Apple: Underage Workers May Have Built Your iPhone

From PC World:

That iPhone you adore may have been built by a child.

Nearly a dozen underage teens were working for Apple-contracted facilities in 2009, the company has revealed. The news was posted to Apple's Web site under a section labeled "Supplier Responsibility."

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Climate Group Plans Review

From The Wall Street Journal:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's announcement over the weekend that it will seek independent experts to investigate how factual errors were published in its latest report is a key aspect of the organization's effort to understand and divulge its institutional problems, officials there say.

The announcement by the United Nations-sponsored organization Saturday comes as it gears up to produce another big report on global warming.

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The Fiancee Formula: Academics Work Out The Best Time To Propose

From The Daily Mail:

Worried your boyfriend is never going to propose? Then buy him a calculator.

Mathematicians have come up with a 'fiancee formula' that allows men to work out the perfect time to pop the question.

All he needs is the age he would first consider marrying and his cut-off point - and the equation does the rest.

Maths professor Anthony Dooley said: 'Applying maths to matters of the heart is always dangerous. In life you are dealing with emotions and have to think much harder.

But if you want to work out the right moment to start getting serious, this gives you a mathematical framework.'

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Threat to Monkey Numbers from Forest Decline

An Udzungwa red colobus monkey. (Credit: Andrew Marshall / University of York)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 27, 2010) — Monkey populations in threatened forests are far more sensitive to damage to their habitat than previously thought, according to new research.

An analysis of monkeys living in Tanzania's Udzungwa Mountains suggests that the impact of external factors, such as human activity, on species numbers is felt in forests as large as 40 square kilometres.

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Chile Earthquake: Is Mother Nature Out of Control?

From Live Science:

Chile is on a hotspot of sorts for earthquake activity. And so the 8.8-magnitude temblor that shook the capital region overnight was not a surprise, historically speaking. Nor was it outside the realm of normal, scientists say, even though it comes on the heels of other major earthquakes.

One scientist, however, says that relative to a time period in the past, the Earth has been more active over the past 15 years or so.

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Why Tsunamis Were Smaller Than Expected

Debris in Pelluhue, Chile, after high waves hit. VICTOR RUIZ CABALLERO/REUTERS

From The Independent:

It is fortunate that one of the biggest earthquakes in recent history has generated only relatively small tsunamis that crossed the Pacific Ocean from Chile to Japan. This is almost certainly because the rupture that generated the earthquake occurred quite deep in the Earth's crust.

The size of a tsunami, which means "harbour wave" in Japanese, is directly related to the volume of water that is displaced during the movement of the seabed during an earthquake. The bigger the amount of water that is moved up or down, the bigger the tsunami that is likely to be created.

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Was Jimi Hendrix's Ambidexterity The Key To His Virtuosity?

Right (and left) hand man ... Jimi Hendrix. Photograph: Marc Sharratt/Rex Features

From The Guardian:

Guitar hero's 'mixed-handedness' was secret to his genius, argues American psychologist.

Was Jimi Hendrix's ambidexterity the secret to his talent? This is the question explored in a new paper by psychologist Stephen Christman (via TwentyFourBit), who argues that Hendrix's versatility informed not just his guitar-playing – but his lyrics too.

According to Christman, who is based at the University of Toledo, Hendrix was not strictly left-handed. Although he played his right-handed guitar upside down, and used his left hand to throw, comb his hair and hold cigarettes, Hendrix wrote, ate and held the telephone with his right hand. He was, Christman argues, "mixed-right-handed". And this "mixed"-ness, signaling better interaction between the left and right hemispheres of the guitarist's brain, suffused every part of his music.

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A Call For Tenders To Have A Medical Robot

Robots To Rescue Soldiers -- New Scientist

THE US military is asking inventors to come up with designs for a robot that can trundle onto a battlefield and rescue injured troops, with little or no help from outside.

Retrieving casualties while under fire is a major cause of combat losses, says a posting on the Pentagon's small business technology transfer website (bit.ly/aRXXQU). So the army wants a robot with strong, dexterous arms and grippers that can cope with "the large number of body positions and types of locations in which casualties can be found".

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Intelligent Men 'Less Likely To Cheat'

Revenge of the Nerds

From The Telegraph:

Intelligent men are less likely to cheat on their wives because of evolution, a new analysis of social trends indicates.

Researchers at a British university found that men with higher IQs place greater value on monogamy and sexual exclusivity than their less intelligent peers.

But the connection between conventional sexual morality and intelligence is not mirrored in women, it seems.

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EU Tells Google To Warn Cities Before Sending In Street View Cameras

From The Daily Mail:

Google has been told to warn people before it sends cameras out to take pictures for its controversial Street View maps.

The EU privacy regulators say refusal to give adequate notice could lead to legal action.

And the internet giant must shorten the time it keeps the original photographs from one year to six months.

The regulators also said it should avoid taking pictures ‘of a sensitive nature and those containing intimate details not normally observable by a passer-by’.

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Quantum Physics Breakthrough: Scientists Find an Equation for Materials Innovation

Professor Emily Carter and graduate student Chen Huang developed a new way of predicting important properties of substances. The advance could speed the development of new materials and technologies. (Credit: Frank Wojciechowski)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 26, 2010) — Princeton engineers have made a breakthrough in an 80-year-old quandary in quantum physics, paving the way for the development of new materials that could make electronic devices smaller and cars more energy efficient.

By reworking a theory first proposed by physicists in the 1920s, the researchers discovered a new way to predict important characteristics of a new material before it's been created. The new formula allows computers to model the properties of a material up to 100,000 times faster than previously possible and vastly expands the range of properties scientists can study.

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Human Teeth Reveal History of Catastrophes

From Live Science:

Teeth are a window into our past, storing a record of the environmental pollutants and radiation they've encountered. Now scientists are developing tools to use teeth enamel to test how much radiation a person has been exposed to in the case of a major emergency, like a dirty bomb explosion.

"Dental enamel is quite a remarkable material," said Barry Pass, a professor in the College of Dentistry at Howard University in Washington, D.C. "There's a world of information in the tooth."

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US Government Rescinds 'Leave Internet Alone' Policy

From The Register:

The US government’s policy of leaving the Internet alone is over, according to Obama’s top official at the Department of Commerce.

Instead, an “Internet Policy 3.0” approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, according to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance.

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When It Comes To Salt, No Rights Or Wrongs. Yet.

From The New York Times:

Suppose, as some experts advise, that the new national dietary guidelines due this spring will lower the recommended level of salt. Suppose further that public health officials in New York and Washington succeed in forcing food companies to use less salt. What would be the effect?

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Tiny Ear Listens To Hidden Worlds

From The BBC:

A micro-ear could soon help scientists eavesdrop on tiny events just like microscopes make them visible.

Initially, researchers will use it to snoop on cells as they go about their daily business.

It may allow researchers to listen to how a drug disrupts micro-organisms, in the same way as a mechanic might listen to a car's engine to find a fault.

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Apple's iTunes Store Serves up 10 Billionth Song

From ABC News/PC World:

'Guess Things Happen That Way' by Johnny Cash Reportedly 10 Billionth Song.

Apple's iTunes Store hit a landmark on Wednesday with the download of its 10 billionth song.

A counter on the company's home page hit the 10 billion mark at 9:43 p.m. GMT -- approximately 6 years and 10 months since the store first opened in the U.S.

Back then it was known as the iTunes Music Store and served just music but it has since expanded to include video, TV shows and podcasts.

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Video: In Attempt at True VTOL, F-35 Makes Shortest, Slowest Landing Yet

From Popular Science:

To perfect the vertical and short takeoff and landing ability of the F-35 Lightning II, test pilots have been taking off and landing at progressively shorter distances and slower speeds, building up to the final, true vertical boost. And today, engine manufacturers Pratt and Whitney released video of the slowest, shortest takeoff and landing yet, in which the jet cruises to a stop at 130 knots.

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Twitter Attack Affects Thousands Of Users

Twitter has been hit by two phishing scams in a week, and is warning users not to click on suspicious links in direct messages

From The Telegraph:

The microblogging site has been hit by a second phishing attack in a week.

Twitter users have been warned not to click links in some tweets, after the microblogging service fell victim to its second phishing attack in a week.

Cyber criminals are using the service to trick people in to giving away their username and password for the site. Users have been receiving direct messages from friends on the site which contain a shortened link. When users click on that link, they are directed to a malicious website, which looks just like the Twitter home page, where they are prompted to enter their login details.

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Lasers Lift Dirt Of Ages From Artworks

The angel on the right of the wall painting has been partially cleaned with a laser

From The BBC:

Physicists have applied the same laser techniques commonly used for tattoo removal to clean several famous works of art, including wall paintings.

Laser cleaning is well established for stone and metal artefacts already.

It has now been successfully applied to the wall paintings of the Sagrestia Vecchia and the Cappella del Manto in Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, Italy.

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Optical System Promises To Revolutionize Undersea Communications

An artist's conception of how the optical modem could function at a deep ocean cabled observatory. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) collect sonar images (downward bands of light) and other data at a hydrothermal vent site and transmit the data through an optical modem to receivers stationed on moorings in the ocean. The moorings are connected to a cabled observatory, and the data are sent back to scientists on shore. Scientists, in turn, can send new instructions to the AUVs via the optical modem as well. (Credit: E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Feb. 25, 2010) — In a technological advance that its developers are likening to the cell phone and wireless Internet access, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists and engineers have devised an undersea optical communications system that -- complemented by acoustics -- enables a virtual revolution in high-speed undersea data collection and transmission.

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