EADS Astrium Develops Space Power Concept

From BBC:

Europe's biggest space company is seeking partners to fly a demonstration solar power mission in orbit.

EADS Astrium says the satellite system would collect the Sun's energy and transmit it to Earth via an infrared laser, to provide electricity.

Space solar power has been talked about for more than 30 years. However, there have always been question marks over its cost, efficiency and safety.

But Astrium believes the technology is close to proving its maturity.

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Remarks On Internet Freedom By Hillary Clinton

Remarks on Internet Freedom -- Hillary Clinton, Real Clear World

The Newseum
Washington, DC
January 21, 2010

Thank you very much, Alberto, for not only that kind introduction but your and your colleagues' leadership of this important institution. It's a pleasure to be here at the Newseum. The Newseum is a monument to some of our most precious freedoms, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to discuss how those freedoms apply to the challenges of the 21st century.

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500-Year-Old Nostradamus Prophecies Become First French Book To Be Archived On Google

Preserved: A 16th-century edition of predictions by Nostradamus has become the first French book to be digitally archived by Google

From The Daily Mail:

A sixteenth century edition of predictions by Nostradamus has become the first book from France's vast archive of literature to be digitally preserved by Google.

The collection of prophecies is from a vault containing 500,000 classic French books stored at the Municipal Library of Lyon.

Nostradamus is best known for The Prophecies, the first edition of which appeared in 1555 and has rarely been out of print since his death.

France has a 750million euro (£650million) scheme in place to digitise its libraries and museums.

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Llama Proteins Could Play A Vital Role In The War On Terror

Two llama ignoring the view of Machu Picchu. (Credit: iStockphoto/Marshall Bruce)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 21, 2010) — Scientists at the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) have for the first time developed a highly sensitive means of detecting the seven types of botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) simultaneously.

The BoNT-detecting substances are antibodies -- proteins made by the body to fight diseases -- found in llamas. BoNT are about 100 billion times more toxic than cyanide, and collectively, they are the only toxins in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 'category A' list of potential bioterror threats alongside anthrax, Ebola virus and other infectious agents.

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U.S. Babies Are Getting Smaller

From Live Science:

Babies born in the United States are getting smaller, according to a new study. The findings suggest that birth weights in this country have declined during the past 15 years, most dramatically among the least likely group of mothers.

The researchers estimate that birth weights for full-term babies have decreased by an average of 1.83 ounces (52 grams) between 1990 and 2005.

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Six Industries Apple's Tablet Could Shake Up

From Popular Mechanics:

Apple's tablet announcement is next week. And like the iPhone before it, the product may well have a power that ripples far beyond its on-sale date. Here are six industries that the Apple tablet could shake up.

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This Spring's Hottest New Accessory: A Bionic Limb?

Aimee Mullins Howard Schatz via aimeemullins.com

From Popular Science:

As if people weren't worrying enough about advanced prostheses making amputees stronger than normal humans, now we have to worry if they are going to make them sexier, too. The prosthetics industry is growing rapidly, and, according to Hugh Herr, the director of MIT Media Lab's Biomechatronics Group, advanced prostheses will soon become envied in the same way the newest electronic gadget or the hottest car is today.

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Daily Pint Of Blueberry Juice 'Could Help Stop Memory Loss', Study Suggests

Those who drank blueberry juice showed a "significant improvement
on learning and memory tests", scientists said.

From The Telegraph:

A daily pint of blueberry juice could help reduce memory loss, according to scientists.

According to the study of pensioners with signs of dementia, the fruit was found to sharpen recall, even when memory had started to fail.

In the first such test on humans, the group of pensioners drank the juice over 12 weeks, which helped improve their memory and recall in a series of tests.

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Why Amazon Won't Launch Its Own Tablet, But Will Use Apple's

From ARS Technica:

The Kindle game is up, and Amazon knows it. In 2010, the world plus dog will be hawking an E-Ink-based e-reader, and major distribution and publishing houses like Barnes & Noble, Google, and Hearst will be offering their digital content on everything with a screen. That's why Amazon gave up some royalty money to e-book publishers on Wednesday, and announced a SDK and app store for the Kindle on Thursday.

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Mammals 'Floated To Madagascar'

From the BBC:

The ancestors of the current mammals found on the island of Madagascar could have been transported on floating vegetation from Africa, a study says.

Researchers modelled ancient ocean currents and found that favourable conditions existed in the same period as when mammals arrived on the island.

The idea of "rafting" first emerged in 1940, but some argued that a "land bridge" allowed animals to walk there.

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China, Google And The Cloud Wars -- A Commentary

Google has threatened to quit China over censorship and cyberattacks. Photo AFP

From Holman Jenkins, Wall Street Journal:

What does Google know about you? What does the Chinese government know about you?

Now you know a less-spoken reason why Google has gone to the mattresses over Chinese hacking. Always in the cards, since the birth of the Web, was the possibility that some great Internet business—a Yahoo or Google or Amazon or Facebook—would be destroyed overnight by a cataclysmic loss of trust in its protection of consumer data.

We haven't seen this phenomenon yet, but it has seemed almost inevitable that sooner or later we will.

Google's response to the discovery that Chinese hackers—likely government hackers—had tried to ransack its servers has been both energetic and obfuscating. "We love China and the Chinese people," said CEO Eric Schmidt. "This is not about them. It's about our unwillingness to participate in censorship."

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The Age Of The Killer Robot Is No Longer A Sci-fi Fantasy

You can't appeal to robots for mercy or empathy - or punish them afterwards. CHRIS COADY

From The Independent:

In the dark, in the silence, in a blink, the age of the autonomous killer robot has arrived. It is happening. They are deployed. And – at their current rate of acceleration – they will become the dominant method of war for rich countries in the 21st century. These facts sound, at first, preposterous. The idea of machines that are designed to whirr out into the world and make their own decisions to kill is an old sci-fi fantasy: picture a mechanical Arnold Schwarzenegger blasting a truck and muttering: "Hasta la vista, baby." But we live in a world of such whooshing technological transformation that the concept has leaped in just five years from the cinema screen to the battlefield – with barely anyone back home noticing.

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My Comment: The key paragraph in this report is the following, and it sums up perfectly the direction that we are going ....

.... When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, they had no robots as part of their force. By the end of 2005, they had 2,400. Today, they have 12,000, carrying out 33,000 missions a year. A report by the US Joint Forces Command says autonomous robots will be the norm on the battlefield within 20 years. ....

Climate Change Chief Says Sorry For Hot Air Claim Over Melting Glaciers

From The Daily Mail:

The head of the UN's climate change body has been forced to make a humiliating apology over claims the Himalayan glaciers could vanish within 25 years.

Last week it emerged there was no evidence for the warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

After a global outcry, Dr Rajendra Pachauri - chairman of the IPCC - has issued an unprecedented apology.

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Rickets Makes Comeback Among Computer Generation

Rickets, where children develop painful and deformed bow-legs and do not grow properly, is a condition linked with Victorian era poverty.

From The Telegraph:

The growth of the computer generation and changing lifestyles among children are leading to a Vitamin D deficiency and a rise in cases of rickets, medical experts have warned.

They said youngsters were spending more time indoors on their computers rather than previous generations who spent time playing outside with their friends.

The two medical experts have called for Vitamin D to be added to milk and other food products.

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Rover Gives NASA An 'Opportunity' To View Interior Of Mars

This approximately true-color view of Marquette Island comes from combining three exposures that Opportunity's panoramic camera (Pancam) took through different filters during the rover's 2,117th Martian day, or sol, on Mars (Jan. 6, 2010). (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2010) — NASA's Mars exploration rover Opportunity is allowing scientists to get a glimpse deep inside Mars.

Perched on a rippled Martian plain, a dark rock not much bigger than a basketball was the target of interest for Opportunity during the past two months. Dubbed "Marquette Island," the rock is providing a better understanding of the mineral and chemical makeup of the Martian interior.

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Heidi Montag's Plastic Surgery: Obsession Or Addiction?

From Live Science:

When reality TV show star Heidi Montag announced last week that she had undergone 10 plastic surgeries, all in one day, the news was met with some (naturally) raised eyebrows. But she's not alone in her obsession to look perfect by enduring multiple cosmetic enhancements, a phenomenon that has the makings of an addiction, or at least a binge behavior, experts say.

Though Montag, 23, has argued she's not addicted to cosmetic procedures, some psychologists would disagree.

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San Andreas Fault: Could Earthquake Happen Sooner Than Expected?

From Christian Science Monitor:

The frequency of a major earthquake along a key stretch of California’s San Andreas fault could be greater than thought, according to studies published Thursday in the journal Science.

The interval between major earthquakes along a key stretch of California's San Andreas fault appears to be shorter than current assessments indicate, according to two related studies published Thursday.

If these results – in the journal Science – hold up under additional scrutiny, they suggest that this section in southern California, which was responsible for the 1857 Fort Tejon quake, may be relatively close to another rupture.

Yet buried within that estimate may be some good news.

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Young People Spend 7 Hours, 38 Minutes A Day On TV, Video Games, Computer

Should toddlers be allowed to watch TV? Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

From The L.A. Times:

Media are a full-time job plus overtime for children 8 to 18, a Kaiser report says. They devote 53 hours a week to those pursuits, an hour and 17 minutes more than five years ago.

Reporting from Chicago - The amount of time young people spend consuming media has ballooned with around-the-clock access and mobile devices that function practically as appendages, according to a new report.

Young people now devote an average of seven hours and 38 minutes to daily media use, or about 53 hours a week -- more than a full-time job -- according to Kaiser Family Foundation findings released today.

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Is E-Diplomacy The Future? (Video)

Verizon, AT&T May Carry Apple Tablet

Apple has sent invitations for a Jan. 27 event in San Francisco, where the technology company will unveil its long-awaited tablet device. Apple

From FOX News:

Which wireless carrier will offer Apple's soon-to-be-released mystery device? Will it be Verizon? AT&T? The answer, according to sources at the two companies, is both.

As any well-read geek will tell you, Apple is releasing some sort of tablet device next week, and the rumors about features have been flying as fast and furious as those men in tights at Cirque du Soleil. I'm not going to add to the noise by speculating about unreleased details like the size, shape, color, price and general feature list. Instead I'm going to add the other noise: the network noise.

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