Airline Twitter Promotion Attracts Huge Crowds

JetBlue employee Morgan Johnston took this photo of the people who showed up in the Financial District when the airline launched an ambitious campaign to give away free tickets by telling Twitter users where to show up. (Credit: Morgan Johnston)

From CNET:

NEW YORK--It was apparently one step short of a cattle stampede when low-cost airline JetBlue used its Twitter account to announce that as part of its 10th anniversary celebration it would be giving out about a thousand free round-trip tickets at three undisclosed locations in Manhattan on Wednesday.

Read more ....

Smell of Salt Air Surprisingly Detected a Mile High and 900 Miles Inland

The reddish glow from the city lights of Boulder, Colo., is the result in part of the light being scattered by haze particles. UW scientists have discovered unexpected chemistry involving the pollutants that make up the haze. (Credit: Phil Armitage)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 11, 2010) — The smell of sea salt in the air is a romanticized feature of life along a seacoast. Wind and waves kick up spray, and bits of sodium chloride -- common table salt -- can permeate the air.

It is believed that as much as 10 billion metric tons of chloride enters the air mass through this process each year, but just a tiny fraction -- perhaps one-third of 1 percent -- does anything but fall back to the surface.

Read more ....

Studying Snail Shells to Build Better Body Armor

The protective armor of a rare iron-plated gastropod mollusk, the so-called "scaly-foot gastropod." Credit: A. Warén, Swedish Museum of Natural History

From Live Science:

Christine Ortiz is an associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. Recently Ortiz and a team of researchers at the National Science Foundation-supported Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at MIT reported on the protective armor of a rare iron-plated gastropod mollusk, the so-called "scaly-foot gastropod." The snail thrives 2.5 miles below the central Indian Ocean, within the Kairei Indian hydrothermal vent field, and its shell is fused with granular iron sulfide. Understanding the physical and mechanical properties of the snail could improve load-bearing and protective materials in everything from aircraft hulls to sports equipment. You can read more about the iron-armored snail in a recent NSF press release, and you can learn more about Ortiz as she answers the ScienceLives 10 questions below.

Read more ....

How The Web Has Changed Us

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From The CBS:

Yahoo! Survey Finds Reading, Writing, Commerce, Cooking and Dieting Changed By Internet Access

(CBS) When was the last time you thumbed through a cookbook? Or used a phonebook? Most of us now rely on a computer to get the most basic information in an instant.

Popular search engine Yahoo! is celebrating its 15th birthday this week, and they launched a survey looking at just how much our lives have changed since the Web took hold. Heather Cabot, Yahoo!'s Web life editor, shared the survey's surprising results on "The Early Show."

The survey highlights the responses of more than 1,800 Internet users ages 25 to 64.

Read more ....

How It Works: Upscaling 2-D Video To 3-D

Watch 2-D Home Movies of Yourself Watching 3-D TV...In 3-D!

From Popular Science:

3-D TVs are finally going on sale--sans content. So some sets are claiming the ability to add a third dimension to your 2-D broadcasts.

More than a year after the first consumer 3-D-ready HDTVs were demoed at CES, the next generation of sets are going on sale this week. But, aside from the new TVs, glasses, and Blu-ray players, the question of content remains. While there are already brand partnerships with networks like Discovery and ESPN, that's just the tip of the iceberg. As an alternative, the two companies with 3-D TVs but without major brand-name cable partners (Samsung and Toshiba) showed off sets that could convert 2-D video to 3-D in real time.

Read more ....

'Terminator' Asteroids Could Re-Form After Nuke

You'll need a big bomb to keep us apart (Image: Adastra/Taxi/Getty)

From New Scientist:

THE regenerating liquid-metal robots in the Terminator movies have a cosmic relation: incoming asteroids that quickly reassemble if blasted by a nuclear bomb.

If a sizeable asteroid is found heading towards Earth, one option is to nuke it. But too small a bomb would cause the fragments to fly apart only slowly, allowing them to clump together under their mutual gravity. Simulations now show this can happen in an alarmingly short time.

Read more ....

A Lot Is Riding On SpaceX Rocket

NEAR A COUNTDOWN: The Falcon 9 rocket from Space Exploration Technologies stands in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Its first test launch could come in April. (Space Exploration Technologies)

From The L.A. Times:

The Hawthorne firm's Falcon 9 is a major contender to cheaply carry astronauts and cargo into orbit.

A new rocket 18 stories tall and waiting to be launched from a pad in Cape Canaveral, Fla., could determine the fate of a private aerospace venture in Hawthorne -- and even possibly NASA's space program.

The Falcon 9 booster, developed by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is going through final preparations for its maiden test flight and could blast off as early as next month.

Read more ....

Climategate: Three Of The Four Temperature Datasets Now Irrevocably Tainted

From Pajamas Media:

The warmist response to Climategate — the discovery of the thoroughly corrupt practices of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) — was that the tainted CRU dataset was just one of four independent data sets. You know. So really there’s no big deal.

Thanks to a FOIA request, the document production of which I am presently plowing through — and before that, thanks to the great work of Steve McIntyre, and particularly in their recent, comprehensive work, Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts — we know that NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) passed no one’s test for credibility. Not even NASA’s.

Read more ....

Tricks To Keep Your Device’s Battery Going And Going

Andy Chen/The New York Times

From New York Times:

If you’re a recent convert to smartphones, you’re probably still discovering all the amazing things that your new BlackBerry, Android phone or iPhone can do. But one thing you most likely found out right away: the more you do, the shorter your phone’s battery lasts.

While a standard cellphone’s charge can easily go three days or more, many smartphone owners are dismayed to learn that their new mobile toy requires charging every 24 hours, or even more often. It was great that I could use one device — my iPhone — to check my calendar and respond to multiple incoming calls during January’s Consumer Electronics Show, but I paid the price when its battery died at 2 p.m.

Read more ....

Early Earth Embroiled In Constant Solar Storm

The larger auroral oval relative to the modern is the result of a weaker dipole magnetic field and stronger solar wind dynamic pressure. The auroral intensity is brighter due to solar wind densities many times greater than those today, and the dominant color reflects greater energies of the precipitating particles and the mildly reducing Paleoarchean atmosphere. Credit: J. Tarduno and R. Cottrell/University of Rochester

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: A weak magnetic field and powerful solar wind stripped water from the early Earth's atmosphere 3.5 billions years ago and created stunning auroras, scientists said.

Scientists have long thought that Mars' small magnetic field left it vulnerable to the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun that interacts with Earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, and forms the auroras on Earth.

Read more ....

Bing Use Inches Up In February

(Credit: ComScore)

From CNET News:

Microsoft's Bing grabbed 11.5 percent of all search queries in the U.S. in February, slightly higher than its 11.3 percent share the prior month, according to the latest figures from ComScore.

Yahoo, which recently won regulatory approval over a search technology and advertising deal with Microsoft, captured 16.8 percent of all queries, a slight decline of 0.2 percent from January. But Google remains the search engine champ, winning 65.5 percent of all the searches run last month, up 0.1 percent from January.

Read more ....

Smartphones Will Shake Up Paid Content Debate

The new Samsung 'Wave' smartphone is seen during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona February 14, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Albert Gea

From Reuters:

(Reuters) - Media companies longing to bring a paid-for culture to the Internet might just get what they want if they pay more attention to the smartphone revolution that is changing the way people access the Web.

Huge numbers now use mobile phones instead of desktop computers to get online -- a development that has spawned whole new business models in China, the world's biggest Internet market.

Paying to read content on the Web, an outlandish idea as recently as a year ago, is slowly but surely establishing itself as the next business model in the Western media mainstream, spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O).

Read more ....

Professor Predicts Baseball Winners, Uses Baseball to Tout Power of Math

"We've long had a problem convincing US youngsters to embrace mathematics in school," says Bukiet. "Studying how math applies to baseball demonstrates not only that math can be fun, but how it is really a part of things people care about." (Credit: NJIT)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 10, 2010) — With pitchers and catchers having recently reported to spring training, once again Bruce Bukiet, an associate professor at NJIT, has applied mathematical analysis to compute the number of games that Major League Baseball teams should win in 2010. The Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers should all repeat as winners in their divisions, while the Atlanta Braves will take the wild card slot in the National League (NL), says Bukiet.

Read more ....

Big Generation Gaps In Work Attitudes Revealed

Dedication: Stanley Foxwell and his son Colin have spent a combined 45 years working 16 hours a day, every day, running two newsagents. Photo from The Daily Mail

From Live Science:

Experiences help to shape life, so it's reasonable to think someone who grew up when John F. Kennedy was shot might have a different worldview than a person who witnessed Enron collapse and has been "wired" since just a tot.

New survey research announced today suggests indeed that is the case: Large generational gaps exist, particularly when it comes to work attitudes. The findings reveal young people just entering the workforce, often called GenMe or Millennials, are more likely than their elders to value leisure time over work and to place a premium on rewards such as higher salaries and status.

Read more ....

The iPad Changes Everything

Apple's iPad, rendered as the monolith from "2001: A Space Odyssey," will be
examined and pondered by the rest of the computer industry.

From Forbes:

Will Apple’s tablet usher in a new era of computing, or simply dominate it?

Chipmaker Nvidia is helping invent a slew of cool technologies that hold the potential to change the way we work and play. The company, which makes processors that enhance images and boost the brawn of computers and phones, is pushing 3-D entertainment into homes and high-def video onto handsets. But the gadget Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is most excited about? Touchscreen tablets such as Apple's forthcoming iPad.

Read more ....

Half Million Seeds Now in "Doomsday" Vault

Watch CBS News Videos Online

From CBS News:

Secure Crop Seed Bank on Arctic Island Hits Record Inventory 2 Years after 1st Samples Arrived.

(AP) Two years after receiving Its first deposits, a "doomsday" seed vault on an Arctic island has amassed half a million seed samples, making it the world's most diverse repository of crop seeds, the vault's operators announced Thursday.

Cary Fowler - who heads the trust that oversees the seed collection, which is 620 miles from the North Pole, said the facility now houses at least one-third of the world's crop seeds.

Read more ....

Safety Issues Loom As Humanoid Invasion Approaches

From New Scientist:

Pressure-sensing skins, smarter limbs and even bemused facial expressions. All these features will be needed to make future humanoid robots safe enough to hang out with humans in our homes, a symposium on humanoid robotics at the Institute of Engineering and Technology in London heard this week.

"We want robots to operate in our human world but they need to be safe," says Chris Melhuish of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK. "It's no good if they fall over on a 2-year-old or poke someone in the eye."

Read more ....

DARPA Plans Lightning-Based GPS For Underground Warfighters

Lightning Strikes for Navigation So if lightning strikes position a, b and c ... NASA

From Popular Science:

DARPA envisions a future in which U.S. Special Forces or spooks have to assault underground bases. And the Pentagon agency wants to give those warriors an underground navigation system that works on lightning bolts, The Register reports.

Read more ....

'Minority Report' Digital Billboard 'Watches Consumers Shop'

The billboard's are similar to ones featured in the Tom Cruise film, Minority report.

From The Telegraph:

A “Minority Report” styled digital billboard that targets consumers using customised advertising based on their demographics is being developed by Japanese researchers.

Engineers have developed the billboard, similar to one used in the Tom Cruise blockbuster, that uses in built cameras to instantly identifies a shopper’s age and gender as they walk past.

The facial-recognition system, called the Next Generation Digital Signage Solution, then offers consumers a product it thinks is suited to their demographic.

Read more ....

Formula Reveals 11am Is The Ideal Time For The Perfect Coffee Break

The perfect coffee break is taken at 11am in a brightly lit room with friends

From The Daily Mail:

A team of university experts have come up with a formula that proves that Elevenses really is the best time for a coffee break.

But the research also shows that a tasty Americano is not the only requirement - lights, music, aroma and good company need to be added to the mix.

Read more ....