U.S. Wind Power Growing Fast But Still Lags

From CNET:

Wind-generated electricity is growing rapidly in the United States but the pace still lags far behind that in China, the organizer of an industry conference in North Carolina said.

"With the right policies in place, we can see explosive growth...It's a global footrace," said Jeff Anthony, business development director of the American Wind Energy Association.

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Most Flawless Diamonds Ever Are Meant for Lasers, Not Rings

More Flawless Diamonds Diamonds are a laser's best friend ... at least diamonds better than this Wikimedia

From Popular Science:

Scientists need the diamonds to build the next generation of X-ray lasers .

Powerful X-ray lasers may allow scientists to image tiny drug molecules or even precisely target cancer cells, but the lasers require extremely high-quality mirrors to function well. Now researchers have created a nearly-flawless diamond that can do the job, according to Discovery News.

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Soyuz Landing: An Undignified Way To Come Home

From ABC News:

Ooof. This is why NASA designed the space shuttle to land like a plane.

Two space station crew members, American commander Jeff Williams and Russian flight engineer Maxim Suraev, landed their Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft in three feet of snow this morning on the steppes of Kazakhstan, finishing a five-and-a-half-month stay in orbit.

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Dinosaurs Did Not Gradually Die Out

From Discovery News:

Non-avian dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago, and now researchers have proven that this die-off didn't happen over a long period of time.

A detailed look at dinosaur bones, tracks and eggs located at 29 archaeological sites located in the Catalan Pyrenees reveals that there was a large diversity of dinosaur species living there just before the fatal K-T extinction event, which many scientists believe was caused by several large meteors hitting Earth.

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Dogs Likely Originated In The Middle East, New Genetic Data Indicate

This evolutionary tree shows dog breeds and gray wolves. (Credit: UCLA)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 18, 2010) — Dogs likely originated in the Middle East, not Asia or Europe, according to a new genetic analysis by an international team of scientists led by UCLA biologists.

The research appears March 17 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature.

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The Chilean Temblor: An Earthquake’s Radiating Energy

From Live Science:

Researchers are utilizing new technologies to help predict the strength and impacts of natural disasters. The image above, courtesy of the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), depicts the energy radiating from the recent Chilean earthquake as well as the amplitude of the quake's resulting tsunami.

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What's The Point Of Nuclear Weapons On Instant Alert?

Nuclear missiles "on alert" could too easily be launched by mistake

From New Scientist:

IN THE next few weeks, President Barack Obama will publish his delayed Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), setting out the role nuclear weapons play in US defence. This is Obama's opportunity to end one of the most dangerous legacies of the cold war: the nuclear missiles the US and Russia keep ready to fly in minutes. The signs are that he is unlikely to take it.

This leaves the questions why does the US keep its nuclear weapons "on alert", and are they really needed?

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Report: Google To Leave China On April 10

From CNET:

Google is expected to announce on Monday that it will withdraw from China on April 10, according to a report in a Beijing-based newspaper that cited an unidentified sales associate who works with the company.

"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Shortage of Rare Earth Minerals May Cripple U.S. High-Tech, Scientists Warn Congress

Rare Earths Rare earth elements form a crucial part of everyday high-tech products.

From Popular Science:

On the sunnier side, rare earths could power a future generation of clean tech.

All those hybrid and electric cars, wind turbines and similar clean tech innovations may count for nothing if the U.S. cannot secure a supply of rare earth minerals. Ditto for other advanced telecommunications or defense technologies, scientists told a U.S. House subcommittee.

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New Password-Stealing Virus Targets Facebook

From ABC News:

Virus Attempts to Steal Banking Passwords, Other Sensitive Information.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Hackers have flooded the Internet with virus-tainted spam that targets Facebook's estimated 400 million users in an effort to steal banking passwords and gather other sensitive information.

The emails tell recipients that the passwords on their Facebook accounts have been reset, urging them to click on an attachment to obtain new login credentials, according to anti-virus software maker McAfee Inc.

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Mysterious 'Dark Flow' May Be Tug Of Other Universe

The galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56 (known as the Bullet Cluster) lies 3.8 billion light-years away. It's one of hundreds that appear to be carried along by a mysterious cosmic flow. NASA/STScI/Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al.

From Discovery News:

A structure, possibly another universe beyond the horizon of our own, appears to be pulling at our world.

The universe is not only expanding -- it's being swept along in the direction of constellations Centaurus and Hydra at a steady clip of one million miles per hour, pulled, perhaps, by the gravity of another universe.

Scientists have no idea what's tugging at the known world, except to say that whatever it is likely dates back to the fraction of the second between the universe's explosive birth 13.7 billion years ago and its inflation a split second later.

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Astronomers Discover Most Primitive Supermassive Black Holes Known

This artist's conception illustrates one of the most primitive supermassive black holes known (central black dot) at the core of a young, star-rich galaxy. Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have uncovered two of these early objects, dating back to about 13 billion years ago. The monstrous black holes are among the most distant known, and appear to be in the very earliest stages of formation, earlier than any observed so far. Unlike all other supermassive black holes probed to date, this primitive duo, called J0005-0006 and J0303-0019, lacks dust. As the drawing shows, gas swirls around a black hole in what is called an accretion disk. Usually, the accretion disk is surrounded by a dark doughnut-like dusty structure called a dust torus. But for the primitive black holes, the dust tori are missing and only gas disks are observed. This is because the early universe was clean as a whistle. Enough time had not passed for molecules to clump together into dust particles. Some black holes forming in this era thus started out lacking dust. As they grew, gobbling up more and more mass, they are thought to have accumulated dusty rings. This illustration also shows how supermassive black holes can distort space and light around them (see warped stars behind black hole). Stars from the galaxy can be seen sprinkled throughout, and distant mergers between other galaxies are illustrated in the background. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 18, 2010) — Astronomers have come across what appear to be two of the earliest and most primitive supermassive black holes known. The discovery, based largely on observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, will provide a better understanding of the roots of our universe, and how the very first black holes, galaxies and stars all came to be.

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Giant Redwood Trees Endured Frequent Fires Centuries Ago

A prescribed burn was conducted in July 2001 in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. The giant redwoods endured frequent fires from the yeas 800 to 1300. Human activity reduced fires in recent decades but now scientists have reintroduced fire to the ecosystem. Credit: Tony C. Caprio

From Live Science:

Ancient trees pack a record of ancient events. And now scientists have used 52 of the world's oldest trees — giant sequoia redwoods in California's western Sierra Nevada — to show that the region was plagued by drought and fire from the year 800 through the year 1300.

Scientists reconstructed a 3,000-year history of fire by dating fire scars on the inland sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum) in the Giant Forest of Sequoia National Park. Individual giant sequoias can live more than 3,000 years.

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Tough Coatings For Airplanes

Image: Paper for airplanes: This paper (top), made from layers of tiny clay discs and a polymer (seen under the microscope at bottom), might be used as a strong, lightweight coating for buildings and airplanes. Credit: Andreas Walther

From Technology Review:

A strong material inspired by abalone shells could be applied over large areas.

For decades, materials scientists have looked to naturally existing composites as inspiration for tough, lightweight materials that could lighten vehicles. Such materials could save on fuel costs, protect airplanes, and be used in engine turbines that run more efficiently. The material that lines abalone shells, called nacre, has been of particular interest: it's lightweight and strong, yet shatter-resistant. But mimicking the microscale structures responsible for its properties has been difficult, and hasn't resulted in materials that can be manufactured on a large scale.

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Intel Plans To Turn Its Tiny Atom Chip Into A Big Brand

Brian Fravel of Intel … 'The whole media landscape has changed'

From The Guardian:

Atom processors have become popular in netbooks, but Intel's Brian Fravel is trying to turn it into a brand that will get consumers buying Intel-based interactive TV sets, set-top boxes and lots of portable devices.

Technology can be challenging for brand managers, because "technology is all about change, and brand's all about consistency: there's a constant push-pull between those two things," says Brian Fravel, director of Intel's Brand Strategy & Management.

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Bigelow Aerospace: Professional Astronauts Sought By American Space Firm

Only professionals with space flight experience need apply, such as British Nasa astronaut Nicholas Patrick, pictured here holding on to the International Space Station. Photo: NASA

From The Telegraph:

An American space holiday firm, Bigelow Aerospace, has become the first commercial company to advertise for professional astronauts.

The firm, founded by Bob Bigelow, the head of a budget motel chain in the US, wants experienced spacemen working in orbit and on the ground.

Only professionals with space flight experience need apply, which limits the pool of possible applicants worldwide to little more than 500.

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First Peek At Weather Inside Jupiter's Giant Red Spot

This visible light image of Jupiter's red spot shows how we would view the region with the naked eye

From The Daily Mail:

Jupiter's great red spot, which is the site of an enormous that could swallow Earth twice over, has fascinated astronomers for centuries.

Now scientists have made their first detailed weather map of the mysterious swirling region, thanks to new ground-breaking thermal images taken by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope.

The map has linked the storm system's temperature, winds, pressure and composition with its distinctive reddish colour.

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Planck Spies Massive Dust Clouds

Planck can see really cold dust sweeping through our galaxy

From The BBC:

Europe's Planck observatory has given another brief glimpse of its work.

The space telescope's main goal is to map the "oldest light" in the Universe, but this data is being kept under wraps until the surveying is complete.

Instead, Planck scientists have released a snapshot of the colossal swathes of cold dust that spread through the Milky Way galaxy.

Such imagery will be very useful to astronomers seeking to understand star formation.

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NASA And U.S. Navy Pledge To Save Silicon Valley's Massive Airship Hangar

Hangar One An old airship home needs a reskin U.S. Navy

From Popular Science:

The landmark Hangar One needs a giant new Teflon skin to replace its toxic siding, but funding is an issue.

Hangar One's behemoth structure once housed airships such as the doomed U.S.S. Macon, and is so large that clouds can supposedly form and rain inside it. Now NASA and the U.S. Navy have promised to replace the hangar's toxic siding with a new Teflon-covered fiberglass fabric skin, The Register reports.

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Hacker Disables More Than 100 Cars Remotely

From Threat Level:

More than 100 drivers in Austin, Texas found their cars disabled or the horns honking out of control, after an intruder ran amok in a web-based vehicle-immobilization system normally used to get the attention of consumers delinquent in their auto payments.

Police with Austin’s High Tech Crime Unit on Wednesday arrested 20-year-old Omar Ramos-Lopez, a former Texas Auto Center employee who was laid off last month, and allegedly sought revenge by bricking the cars sold from the dealership’s four Austin-area lots.

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