Internet Industry Told To Respect Human Rights Abroad

Photo: Internet rights: Dick Durbin and Nicole Wong, vice president and deputy general counsel of Google, at a hearing of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law.

From Technology Review:

Senator Durbin promises legislation that would force companies to protect human rights.

Yesterday a leading member of Congress put pressure on Internet companies to support human rights and Internet freedom abroad. U.S. Senator Richard Durbin, the Democratic representative from Illinois and the Senate majority whip, said he plans to introduce legislation "that would require Internet companies to take reasonable steps to protect human rights or face civil or criminal liability." An aide later said the proposed legislation had not been written, but would likely be based on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

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To Mars In 39 Days

An artist's impression of VASIMR - a rocket that may cut down the
travel time to Mars to just 39 days. Credit: NASA

From Cosmos/AFP:

WASHINGTON: A journey from Earth to Mars could eventually take just 39 days - cutting current travel time nearly six times - according to a rocket scientist who has the ear of U.S. space agency NASA.

Franklin Chang-Diaz, a former astronaut and a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, says reaching the Red Planet could be dramatically quicker using his high-tech VASIMR rocket, now on track for liftoff after decades of development.

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Tons Of Water Ice At The Moon’s North Pole Could Sustain A Lunar Base

From Discover Magazine:

Water, water, everywhere! Radar results from a lunar probe have revealed that the moon’s north pole could be holding millions of tons of water in the form of thick ice, raising the possibility that human life could be sustained on Earth’s silvery satellite, NASA scientists said.

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Dirty Tricks Of The Egg And Sperm Race

In many mammals the entire sperm enters the egg, bringing proteins that may influence development (Image: Thierry Berrod/Mona Lisa Production/SPL)

From New Scientist:

EVEN the most romantic evolutionary biologist knows that sexual reproduction is rarely a harmonious affair. Among most higher animals it is often predicated on fierce fighting, showy one-upmanship, exploitation and deception. Charles Darwin himself drew the battle lines, when he set out his ideas on sexual selection to explain the evolution of traits that provide mating advantages - either through contests between members of the same sex or by increasing attractiveness to the opposite sex. Much of what Darwin said still guides our thinking. However, since the mid-19th century it has become clear that there is more to successful reproduction than mere copulation.

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New Sensors Directly Track The Brain's Chemical Messengers For The First Time

Imaging the Brain Patrick Gillooly

From Popular Science:

Courtesy of those brainy folk at MIT and Caltech.

This is your brain. This is your brain's blood flow, courtesy of brain scan technologies. And this is dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain that plays pivotal roles in learning, memory, addiction and movement. MIT and Caltech scientists have created new molecular sensors that allow them to track dopamine for the first time, and provide the most direct detection ever of brain activity.

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New Era Of Planet Discovery On Horizon

The deepest image of the universe ever taken in near-infrared light, captured by Hubble Space Telescope Photo: NASA/AP

From The Telegraph:

Thousands of new planets will be identified in the next few years, some of which may harbour life, say scientists.

British astronomers are in the vanguard of the search, which could transform humanity's view of its place in the universe.

More than 400 ''exoplanets'' orbiting stars beyond the Sun have been catalogued so far since the first were discovered in 1991.

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Spanish Police Arrest Ringleaders Who Infected 13m PCs With Credit-Card Stealing Virus

The virus was used to steal login credentials and record every key stroke on the 13m infected computers

From The Daily Mail:

Spanish police have arrested three men accused of masterminding one of the biggest computer crimes to date, which created a network of 13million virus-infected computers.

The virus, named the Mariposa botnet, stole credit card numbers and other personal details from infected machines.

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Limp Wrists And tight Fists: What Your Handshake Says About You

From Scientific American:

There is a man—a very well-known man, a legend of sorts—whom I’ve been privileged enough to have seen on occasion through the years at various venues and events. (Never mind his reputation. To protect my career, he shall remain anonymous.) Our exchanges have been pleasant enough, I should say—inconsequential, really, and empty of any real substance. Now, as an admiring subordinate, I have enormous respect for this person. I suspect I probably also have a mild envy given his vast and ever-lasting contributions to our shared discipline. But our first interaction, which lasted mere seconds, left me with a rather negative, viscerally based impression of him.

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Learning Keeps Brain Healthy: Mental Activity Could Stave Off Age-Related Cognitive And Memory Decline

New findings suggest that learning promotes brain health -- and, therefore, that mental stimulation could limit the debilitating effects of aging on memory and the mind. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 3, 2010) — UC Irvine neurobiologists are providing the first visual evidence that learning promotes brain health -- and, therefore, that mental stimulation could limit the debilitating effects of aging on memory and the mind.

Using a novel visualization technique they devised to study memory, a research team led by Lulu Chen and Christine Gall found that everyday forms of learning animate neuron receptors that help keep brain cells functioning at optimum levels.

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Earth's Earthquake Hotspots

The Seward highway in Alaska after the 1964 earthquake / USGS

From Live Science:

The powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake that rocked Chile was strong enough to shift the planet's axis by 3 inches, and came soon after the catastrophic magnitude 7.0 quake that devastated Haiti and right after a magnitude 7.0 event hit off the coast of Japan.

Where might earthquakes hit next? Earth scientists might not be able to give us a date and time, but using history and plate tectonics as a guide they can come up with some rough estimates as to where.

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Polar Bear And Its Cub Drift On Shrinking Ice 12 Miles From Land ... But Is It All It Seems?

Adrift: The polar bear cub snuggles against its mother as they drift 12 miles from land

From The Daily Mail:

A forlorn polar bear cub is comforted by its mother as they drift miles from shore on a rapidly shrinking ice floe.

The Arctic-dwelling animals have become an iconic cause for green campaigners, who claim dramatic images such as these prove that global warming is destroying the world.

But despite this image being released today, it was actually taken in August last year, when it is normal for coastal ice to naturally break up and melt.

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Androids Will Challenge The iPad

Image: Tap and go: This prototype device runs on the Android operating system and features a customizable home screen. The interface was created by Boston-based company Tap 'n Tap.
Credit: Tap 'n Tap

From Technology Review:

Tablets powered by Google's mobile operating system are set to debut.

Apple's iPad is certain to grab headlines when it hits stores next month. But a number of touch-screen tablets powered by Google's Android operating system will also debut this year. Competing with Apple's latest consumer gadget won't be easy, but analysts say the software behind these devices could give them a few key advantages.

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Secrets Of The Ancients

Pharaoh Tuthankamen's famous burial mask.
Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

King Tut is only one in a growing list of ancient humans forced to reveal their secrets through high-tech prodding. By rushing into such studies, we may be opening a historical Pandora's Box.

On 26 November 1922, the British Egyptology Howard Carter peered through a tiny hole into the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings.

"I see wonderful things," he gasped as he glimpsed a profusion of gold and ebony, hidden for more than 30 centuries.

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Why Chile’s Massive Earthquake Could Have Been Much Worse

From Discover Magazine:

Less than two months after the earthquake that shook Haiti, and only hours after a quake causing small tsunamis occurred near Japan, the largest of 2010’s seeming barrage of big seismic events hit Chile. The 8.8 earthquake is the fifth largest since 1900. “We call them great earthquakes. Everybody else calls them horrible,” said USGS geophysicist Ken Hudnut. “There’s only a few in this league” [AP].

According to seismologists, the confluence of earthquakes these last couple months are probably coincidental; they’re all separated by too great a distance to be directly related. However, some say the latest quake is related to the 1960 quake in Chile that remains the largest ever recorded, a 9.5 on the Richter scale.

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Mars Rover Spirit Could Rise Again

NASA's Spirit rover

From New Scientist:

NASA's Spirit rover should be able to wriggle free of its sandy trap on Mars after all, says a scientist for the mission. But the plucky robotic explorer will need to survive the bitter Martian winter first.

In April 2009, Spirit's wheels broke through a thin surface crust and got mired in the loose sand below. After months of trying unsuccessfully to free the rover, NASA declared on 26 January that Spirit would henceforth be a stationary lander mission rather than a rover.

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Massive Solar Storms of the Future Could Reap Katrina-Scale Devastation

Plasma of the Sun I'm looking at you, Earth Hinode JAXA/NASA

From Popular Science:

If storms as strong as the biggest recorded in the last few two centuries, our electronics-dependent world of today could be in trouble.

No electricity, no running water, and no phone service for millions of people. That scenario could easily become reality if a solar storm as intense as those found throughout the history of our planet were to strike Earth today. NPR reported on FEMA's recent simulation of such a storm, and the grim conditions it uncovered.

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Facebook Users Keep It Real In Online Profiles

From New Science:

Young adults apparently present their true selves on the world's biggest social network.

“On the Internet,” one dog tells another in a classic New Yorker cartoon, “nobody knows you’re a dog.”

The Internet is notorious for its digital dens of deception. But on Facebook, what you see tends to be what you get — at least in one study of tailless, two-legged young adults.

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Is The iPad Launch Really Delayed?

(Credit: Apple)

From The CNET:

When Apple introduced the iPad in January, it said the device would be made available in late March. However, one analyst is now saying the launch may be delayed.

Peter Misek, an analyst with Canaccord Adams, wrote in a note to clients on Monday that production problems could limit Apple's launch of the iPad. The production issues could be bad enough to even delay the launch for a month, according to a report on AppleInsider.

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Chilean Quake May Have Shortened Earth Days

This view of Earth comes from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Terra satellite. (Credit: NASA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 2, 2010) — The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day.

JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27 quake. Using a complex model, he and fellow scientists came up with a preliminary calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

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Titanic vs. Lusitania: Time Determined Who Survived

The RMS Titanic being towed

From Live Science:

The time people have during survival situations might affect whether they behave selfishly or socially. Examining two shipwrecks, the Titanic and the Lusitania, researchers recently found the longer passengers had to react to the disaster, the more likely they were to follow social mores. The less time, the more selfishly passengers behaved.

The result: It was every man for himself aboard the rapidly sinking Lusitania, and so the fittest were the most likely to survive that accident. During the lengthy Titanic shipwreck, women in their reproductive years were the most likely to make it, while men of the same age had a lower probability of surviving.

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