Quartz Rods Could Provide Instant Bomb Detector

Destroyed by a TATP bomb (Image: Dylan Martinez/PA archive/PA)

From New Scientist:

A CHEAP artificial nose promises to make it much easier to detect the explosive triacetone triperoxide. The device could be installed in the doorways of buses, trains and airports to sound an alarm if someone carrying TATP crosses the threshold.

Attention started to focus on TATP following its use in the 7 July 2005 bus and tube bombings in London, and the attacks on trains the previous year in Madrid, Spain. The explosive can be made using easily obtainable domestic chemicals and has explosive power similar to TNT.

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Back In Fashion: The Mother Of All Computers No Longer Looks That Old

From The Economist:

GEEKS may roll their eyes at the news that Namibia is only now getting its first mainframe—a technology that most consider obsolete. Yet the First National Bank of Namibia, which bought the computer, is at the leading edge of a trend. Comeback is too strong a word, but mainframes no longer look that outdated.

Until the 1980s mainframes, so called because the processing unit was originally housed in a huge metal frame, ruled supreme in corporate data centres. Since then, these big, tightly laced bundles of software and hardware have been dethroned by “distributed systems”, meaning networks of smaller and cheaper machines, usually not based on proprietary technology. But many large companies still run crucial applications on the “big iron”: there are still about 10,000 in use worldwide. Withdraw money or buy insurance, and in most cases mainframes are handling the transaction.

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The First Tweet From Space And Other Twitter Firsts

From PC World:

Tweeting is no longer only an earthly phenomenon.

A NASA astronaut made Twitter history on Friday by sending the first tweet from outer space. Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer broadcast the following message directly from the International Space Station:

"Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station -- the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s"

Take that, Neil Armstrong.

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Mississippi Delta Earthquake: America's Haiti Waiting to Happen?

A CAMP FOR THOUSANDS - As many as 50,000 Haitians sleep in this earthquake survivor camp in the Del Mas area in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 21, 2010. It has grown by thousands since the U.S. Army 82nd Division's 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Squadron started distributing food and water there last week. DoD photo by Fred W. Baker III

From ABC News:

Scientists Predict Haiti-Magnitude Quake Along Fault Under Miss. Delta.

One of the strongest series of earthquakes ever to hit the United States happened not in Alaska or along California's San Andreas fault, but in southeast Missouri along the Mississippi River.

In 1811 and 1812, the New Madrid fault zone that zig zags through five states shook so violently that it shifted furniture in Washington, D.C., and rang church bells in Boston. The series of temblors changed the course of the Mississippi River near Memphis, and historical accounts claim the river even flowed backward briefly.

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Spectacular X-Ray Tails Surprise Astronomers

MSU's Megan Donahue was part of an international team of astronomers that viewed this rare double-tailed gas cloud. (Credit: Photo courtesy of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2010) — Astronomer were surprised to find two distinct "tails" found on a long tail of gas that is believed to be forming stars where few stars have been formed before.

"The double tail is very cool -- that is, interesting -- and ridiculously hard to explain," said Donahue, a professor in MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy. "It could be two different sources of gas or something to do with magnetic fields. We just don't know."

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Canned Beer Turns 75

From Live Science:

Be sure to crack open a cold one on Jan. 24, the day canned beer celebrates its 75th birthday.

New Jersey's Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company churned out the world's first beer can in 1935, stocking select shelves in Richmond, Va., as a market test. The experiment took off and American drinkers haven't looked back since, nowadays choosing cans over bottles for the majority of the 22 gallons of beer they each drink per year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Sanity check: 2008 & 2009 Were The Coolest Years Since 1998 In The USA

From Watts Up With That?

While the press is hyperventilating over NASA GISS recent announcement of the “Hottest Decade Ever“, it pays to keep in mind what happened the last two years of the past decade.

According to NCDC, 2009 temperatures in the US (53.13F) were the 33rd warmest and very close to the long term mean of 52.86F.

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Top Ten Passions Of Ancient Rome

Getty Images

From The Independent:

From sex, binge drinking, and the culture of pleasure Ray Laurence looks at Roman passion.

By the time of the emperors, the Romans had created the world’s first global empire stretching from Morocco in the west to Iraq in the east, and from Scotland in the north to Egypt in the south.

Around this empire flowed a treasure trove of goods from far flung lands: slaves, spices, precious stones, and coloured marble, as well as an exotic array of foods and wine.

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Animal Research Study Shows Many Tests Are Full Of Flaws

Marmoset monkeys used in animal research are given marshmallows at a testing centre. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

From The Guardian:

Whether you support or detest such experiments, it's important to know if they are well conducted.

Like many people, you're possibly afraid to share your views on animal experiments, because you don't want anyone digging up your grandmother's grave, or setting fire to your house, or stuff like that. Animal experiments are necessary, they need to be properly regulated, and we have some of the tightest regulation in the world.

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Humans 'Could One Day Be Capable Of Running Up To 40mph'

Humans could be capable of running up to 40mph,
12 miles faster than the world's fastest man Usain Bolt

From The Daily Mail:

A new study suggests humans could one day run at speeds of up to 40mph - more than 10 miles faster than the world's fastest runner Usain Bolt.

Researchers investigating the factors that limit human speed found that the top speed humans are capable of may be determined by how quickly muscles in the body can move.

Previous studies have suggested the main hindrance to speed is that limbs can only take a certain amount of force.

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Aliens Might Not Be Friendly, Warns Astronomer

Do aliens exist? And would they be friendly? Photo: GETTY IMAGES

From The Telegraph:

Scientists searching for alien life should get governments and the UN involved lest we unwittingly contact hostile extraterrestrials, a British astronomer has warned.

The caution comes as more experts argue that the search for intelligent life should be stepped up.

Mr Marek Kukula, public astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, said: "Part of me is with the enthusiasts and I would like us to try to make proactive contact with a wiser, more peaceful civilisation."

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Is Rice Domestication To Blame For Red-Faced Asians?

Red in the face. An Asian man having an alcohol flush reaction. Credit: Wikipedia

From Science Magazine:

If your face turns red after drinking just one glass of wine, blame ancient Chinese farmers. Researchers are reporting that the "Asian Flush" mutation cropped up just as rice was first being domesticated, and it may have protected early farmers from the harms of drinking too much. But some other scientists urge caution, saying that the dates may not match up.

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Last Decade Was Warmest on Record, 2009 One of Warmest Years, NASA Research Finds

The map shows temperature changes for the last decade--January 2000 to December 2009--relative to the 1951-1980 mean. Warmer areas are in red, cooler areas in blue. The largest temperature increases occurred in the Arctic and a portion of Antarctica. (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Jan. 22, 2010) — A new analysis of global surface temperatures by NASA scientists finds the past year was tied for the second warmest since 1880. In the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year on record.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade because of a strong La Nina that cooled the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to a near-record global temperatures as the La Nina diminished, according to the new analysis by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The past year was a small fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest on record, putting 2009 in a virtual tie with a cluster of other years --1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007 -- for the second warmest on record.

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Study: Large Earthquake Could Strike New York City

All known quakes, greater New York-Philadelphia area, 1677-2004, graded by magnitude (M). Peekskill, NY, near Indian Point nuclear power plant, is denoted as Pe. Credit: Sykes et al.

From Live Science:

The New York City area is at "substantially greater" risk of earthquakes than previously thought, scientists said Thursday.

Damage could range from minor to major, with a rare but potentially powerful event killing people and costing billions of dollars in damage.

A pattern of subtle but active faults is known to exist in the region, and now new faults have been found. The scientists say that among other things, the Indian Point nuclear power plants, 24 miles north of the city, sit astride the previously unidentified intersection of two active seismic zones.

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UN Climate Panel Blunders Again Over Himalayan Glaciers

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Manan Vatsyayana/AFP/Getty Images)

From Times Online:

The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has used bogus claims that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers.

It means that EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognise as bogus. The revelation comes just a week after The Sunday Times highlighted serious scientific flaws in the IPCC's 2007 benchmark report on the likely impacts of global warming.

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Daredevil Space Diver To Leap Toward World's First Supersonic Free-Fall From 120,000 Feet

Felix Baumgartner: Sven Hoffmann / Red Bull

From Popular Science:

Here’s Felix Baumgartner’s plan: Float a balloon to 120,000 feet. Jump out. Break the sound barrier. Don’t die. Simple, right?

If Baumgartner, a world famous base jumper and skydiver, pulls off the feat, he’ll set the record for the world’s highest jump and become the first person to break the sound barrier with his body alone. During the jump, he’ll also collect data on how the human body reacts to a fall from such heights, which could be useful for planning orbital escape plans for future space tourists and astronauts.

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Scientists Launch Search To Find 'Sean Connery Lookalike'

1963 Bond film, which starred Sean Connery as 007

From The Telegraph:

Scientists have launched a search for an 80-year-old man who looks like James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery.

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) said Sir Sean who turns 80 this summer, was internationally admired for his undimmed appeal in old age.

It is aiming to find another ''equally imposing gentlemen who should share the octogenarian limelight''.

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Empathy With Robots Depends On Exposure

From New Scientist:

Exposure to robots in the movies and television could affect our ability to empathise with synthetic beings, suggests a study of the brain regions thought to be responsible for our ability to relate to each other.

In humans and monkeys, the mirror neuron system (MNS) – a collection of neurons in various parts of the brain, including the premotor cortex and the primary motor cortex – fires both when you perform an action and when you watch someone else perform a similar action.

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Online Music Piracy 'Destroys Local Music'

Photo: Lady Gaga topped the digital download chart of 2009.

From The BBC:

Countries like Spain run the risk of becoming "cultural deserts" because of online file-sharing, the music industry has claimed.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) says that global government legislation is essential to the sector's survival.

It cited Spain as an example of a country which does not have laws in place to prevent illegal downloads.

The sales of albums by local artists there have fallen by 65% in five years.

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China Details Homemade Supercomputer Plans

Photo: Enter China: A prototype four-core Loongson 3 will be produced at commercial scale by STMicro starting this year. Credit: Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

From Technology Review:

The machine will use an unfashionable chip design.

It's official: China's next supercomputer, the petascale Dawning 6000, will be constructed exclusively with home-grown microprocessors. Weiwu Hu, chief architect of the Loongson (also known as "Godson") family of CPUs at the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT), a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also confirms that the supercomputer will run Linux. This is a sharp departure from China's last supercomputer, the Dawning 5000a, which debuted at number 11 on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers in 2008, and was built with AMD chips and ran Windows HPC Server.

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