Traces Of The Past: Computer Algorithm Able To 'Read' Memories

To explore how memories are recorded, researchers showed volunteers three short films and asked them to memorize what they saw. The films were very simple, sharing a number of similar features -- all included a woman carrying out an everyday task in a typical urban street, and each film was the same length, seven seconds long. For example, one film showed a woman posting a letter. (Credit: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 11, 2010) — Computer programs have been able to predict which of three short films a person is thinking about, just by looking at their brain activity. The research, conducted by scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL (University College London), provides further insight into how our memories are recorded.

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Oil Production To Peak In 2014, Scientists Predict

From Live Science:

Predicting the end of oil has proven tricky and often controversial, but Kuwaiti scientists now say that global oil production will peak in 2014.

Their work represents an updated version of the famous Hubbert model, which correctly predicted in 1956 that U.S. oil reserves would peak within 20 years. Many researchers have since tried using the model to predict when worldwide oil production might peak.

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MoD Trains Army To Fight Using Sophisticated Video Games

From The Daily Mail:

Poised with a rifle in the desert terrain, a British soldier dives for cover as he comes under enemy fire. But amazingly he comes to no harm... because he's sitting in a Bristol armed forces base 3,500 miles from the front line in Afghanistan.

Soldiers are being prepared for combat using a newly upgraded virtual training system. Called Op JCOVE, it runs on PCs and laptops and allows soldiers to experience a wide range of scenarios both in vehicles and on foot.

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2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty Test Drive

From Popular Mechanics:

PHOENIX, Ariz.—Has the definition of leadership in the heavy-duty/super-duty truck segment changed since the last time Ford, Chevrolet/GMC, and Dodge brought out new truck bruisers? Make no mistake: Horsepower, torque, towing and payload are still the primary fields of battle for winning over ranchers, construction workers and contractors. But we can add another event to the heavy-duty Olympics, according to those customers—fuel economy. That's right. Even with gas and diesel comfortably below $3.00 a gallon in most parts of the U.S., fuel economy has become the new torque when it comes to impressing customers. Ford, in fact, named fuel economy as its leading concern when it set out to build a new diesel engine after severing its relationship with diesel-engine supplier Navistar. The results are surprising, and may well entice Dodge and Chevy owners.

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Are Our Asteroid-Destroying Nukes Big Enough?

Asteroids! courtesy of Sandia National Laboratory

From Popular Science:

A new study shows that blasted asteroids could re-form, Terminator-style.

Pop quiz. An asteroid the size of Manhattan is hurtling towards Earth, its impact is sure to result in mass extinction and the destruction of humanity as we know it. What do you do?

The traditional answers would be "blow it up". But new research from Los Alamos National Lab and the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that if the asteroid isn't moving fast enough, or if the nuke isn't big enough, the asteroid will pull itself back together, T-1000-style, within a matter of hours.

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OnLive Threatens To End Video Gaming As We Know It

The serivce could undermine the multi-billion pound business models of Nintendo's Wii - with New Super Mario Bros - Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox. (Nintendo/Handout)

From Times Online:

The era of the video games console is under threat after the launch today of a service which streams high-quality games over the internet to the computer or TV set.

For years those who wanted to play sophisticated, action-packed games have used controllers and consoles. Now gamers will get the chance to play high-end immersive games over the internet with the arrival of OnLive, which promises to deliver the most advanced games on demand to their PC or Mac computer.

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Hadron Collider To Be Closed Amid Fears Of A Very Big Bang

Large Hadron Collider

From The Independent:

12-month shutdown to repair design flaw that could break apart world's most expensive scientific experiment.

The world's single most complicated and expensive scientific experiment, designed to discover the "God particle" and recreate the conditions that existed at the dawn of creation, will be switched off for a year to correct a design problem that could break it apart if it ran on full power.

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Obesity: Food Kills, Flab Protects

Your fat cells lock away the burger grease (Image: Getty Images)

From The New Scientist:

OBESITY kills, everyone knows that. But is it possible that we've been looking at the problem in the wrong way? It seems getting fatter may be part of your body's defence against the worst effects of unhealthy eating, rather than their direct cause.

This curious insight comes at the same time as several studies distancing obesity itself from a host of diseases it has long been blamed for, including heart disease and diabetes.

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Has Twitter Reached Its Peak?

Barracuda says that Twitter's user growth has almost stopped

From The Guardian:

Micro-blogging service Twitter's user growth has almost levelled off since September 2009, according to a study.

Twitter's growth seems to have lost its momentum, according to a new study.

Growth in the micro-blogging service's number of users peaked at nearly 20% last April, but had dropped down to 0.15% in December 2009, says a study by Barracuda Networks.

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Short Blasts Of Exercise As Good As Hours Of Training, Scientists Find

From The Telegraph:

Less really can be more when it comes to exercise, scientists have discovered.

The body can get as much benefit from a short but intensive bursts of exercise lasting ten minutes than it can from ten hours of moderate training.

The technique not only takes less time but also involves much less physical effort.

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First Contact: The Man Who'll Welcome Aliens

We don't want anybody just turning a radio ­telescope on the sky and sending their own ­messages to the source.' Photograph: Felix Clay

From The Guardian:

If we are ever contacted by aliens, the man I'm having lunch with will be one of the first humans to know. His name is Paul Davies and he's chair of the Seti (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Post-Detection Task Group. They're a group of the world's most eminent scientists and will be, come the big day, the planet's alien welcome committee. His is an awesome responsibility, and one he doesn't take lightly.

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Scientists Discover 600 Million-Year-Old Origins of Vision

This is a hydra, an ancient sea creature that flourishes today. (Credit: Todd Oakley, UCSB)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 12, 2010) — By studying the hydra, a member of an ancient group of sea creatures that is still flourishing, scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a discovery in understanding the origins of human vision.

The finding is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal of biology.

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Why The Chile Earthquake Aftershock Was So Big

From Live Science:

The whopping 7.2-magnitude aftershock that rattled Chile again today is nothing unusual following such a large original earthquake, scientists say.

The aftershock, which struck at about 11:40 am local time, may sound surprisingly strong, given that it is bigger than the original earthquake that decimated Haiti in January, but it wasn't unexpected to scientists, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey.

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Absent-Mindedness Is A Middle-Aged Male Problem, Research Shows

A study has shown that older men are more susceptible to absent-mindedness than women. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

From The Guardian:

Women come out best in listening and recollection tests in study by University of London's Institute of Education.

It's been an endless source of aggravation between the sexes; how can men so easily forget birthdays, anniversaries, and even friends' names?

Not, it seems, because they cannot be bothered to remember. Research suggests that, in middle age at least, absent-minded-ness is a particularly male problem.

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Pretty In Pink: One Of World's Rarest Camellias Blooms In London Conservatory

A 'Middlemist's red' camellia, thought to be one of only two examples of the variety in the world, at the Chiswick House Gardens conservatory, London

From The Daily Mail:

It lived through the Battle of Trafalgar, survived the reign of Victoria and escaped unharmed from a Blitz bomb.

So it's going to take more than a harsh British winter to stop one of the world's rarest camellias from bursting into flower.

This week - in a welcome sign that spring is just around the corner - the "Middlemist's red" has put on one of its most spectacular displays in many years.

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As China And US Plan to Exploit "Burning Ice" For Fuel, The Ice Race Is On

Photo: Icy Hot : Courtesy of NASA

From Popular Science:

Methane hydrate crystals show promise as a clean energy source.

When methane and freezing cold water fuse under tremendous pressure, they create a substance as paradoxical as it coveted: burning ice. Earlier in the year, a report from the National Research Council identified the combustible water, also known as methane hydrate, as a potential source of natural gas. Now, according to the Chinese news organization Xinhau, China is joining the US, Japan, and South Korea in the hunt for this weird mineral.

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Extreme Physics At The Ends Of The Earth

From New Scientist:

When science was young, the experiments were simple and the breakthroughs came easily - or so it seems in hindsight. Think of Galileo rolling a ball down an inclined plane, or aiming a simple tube, with a lens at each end, at the night sky. Or picture Michael Faraday discovering electromagnetic induction just by tinkering with a battery, an iron ring and some coils of wire.

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Quantum Computing Thrives On Chaos

From Wired/Science News:

Embracing chaos just might help physicists build a quantum brain. A new study shows that disorder can enhance the coupling between light and matter in quantum systems, a find that could eventually lead to fast, easy-to-build quantum computers.

Quantum computers promise superfast calculations that precisely simulate the natural world, but physicists have struggled to design the brains of such machines. Some researchers have focused on designing precisely engineered materials that can trap light to harness its quantum properties. To work, scientists have thought, the crystalline structure of these materials must be flawlessly ordered — a nearly impossible task.

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Obama Facing Uprising Over New NASA Strategy

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

WASHINGTON, March 10 - U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to tamp down an uprising in politically vital Florida against a new strategy for NASA that has rankled space veterans and lawmakers and sparked fears of job losses.

Obama's decision to kill NASA's Constellation program to launch astronauts into orbit and return Americans to the moon has prompted soul-searching on whether the United States is prepared to cede a pre-eminent space role to Russia and China.

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Avatar Director James Cameron Hails 3D TV As 'The Future' Despite Fears Screens Could Cause Health Problems

Future in focus: Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas and Avatar director James Cameron in 3D specs at the Samsung 3D LED TV launch party

From The Daily Mail:

Avatar director James Cameron hailed 3D TV as 'the future' last night as he helped launch a range of 3D television sets.

At a glitzy launch in New York of Samsung 3D sets, he told the crowd: 'You will all remember that you were here, in Times Square, for the launch of the television of the future.'

The Black Eyed Peas were called in to perform and lend the event a touch of glamour as fears surfaced that viewers could experience health problems while watching the screens.

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