Moon Dreams The Americans May Still Go To The Moon Before The Chinese

From The Economist:

WHEN America’s space agency, NASA, announced its spending plans in February, some people worried that its cancellation of the Constellation moon programme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rocky satellite. The next footprints on the lunar regolith were therefore thought likely to be Chinese. Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending plan actually makes it more likely America will return to the moon.

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What Happens At Absolute Zero?

The Boomerang Nebula is the coldest natural object known in the universe, seen here by the Hubble Space Telescope (Image: ESA/NASA)

From The New Scientist:

The curious things that happen at low temperatures keep on throwing up surprises. Last week, scientists reported that molecules in an ultra-cold gas can chemically react at distances up to 100 times greater than they can at room temperature.

In experiments closer to room temperature, chemical reactions tend to slow down as the temperature decreases. But scientists found that molecules at frigid temperatures just a few hundred billionths of a degree above absolute zero (−273.15°C or 0 kelvin) can still exchange atoms, forging new chemical bonds in the process, thanks to weird quantum effects that extend their reach at low temperatures.

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The Amazing View From The International Space Station's Brand New Window

Sahara from Space: The world beneath your feet Soichi Noguchi

From Popular Science:

Twitpics from space just got even more interesting with the addition of a brand new cupola window aboard the International Space Station. Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has accordingly updated his Twitter feed with a fresh Twitpic of the Sahara desert framed within the cupola.

"Let there be light! Cupola windows open toward Sahara desert. Priceless!" Noguchi tweeted.

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New Type of Genetic Variation Could Strengthen Natural Selection

Scanning electrograph image of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. (Credit: Image courtesy of NASA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — The unexpected discovery of a new type of genetic variation suggests that natural selection -- the force that drives evolution -- is both more powerful and more complex than scientists have thought.

"We have discovered that natural selection can act not only on whole organisms and individual genes, but also on gene networks," says Antonis Rokas, assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University and senior author of the paper reporting the discovery that was published in the February 18 issue of the journal Nature.

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Tiger Woods And Sex Addiction: Real Disease Or Easy Excuse?

From Live Science:

Tiger Woods is scheduled to break his months-long silence about the sex scandal that has plagued the world's most famous athlete. It's not clear how he will explain himself, though according to some reports Woods has been attending a private rehabilitation clinic in Mississippi that treats addictions — including sex addiction.

Infidelity is not uncommon among men (and women) all over the world. Plenty of people cheat on their spouses: according to one survey, 25 percent of men and 17 percent of women have been unfaithful. That, of course, doesn't make them sex addicts.

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Origin Of Cosmic Explosions Discovered

This is from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and shows evidence from Nasa's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Magellan telescopes suggesting a star has been torn apart by an intermediate mass black hole in a globular cluster. Photo: AFP/Getty

From The Telegraph:

Astronomers who have long used supernovas as cosmic markers to help measure the expansion of the universe now have an answer to the nagging question of what causes the massive stellar explosions.

"These are such critical objects in understanding the universe," said Marat Gilfanov of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, describing his team's study.

"It was a major embarrassment that we did not know how they worked. Now we are beginning to understand what lights the fuse of these explosions."

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The Secret Of A Film's Success Is All Down To Mathematics, Claim Scientists

Formulaic: A scene from Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith, which fits the mathematical formula perfectly

From The Daily Mail:

Ever left the cinema feeling the film you have just seen is more than a little formulaic? You could be right.

Research shows that many modern blockbusters follow a mathematical formula that ensures they grab our attention.

It seems that they key to their success is not a stunning lead actor or a tear-jerking strip, but ensuring that camera shots of a certain length regularly recur.

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Extreme Breath-Holding: How It's Possible

Photo: Peter Colat, a Swiss freediver, held his breath underwater for 19 minutes and 21 seconds, breaking the world record in breath-holding. AP

From Discovery News:

The new record in breath-holding recently went to a Swiss man who didn't breathe for nearly 20 minutes. Scientists explain how he did it.

THE GIST:

* The new record for breath-holding is 19 minutes and 21 seconds.
* There are tricks to holding your breath for long periods of time, but the practice can be dangerous.
* There may be long-lasting health consequences to extreme breath-holding.

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Yahoo, Microsoft Make Search Pact Official (FAQ)

Yahoo is ready to turn over the indexing and ranking of search results (on the left) to Microsoft, emphasizing its work on presenting those results (on the right). (Credit: Yahoo)

From CNET:

It took eight months, but the search strategy that Microsoft and Yahoo settled on after years of flirting is about to get started.

The U.S. Department of Justice and European Union gave their blessing to the deal early on Thursday, paving the way for Microsoft to take over the business of providing search results to Yahoo while Yahoo will get to sell search ads on both Yahoo and Bing. Yahoo is busy reminding anyone who will listen that it will still control the way search results are presented on its pages, while Microsoft thinks it can improve its search algorithms with access to Yahoo's massive audience.

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New Role For Robot Warriors

Airmen roll out a Predator unmanned aircraft in Indian Springs, Nev. Such aircraft are tightly controlled by remote human operators. Some artificial-intelligence proponents believe next-generation robots could function more autonomously. Tony Avelar/The Christian Science Monitor/File

From The Christian Science Monitor:

Drones are just part of a bid to automate combat. Can virtual ethics make machines decisionmakers?

Science fiction sometimes depicts robot soldiers as killing machines without conscience or remorse. But at least one robotics expert today says that someday machines may make the best and most humane decisions on the battlefield.

Guided by virtual emotions, robots could not only make better decisions about their own actions but also act as ethical advisers to human soldiers or even as observers who report back on the battlefield conduct of humans and whether they followed international law.

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The Writing On The Cave Wall

Time to look around the paintings (Image: Dozier Marc/Photolibrary)

From New Scientist:

THE first intrepid explorers to brave the 7-metre crawl through a perilously narrow tunnel leading to the Chauvet caves in southern France were rewarded with magnificent artwork to rival any modern composition. Stretching a full 3 metres in height, the paintings depict a troupe of majestic horses in deep colours, above a pair of boisterous rhinos in the midst of a fight. To the left, they found the beautiful rendering of a herd of prehistoric cows. "The horse heads just seem to leap out of the wall towards you," says Jean Clottes, former director of scientific research at the caves and one of the few people to see the paintings with his own eyes.

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The World's 18 Strangest Airports

(Photograph by Tdk)

From Popular Mechanics:

Engineers tasked with building an airport are faced with countless challenges: The ideal location needs ample space, endless flat ground, favorable winds and great visibility. But spots in the real world are rarely ideal, and engineers are forced to work with what they have, making sure that the end product is the safest possible structure for pilots. A survey of airports around the world turns up a mixed bag, ranging from dangerous and rugged landing strips to mega-size facilities that operate like small cities. Here, PM explores the world's most remarkable airports and why they stand out.

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Robots To Clear Baltic Seabed Of WWII Mines

Retro Sea Mine via Bactec

From Popular Science:

In a dangerous legacy of the world's deadliest conflict, 150,000 World War Two-era sea mines litter the Baltic Sea. The danger these bombs pose to a proposed gas pipeline has prompted Russia to hire the British firm Bactec International to clear the sea of unexploded ordnance. And for Bactec, that means it's time to bring out the robots.

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Google Digital Library Faces Outcry At NYC Hearing

From My Way News:

NEW YORK (AP) - Google's effort to create the world's largest library by scanning millions of books for use on the Internet faces a courtroom fight as authors, foreign governments, corporate rivals and even the U.S. Department of Justice line up to challenge it.

U.S. District Judge Denny Chin already has read more than 500 submissions about a $125 million settlement aimed at ending a pair of 2005 lawsuits brought by authors and publishers and clearing legal obstacles to a gigantic online home for digital books.

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Upside-Down Answer For Deep Mystery: What Caused Earth To Hold Its Last Breath?

Volcano eruption (Reunion island, Indian Ocean).
(Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 18, 2010) — When Earth was young, it exhaled the atmosphere. During a period of intense volcanic activity, lava carried light elements from the planet's molten interior and released them into the sky. However, some light elements got trapped inside the planet. In the journal Nature, a Rice University-based team of scientists is offering a new answer to a longstanding mystery: What caused Earth to hold its last breath?

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New Transistors Mimic Human Brain's Synapses

From Live Science:

A new transistor designed to mimic structures in the human brain could pave the way for increasingly efficient computer systems that "think" like humans, scientists say.

The transistor is the first to mimic a crucial process used by brain cells, or neurons, when the cells signal one another.

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Scientists Shed Light On Supernova Origins

Type Ia supernovae are thought to result when a white dwarf star in a binary system accumulates enough matter from its larger companion. When the white dwarf reaches the critical Chandrasekhar mass, about 1.4 times the mass of our Sun, high internal density and temperature ignite a thermonuclear explosion. Because the masses of Type Ia supernovae are similar, their brightnesses are similar. Berkeley Lab

From The L.A. Times:

The so-called Type 1a supernovae are key to measuring celestial distances. Astronomers find evidence that they're formed by the collision of two white dwarfs.

German astronomers using a U.S. telescope have provided scientists with at least a partial answer to a vexing question: What is the origin of the so-called Type 1a supernovae, which are widely used as celestial mileage markers?

Type 1a supernovae are of special significance to astronomers because all are believed to have essentially the same intrinsic brightness, and because they can be observed from great distances. Thus, by comparing the brightness of any one of them to what it is expected to be, researchers can estimate its distance from Earth and thereby judge the distance of objects near it.

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Two Languages In Womb Makes Bilingual Babies

Being bilingual starts in the womb. Credit: iStockphoto

From Cosmos/AFP:

WASHINGTON: Babies who hear two languages regularly when they are in their mother's womb are more open to being bilingual, a study published this week in Psychological Science shows.

Psychological scientists from the University of British Columbia and a researcher from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in France tested two groups of newborns, one of which only heard English in the womb and the others who heard English and Tagalog, which is spoken in the Philippines.

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Fertilizer Overuse Destroying Chinese Soil

From Fabius Maximus:

As usual with cutting edge research, the timing and significance of this is impossible for a layman to accurately access. But this could be bad for China. Yields have already dropped 30-50% in some places.

1. A summary of the research by Reuters
2. More detailed summaries, in ScienceNow and Nature
3. The research, in Science
4. For more information from the FM site, and an Afterword

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DARPA Wants To Build The Ultimate Language Traslator

Darpa Looks to Build Real-Life C3P0 -- The Danger Room

Right now, troops trying to listen in on enemy chatter rely on a convoluted process. They tune into insurgency radio frequencies, then hand the radio over to local interpreters, who translate the dialogues. It’s a sloppy process, prone to garbled words and missed phrases.

What troops really need is a machine that can pick out voices from the noise, understand and translate all kinds of different languages, and then identify the voice from a hit list of “wanted speakers.” In other words, a real-life version of Star Wars protocol droid C3PO, fluent “in over 6 million forms of communication.”

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