Magnesium May Boost Brainpower

From Live Science:

Mice given extra doses of a new magnesium compound had better working memory, long-term memory and greater learning ability.

Before you go popping heavy doses of magnesium, however, know that much more testing is needed. Though rodent brains work similarly to ours, animal studies do not always predict what will happen in humans.

"If MgT is shown to be safe and effective in humans, these results may have a significant impact on public health," said Guosong Liu, director of the Center for Learning and Memory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.

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NASA Budget For 2011 Eliminates Funds For Manned Lunar Missions

Photo: No one will be following in Buzz Aldrin's footsteps under the new budget, which effectively ends plans for lunar flight by 2020. (Nasa Via Associated Press)

From The Washington Post:

NASA's grand plan to return to the moon, built on President George W. Bush's vision of an ambitious new chapter in space exploration, is about to vanish with hardly a whimper. With the release Monday of President Obama's budget request, NASA will finally get the new administration's marching orders, and there won't be anything in there about flying to the moon.

The budget numbers will show that the administration effectively plans to kill the Constellation program that called for a return to the moon by 2020. The budget, expected to increase slightly over the current $18.7 billion, is also a death knell for the Ares 1 rocket, NASA's planned successor to the space shuttle. The agency has spent billions developing the rocket, which is still years from its first scheduled crew flight.

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I, Virus: Why You're Only Half Human

Part of our DNA (Image: Mehau Kulyk/SPL/Getty)

From New Scientist:

WHEN, in 2001, the human genome was sequenced for the first time, we were confronted by several surprises. One was the sheer lack of genes: where we had anticipated perhaps 100,000 there were actually as few as 20,000. A bigger surprise came from analysis of the genetic sequences, which revealed that these genes made up a mere 1.5 per cent of the genome. This is dwarfed by DNA deriving from viruses, which amounts to roughly 9 per cent.

On top of that, huge chunks of the genome are made up of mysterious virus-like entities called retrotransposons, pieces of selfish DNA that appear to serve no function other than to make copies of themselves. These account for no less than 34 per cent of our genome.

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Scientists Set For Nuclear Fusion Fuel Switch-On

From The Independent:

A pivotal step in the march towards fusion power, the "Holy Grail" of sustainable clean energy, could be taken this year.

Scientists in the US are preparing for the dramatic moment when the world's most powerful laser unleashes the nuclear force that lights up the Sun and achieves "ignition".

At that moment, 192 laser beams housed in a building the size of three football pitches will focus on a target the size of a peppercorn to trigger a self-sustaining fusion reaction.

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NASA's Next Space Suit

Photo: To infinity and beyond: David Clark Company, in partnership with Oceaneering International, is designing a new U.S. space suit for missions to the space station, moon, and Mars. It has interchangeable parts, so the arms, legs, boots, and helmet can be switched. The first configuration, shown here, is designed for launch, descent, and emergency activities, while the second design is meant for lunar exploration. Credit: Brittany Sauser

From Technology Review:

Engineers are developing a more flexible outfit--just the thing for a mission to the moon.

If NASA returns to the moon in 2020 as planned, astronauts will step out in a brand-new space suit. It will give them new mobility and flexibility on the lunar surface while still protecting them from its harsh environment. The suit will also be able to sustain life for up to 150 hours and will even be equipped with a computer that links directly back to Earth.

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Google’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Mantra Is ‘Bullshit,’ Adobe Is Lazy: Apple’s Steve Jobs

From Epicenter:

After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.

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Scientists Say Crack HIV/AIDS Puzzle For Drugs

From Reuters:

Study solves puzzle that eluded scientists for 20 years.

* Finding should help development of new HIV/AIDS medicines
* Allows scientists to see how Merck and Gilead drugs work

LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Scientists say they have solved a crucial puzzle about the AIDS virus after 20 years of research and that their findings could lead to better treatments for HIV.

British and U.S. researchers said they had grown a crystal that enabled them to see the structure of an enzyme called integrase, which is found in retroviruses like HIV and is a target for some of the newest HIV medicines.

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Egypt To Announce King Tut DNA Test Results

From Yahoo News/AP:

CAIRO – Egypt will soon reveal the results of DNA tests made on the world's most famous ancient king, the young Pharaoh Tutankhamun, to answer lingering mysteries over his lineage, said the antiquities department Sunday.

Speaking at a conference, archaeology chief Zahi Hawas said he would announce the results of the DNA tests and the CAT scans on Feb. 17. The results will be compared to those made of King Amenhotep III, who may have been Tutankamun's grandfather.

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Fans Hail First 3D Broadcast Of A Football Match As Better Than Being In The Stadium

Specs on: Football fans at a London pub watch the world's first live broadcast of a match in 3D

From The Daily Mail:

A moment of television history was made today as football fans watched the world's first broadcast of a match in 3D.

Sky Sports broadcast the Arsenal versus Manchester United game to nine pubs across the UK using the latest polarised 3D method.

Fans at the Railway Tavern pub in central London gave the new 3D viewing experience the thumbs-up.

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Archaeology In Jerusalem: Digging Up Trouble

Contested ground Workers at a site in East Jerusalem have uncovered bones and other evidence of early habitation. Yoray Liberman — Getty for TIME

From Time Magazine:

The Jerusalem syndrome is a psychological disorder in which a visit to the holy city triggers delusional and obsessive religious fantasies. In its extreme variety, people wander the lanes of the Old City believing they are biblical characters; John the Baptist, say, or a brawny Samson, sprung back to life.

Archaeologists in the Holy Land like to joke that their profession is vulnerable to a milder form of the syndrome. When scientists find a cracked, oversize skull in the Valley of Elah, it can be hard to resist the thought that it might have belonged to Goliath, or to imagine, while excavating the cellars of a Byzantine church, that the discovery of a few wooden splinters might be part of the cross on which Christ died. This milder malady is nothing new. In the mid-19th century, British explorers who came to Jerusalem with a shovel in one hand and a Bible in the other used the holy book as a sort of treasure map in the search for proof of Christianity's origins.

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Levitating Magnet May Yield New Approach To Clean Energy

The Levitated Dipole Experiment (LDX) reactor is housed inside a 16-foot-diameter steel structure in a building on the MIT campus that also houses MIT’s other fusion reactor, a tokamak called Alcator C-mod. (Credit: Photo courtesy of the LDX team, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Jan. 30, 2010) — A new experiment that reproduces the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets has yielded its first significant results. The findings confirm that its unique approach has some potential to be developed as a new way of creating a power-producing plant based on nuclear fusion -- the process that generates the sun's prodigious output of energy.

Fusion has been a cherished goal of physicists and energy researchers for more than 50 years. That's because it offers the possibility of nearly endless supplies of energy with no carbon emissions and far less radioactive waste than that produced by today's nuclear plants, which are based on fission, the splitting of atoms (the opposite of fusion, which involves fusing two atoms together). But developing a fusion reactor that produces a net output of energy has proved to be more challenging than initially thought.

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How Much Sleep Do I Need?

From Live Science/Tech Media:

Scientists can't say exactly how much sleep each person needs, but there are some guidelines. And you should know that serious lack of sleep — less than six or seven hours a night — has been associated with increased risks of high blood pressure, hypertension, obesity, diabetes and cancer.

But much about sleep's role in health, and the how much sleep each person needs, remains a mystery. Some studies have suggested that older people need less sleep. Research reported in the journal Current Biology in 2008 found that when asked to stay in bed for 16 hours in the dark each day for several days, younger people participants slept 9 hours on average while older people got 7.5 hours of shut-eye.

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Kindle vs. iPad: It's Not Zero Sum

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From CBS News:

Amazon provided its most detailed figures on sales of its Kindle, putting the units in the marketplace in the millions. The big questions: How long can Amazon defend its turf vs. Apple's iPad? And will consumers consider the iPad and Kindle to be two completely different devices with different use cases?

The e-commerce giant on Thursday reported another strong quarter, but the highlight of the financials and the call may have been at least some detail on Kindle sales. Due to an accounting change where Amazon can recognize more Kindle revenue up-front, the company had to offer a little more detail than usual about sales. Granted, Amazon didn't offer much, but CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement:

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UN Climate Change Panel Based Claims On Student Dissertation And Magazine Article

Officials were forced earlier this month to retract inaccurate claims in the IPCC's report about the melting of Himalayan glaciers Photo: GETTY

From The Telegraph:

The United Nations' expert panel on climate change based claims about ice disappearing from the world's mountain tops on a student's dissertation and an article in a mountaineering magazine.

The revelation will cause fresh embarrassment for the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which had to issue a humiliating apology earlier this month over inaccurate statements about global warming.

The IPCC's remit is to provide an authoritative assessment of scientific evidence on climate change.

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U.S. Scientists Call For The Creation Of An International Asteroid Defense Agency

Asteroid Defense Let's not keep the proposals too long in committee, yeah? NASA/Don Davis

From Popular Science:

Russia's proposal for an Armageddon-style mission to deflect the space rock Apophis seemed bold, but it's not the only one fretting about a catastrophic impact on Earth. The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) released a new report that calls for an international asteroid defense agency that can organize a proper mission to counter possible asteroid threats, New Scientist reports.

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My Comment: If the global warming community can get billions .... why not this agency.

Universe Has Less Time Left Than Thought

Supermassive black holes are increasing the overall amount of entropy in the universe - and lessening the amount of time the universe has left. Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: The amount of entropy, or disorder, in the observable universe is 30 times higher than previous estimates, report Australian astronomers, suggesting the universe may not have as much time left as previously thought.

Supermassive black holes, dark matter and stars are some of the contributors to the overall entropy of the universe, which is a measure of the irreversible processes occurring throughout.

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iPad's Big Target: E-Readers

From PC World:

The new Apple iPad's color multitouch display will clobber -- but not kill -- the blossoming e-reader market, which includes Amazon.com's Kindle, the Sony Reader and other devices that use gray-scale displays and slower interfaces, some analysts said.

"Apple 's full-color, full motion [iPad] device makes not only netbooks, but any product with an E Ink display look tired and dated," wrote Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe in a blog after spending a few minutes using the tablet device.

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Fun Inc: Why Games are the 21st Century's Most Serious Business -- Book Review

A scene from Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for Technology (2005).

From The Guardian:

Here is a compelling defence of the much maligned but fantastically successful computer game.

It's a curious fact that, though videogames are now the world's largest entertainment industry in financial terms, they are rarely reviewed in the mainstream media. There's a thriving world of academic discussion about gaming but Newsnight Review or The Culture Show hardly ever feature them, and newspapers give them far less coverage than those other pointless-but-fun games played on a field with a ball. It's curious too that, despite their financial success, it's so easy to find people who've not only never played a videogame but who feel viscerally that they're a pernicious waste of time. If games are an artform, arts journalism is mostly uninterested. If they're a sport, they're not one we treat as admirable. The sale of games is increasing by 20% a year but, outside the gaming press, we're not really talking about them.

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Quantcast Cockroaches Inspire Creation of Running Robots

From US News And World Report/National Science Foundation:

Most people shudder at the sight of a cockroach. Scientists, on the other hand, are fascinated. Cockroaches, as it turns out, are a biomechanical wonder that may help researchers design the world’s first legged robots that can run easily over the roughest surfaces.
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Cockroaches are capable of instinctive muscle action that doesn’t require reflex control. For the most part, they don’t have to think about running--they just do it. Researchers at Oregon State University are trying to apply what they are learning from the bodies of these tiny insects to create running robots that can effortlessly cover rough ground.

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India Announces First Manned Space Mission

From BBC:

India's space agency has said it will launch its first manned mission to space in 2016.

A senior official of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) in Bangalore said that two astronauts would take part.

"We are preparing for the manned space flight," Isro Chairman K Radhakrishnan told reporters.

"We will design and develop the space module for the manned mission in the next four years," he said.

Observers say India is emerging as a major player in the multi-billion dollar space market.

In September it launched seven satellites in a single mission, nearly a month after the country's inaugural Moon mission was aborted.

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