How To Fall 35,000 Feet—And Survive

From Popular Mechanics:

You're six miles up, alone and falling without a parachute. Though the odds are long, a small number of people have found themselves in similar situations—and lived to tell the tale. Here's PM's 120-mph, 35,000-ft, 3-minutes-to-impact survival guide.

You have a late night and an early flight. Not long after takeoff, you drift to sleep. Suddenly, you’re wide awake. There’s cold air rushing everywhere, and sound. Intense, horrible sound. Where am I?, you think. Where’s the plane?

You’re 6 miles up. You’re alone. You’re falling.

Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news. (Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.

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The Brain: What Is The Speed Of Thought?

iStockphoto

From Discover Magazine:

Faster than a bird and slower than sound. But that may be besides the point: Efficiency and timing seem to be more important anyway.

When Samuel Morse established the first commercial telegraph, in 1844, he dramatically changed our expectations about the pace of life. One of the first telegraph messages came from that year’s Democratic National Convention in Baltimore, where the delegates had picked Senator Silas Wright as their vice presidential nominee. The president of the convention telegraphed Wright in Washington, D.C., to see if he would accept. Wright immediately wired back: No. Incredulous that a message could fly almost instantly down a wire, the delegates adjourned and sent a flesh-and-blood committee by train to confirm Wright’s response—which was, of course, the same. From such beginnings came today’s high-speed, networked society.

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Charting The Winners And Losers In Obama’s Science Budget

From Wired Science:

President Obama’s administration revealed its new budget Monday, and it increases funding for nearly all areas of science.

The largest raise went to the National Institutes of Health, which added $1 billion dollars to an already hefty budget. With the boost, the NIH would receive $32.1 billion in total funding. Only the Centers for Disease Control would receive less money than last year, although the cut is small. NASA, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Science Foundation, as well as smaller research efforts at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and Department of Agriculture, would also get bumps.

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Volcanoes 'Destroyed Ancient Ocean Life'

Volcanic activity led to marine life being wiped out millions of years ago,
a study suggests Photo: Reuters

From The Telegraph:

Volcanic activity may have led to nearly a third of marine life being wiped out around 100 million years ago, research suggests.

It is thought that sulphur produced by volcanoes erupting led to oxygen disappearing from large areas of the oceans.

This caused up to 27 per cent of ocean life being destroyed, according to a report published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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IE8 Is Now The World's Top Browser, Says NetApps, As XP Falls

NetApps' chart for browser trends to January 2010

From The Guardian:

IE8 has just taken the "most used" spot from IE6, which has been hit by the decline in the use of Windows XP, on Net Applications' market share figures for January 2010. Meanwhile, Windows 7 use has just hit 10%.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 has finally become the world's most-used browser, according to Net Applications' figures based on monitoring website usage. IE8 has taken over from IE6, which has been hit by the decline in the use of Windows XP.

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Amazon Capitulates In E-Books Battle As It Gives In To Macmillan's Pricing Demands

'Does this make me cool?': Political satirist Stephen Colbert whips out an Apple iPad during his opening speech at the Grammy Awards last night

From The Daily Mail:

Amazon has given in to publisher Macmillan's pricing demands that will lead to the online retailer raising prices on some of its e-books.

Following Apple's iPad launch last week, Amazon's Kindle has entered into a battle of supremacy with the new gadget.

Apple has said publishers can set their own price for e-books - although it will take 30 per cent, while Amazon currently charges $9.99 for the e-book version of most new releases and bestsellers.

Macmillan wants Amazon to increase their charges to nearer $15.

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NASA Budget: Constellation Officially Canned, But The Deep-Space Future Is Bright

The Ares I-X The Constellation Program rockets will fly no more, but "aggressive" research into heavy-lift rockets should take us closer to manned missions in deep space. NASA

From Popular Science:

Rumors circulated last week, but now it’s official: NASA won’t be sending manned missions back to the moon any time soon. But in what may seem like a gutting of NASA moon- and Mars-based ambitions there is a silver lining: a $6 billion investment in helping private industry bring their space launch vehicles up to human-rated capacity and a smattering of modest robotic precursor missions to the moon, Mars, Martian moons or the Lagrange points that should set the stage for later manned missions far beyond low-earth orbit.

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Google Phases Out Support For IE6

From BBC News:

Google has begun to phase out support for Internet Explorer 6, the browser identified as the weak link in a cyber attack on the search engine.

The firm said from 1 March some of its services, such as Google Docs, would not work "properly" with the browser.

It recommended individuals and firms upgrade "as soon as possible".

Google threatened to withdraw from the Chinese market following the "sophisticated and targeted" attacks, which it said originated in China.

Hackers used a flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser to target the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

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Sea Level In Israel Has Been Rising And Falling Over The Last 2,500 Years

Rising and falling sea levels over relatively short periods do not indicate long-term trends. An assessment of hundreds and thousands of years shows that what seems an irregular phenomenon today is in fact nothing new," explains Dr. Dorit Sivan, who supervised the research. The Templar palace in Acre, seen here, is one of the sites where this study was carried out. (Credit: Amir Yurman, Director of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies Maritime Workshop at the University of Haifa; Courtesy of the University of Haifa)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 1, 2010) — The sea level in Israel has been rising and falling over the past 2,500 years, with a one-meter difference between the highest and lowest levels, most of the time below the present-day level. This has been shown in a new study supervised by Dr. Dorit Sivan, Head of the Department of Maritime Civilizations at the University of Haifa. "Rises and falls in sea level over relatively short periods do not testify to a long-term trend. It is early yet to conclude from the short-term increases in sea level that this is a set course that will not take a change in direction," explains Dr. Sivan.

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Fight, Fight, Fight: The History Of Human Aggression And Weapon Development

From Live Science:

The use of weapons may date back well before the rise of humanity, given evidence that even our closest living relatives, the chimpanzees, can use spears to hunt other primates. To see how fighting evolved from hand-to-hand combat to world war, here are 10 major innovations that revolutionized combat.

--Charles Q. Choi

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Two More Steps Toward Quantum Computing

The first solid state quantum processor, developed at Yale University, can perform simple algorithms. Blake Johnson/Yale University

From Discover Magazine:

Quantum computing—using individual atoms as information carriers—could transform the way we study the world, solving problems that would take many human lifetimes for today’s supercomputers in a matter of days. Unlike conventional computers, which store each piece of data as a single value (either zero or one), quantum processors can take on multiple values simultaneously, which is why they are so efficient. Or rather why they would be, if we could figure out how to build them. So engineers in the field are abuzz about two major advances toward the creation of a practical quantum computer.

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What The iPad Means For The Future Of Computing

From Gadget Lab:

When I picked up my iPhone over the weekend, I had an epiphany. I was using the LinkedIn app to confirm an invitation to connect, and it hit me: This is the future of mobile computing, the mobile web — the mobile experience.

No, I’m not saying the LinkedIn app is the future per se (that’d be silly), but rather the overall concept of it. The LinkedIn iPhone app is, in my opinion, better than the actual LinkedIn.com website. Same goes for the Facebook app compared to Facebook.com.

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World's Most Powerful Laser To Trigger Fusion Reaction This Year

From The Telegraph:

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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Apple iPad Will Choke Innovation, Say Open Internet Advocates

Cutting off the next chapter? Steve Jobs flicks through an ebook on the Apple iPad. Photograph: Kimberly White/Reuters

From The Guardian:

The Apple iPad's closed, iPhone-like environment could shut out the next computing revolution, say industry veterans.

Apple's new iPad tablet computer could hamper innovation and cause long-term damage if it becomes a hit, according to experts.

Just as Steve Jobs tries to wow the world with the "magical" new device - unveiled on Wednesday at a media-saturated launch event in San Francisco – leading industry figures have told the Guardian that the machine marks a fundamental shift in the way the computer industry works.

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Obama To Scrap Nasa Moon Mission In Favour Of Private 'Space Taxis'

Farewell Orion? The Contellation space programme looks set to be scrapped. There had been plans to use the Orion module to ferry astronauts to the ISS, like in this artist's impression

From The Daily Mail:

American dreams of putting another man on the Moon were dashed last night as President Obama announced a spending freeze to help combat a £1trillion U.S. budget deficit.

NASA's plan to launch a series of new manned Moon missions was one of 120 government-funded programmes shelved.

The Constellation Project, started by George Bush, was supposed to restore America's reputation as a pioneer in human exploration and anticipated landings on Mars by the middle of the century.

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New Infographic Visualizes The Space Debris Cloud Surrounding Earth

Space Debris Circles Michael Paukner (See it bigger)

From Popular Science:

My debris field is bigger than yours.

Space debris remains one of the biggest challenges for a space-faring humanity in the 21st century, as even the smallest pieces can pose a serious threat to satellites, manned spacecraft and the International Space Station. Now our friends at Fast Company have stumbled on a nifty infographic by Austrian designer Michael Paukner that lays out the space clutter situation more clearly.

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No Moon Program For NASA

Obama's Proposed Budget For NASA Starts Moon War On Earth -- Washington Post

The battle over space has begun. And it's likely to be brutal.

The Obama administration is attempting to kill NASA's ambitious back-to-the moon program, an effort that carried the imprimatur of George W. Bush. The Constellation program had already run through about $9 billion to develop a new crew capsule, Orion, and a new rocket, the Ares 1. Both are vaporized by Obama's new NASA strategy.

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Update: Obama Calls for End to NASA’s Moon Program -- New York Times

WikiLeaks Whistleblower Site In Temporary Shutdown

From BBC News:

WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website that allows people to publish uncensored information anonymously, has suspended operations owing to financial problems.

Its running costs including staff payments are $600,000 (£377,000), but so far this year it has raised just $130,000 (£81,000).

WikiLeaks has established a reputation for publishing information that traditional media cannot.

The website claims to be non-profit and relies on donations.

A statement on its front page says it is funded by "human rights campaigners, investigative journalists, technologists and the general public".

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Spies And Climate Change

'Climate Emails Hacked By Spies' -- The Independent

Interception bore hallmarks of foreign intelligence agency, says expert.

A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government's former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit's emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation – especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

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My Comment: What a strange way to defend the indefensible. The people who hacked and released these emails should be awarded and praised .... not condemned and threatened by the likes of Sir David King.

If an intelligence agency did this .... kudos to them for revealing the truth to all of us.

Effects of Forest Fire On Carbon Emissions, Climate Impacts Often Overestimated

This stand replacement fire on Cache Mountain burned in the central Oregon Cascade Range in 2002, killing nearly all the overstory trees. By 2007 other non-tree vegetation began to grow back, however, somewhat offsetting the carbon releases from dead wood decomposition. (Credit: Photo by Garrett Meigs, Oregon State University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 1, 2010) — A recent study at Oregon State University indicates that some past approaches to calculating the impacts of forest fires have grossly overestimated the number of live trees that burn up and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result.

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