Monday, January 25, 2010
A Cannon For Shooting Supplies Into Space
How the Space Cannon Works John MacNeill From Popular Science:
John Hunter wants to shoot stuff into space with a 3,600-foot gun. And he’s dead serious—he’s done the math. Making deliveries to an orbital outpost on a rocket costs $5,000 per pound, but using a space gun would cost just $250 per pound.
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Comet Storm Split Destiny Of Jupiter's Twin Moons
Comet strikes may have warmed Ganymede enough for itsice and rock to fully separate (Image: NASA/JPL)
From New Scientist:
Heavy pummelling by icy comets could explain why Jupiter's two biggest moons – apparently close kin – look so different inside.
At first glance, Ganymede and Callisto are virtually twins. The colossal moons are similar in size and mass, and are a roughly 50:50 mixture of ice and rock.
However, visits by the Galileo spacecraft beginning in 1996 tell a different story. Ganymede's interior boasts a solid rock core surrounded by a thick layer of ice, while ice and rock are still mingled in parts of Callisto. That suggests Callisto was never warm enough for its ice to melt and allow all of its rock to fall to the centre and form a core.
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If Your Password Is 123456, Just Make It HackMe
From New York Times:Back at the dawn of the Web, the most popular account password was “12345.”
Today, it’s one digit longer but hardly safer: “123456.”
Despite all the reports of Internet security breaches over the years, including the recent attacks on Google’s e-mail service, many people have reacted to the break-ins with a shrug.
According to a new analysis, one out of five Web users still decides to leave the digital equivalent of a key under the doormat: they choose a simple, easily guessed password like “abc123,” “iloveyou” or even “password” to protect their data.
“I guess it’s just a genetic flaw in humans,” said Amichai Shulman, the chief technology officer at Imperva, which makes software for blocking hackers. “We’ve been following the same patterns since the 1990s.”
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Sunday, January 24, 2010
Neurons Developed From Stem Cells Successfully Wired With Other Brain Regions In Animals
This is a single stem cell-derived neuron that has migrated away from the transplantation site in the cortex and grown into a mature neuron. The blue stain shows the nuclei of the endogenous neural cells in this part of the brain. (Credit: Courtesy, with permission: Weimann et al. The Journal of Neuroscience 2010.)From Science Daily:
Science Daily (Jan. 24, 2010) — Transplanted neurons grown from embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into the brains of young animals, according to new research in the Jan. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
Healthy brains have stable and precise connections between cells that are necessary for normal behavior. This new finding is the first to show that stem cells can be directed not only to become specific brain cells, but to link correctly.
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Why Human Blood Drives Mosquitoes Wild
Image of the Culex quinquefasciatus mosquito, an insect that is attracted to the sent of human blood. Credit: Kathy Keatley Garvey, UC Davis Department of Entomology From Live Science:
When the time came for chemical ecologist Walter Leal to test whether humans make a natural odor that attracts mosquitoes, Leal himself was the first to volunteer.
"I measured my own levels," Leal said. "I thought I would set a good example. If you do it first, then others won't be scared."
In truth, there was little if any reason to be frightened. The scientists were looking only for the substance itself, not trying to find out whether the compound would lure the insects into a blood meal. And they found it — nonanal, a substance made by humans and birds that creates a powerful scent that Culex mosquitoes find irresistible.
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For £17.7m ($28.2 million), Shuttle Is A Gift That's Out Of This World
The price of Nasa's Space Shuttle fleet has just been slashed from £25.8m. GettyFrom The Independent:
It flew faster and higher than any machine in history and was the was the ultimate boy's toy, but at $42 million (£25.8 m) it was beyond most budgets. But now the price of Nasa's soon-to-be redundant space shuttles has plummeted to something more down-to-earth: a new analysis of the costs of hauling the monster from the Kennedy Space Centre to a major US airport has led the space agency to slash the price to $28.2 m (£17.7m) .
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My Technology Predictions For 2010
I'm not forecasting flying cars this year - but will we have them by 2015?From The Guardian:
It's prediction time again! Yes, I know that January is half-over already, but that gives me less time to make it all happen, doesn't it?
And remember, fully two-thirds of these should be correct, going by past performance. Although please remember that your home may be at risk if you bet it on any single one of these things happening.
So without further ado, let's get under way …
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Scientists Announce The End Of The Mid-Life Crisis: Life Really Does Begin At 40, They Say
Life's a beach: Over-40s are 'free to enjoy life' according to a psychologistFrom The Daily Telegraph:
Life really can begin at 40, an expert claimed yesterday.
Improvements in healthcare, education and life expectancy have made the mid-life crisis a thing of the past, according to psychologist Dr Carlo Strenger.
'Somehow this line has been drawn around the mid and late 40s as a time for a mid-life crisis in our society,' he said.
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Prairie Dogs Most 'Chatty'
Prairie dogs are highly social and live in large colonies that can span hundreds of acres of the grasslands of North America Photo: ALAMY From The Telegraph:
On first appearances they seem to be little more than a kind of nervous ground squirrel with a loud squeak, but new research is revealing that prairie dogs are in fact some of nature's most talkative creatures.
Biologists studying the burrowing rodents have found that they have one of the most sophisticated languages in the animal kingdom – second only to humans.
The findings have surprised many wildlife experts as it was assumed that mankind's closest relatives, primates, or intelligent mammals such as dolphins were likely to be the most talkative species after humans.
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Show And Sell: The Secret To Apple's Magic
From Popular Science:Flash an exotic prototype, then—Presto!—get people to buy your more boring stuff. That kind of thinking still rules at most electronics companies. Apple under Steve Jobs only shows off actual products. The difference? Apple's arcane secret to success.
A specter harrows the consumer electronics industry: malaise. Like washed-up Catskill magicians unable to let go of old routines while a brash upstart steals their audience, nearly every maker of consumer electronics in the world clings to a quaint song-and-dance about prototypes.
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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 IIIFrom 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 ImagesFrom 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 RobertsonFrom 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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