap within Gusev Crater. Before getting stuck, Spirit had lost the use of one of its wheels and it was suffering bouts of memory loss. But it's not all bad news. While stuck, Spirit has been carrying out limited science activities, uncovering evidence for ancient water under its wheels. Image: Sunrise on Mars as witnessed by Mars Rover Spirit (NASA/JPL)

What And When Is Death?

From The New Atlantis:

All living things die. This is not new and it has nothing to do with technology. What is new in our technological age, however, is an uncertainty about when death has come for some human beings. These human beings, as an unintended consequence of efforts to prevent death, are left suspended at its threshold. Observing them in this state of suspension, we, the living, have a very hard time knowing what to think: Is the living being still among us? Is there still a present for this person or has the long reign of the past tense begun: Is he or was he? The phenomenon is popularly known as “brain death,” but the name is misleading. Death accepts no modifiers. There is only one death. Has it occurred or not? Alive or dead?

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Lithium-Air Batteries Could Displace Gasoline In Future Cars

Argonne researcher Lynn Trahey loads a coin-sized cell on a testing unit used to evaluate electrochemical cycling performance in batteries. (Credit: Photo by Wes Agresta / Courtesy of Argonne National Laboratory)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 31, 2009) — In excess of seven million barrels of gasoline are consumed by vehicles in the United States every day. As scientists race to find environmentally sound solutions to fuel the world's ever-growing transportation needs, battery researchers are exploring the promise of lithium-air battery technology.

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10 New Year's Resolutions To Keep You Alive

From Live Science:

Americans spend billions every year on a dizzying array of health schemes, but much of that money goes toward treatments and pills that do little if any good, or that mask underlying health issues by alleviating symptoms temporarily.

Meanwhile, some of the best approaches to health care are cheap and within your grasp, if only you can find the will to make some lifestyle changes.

If you're searching for a good New Year's resolution, here are 10 to pick from, along with the scientific reasons why you may want to actually keep them.

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Britain Facing One Of The Coldest Winters In 100 Years, Experts Predict

Parts of Scotland have had snowcover for nearly three weeks

From The Telegraph:

Britain is bracing itself for one of the coldest winters for a century with temperatures hitting minus 16 degrees Celsius, forecasters have warned.

They predicted no let up in the freezing snap until at least mid-January, with snow, ice and severe frosts dominating.

And the likelihood is that the second half of the month will be even colder.

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Ex-Googler Lee Sees Apple Tablet Debut In January

Kai-fu Lee (Credit: Google)

From CNET:

Sure, every blogger worth his salt has weighed in on the long-rumored Apple tablet that may or may not be--its possible size, shape, specs, debut date, and on and on. Now offering up a perspective on the matter is a high-profile tech industry executive, Kai-fu Lee, who until recently was the head of Google's China operations.

It seems that Lee, who's now working to foster entrepreneurship in China, wrote on his Chinese language blog earlier this week that Apple CEO Steve Jobs will be releasing a tablet PC in January, and expects to produce a voluminous 10 million in the first year, according to the IDG News Service and other media outlets.