Good Prospects For Extraterrestrial Life? Rocky Planets 'Are Commonplace' In Our Galaxy

An artist's impression of a massive asteroid belt in orbit around a star. (Credit: NASA-JPL / Caltech / T. Pyle (SSC))

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 17, 2010) — An international team of astronomers have discovered compelling evidence that rocky planets are commonplace in our Galaxy. Leicester University scientist and lead researcher Dr Jay Farihi surveyed white dwarfs, the compact remnants of stars that were once like our Sun, and found that many show signs of contamination by heavier elements and possibly even water, improving the prospects for extraterrestrial life.

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Icelandic Volcano Creates Beautiful Sunsets

The sky was colored by ash from the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland in April. Apr. 15, 2010, Northeastern outskirts of Athens, Greece. Image © Anthony Ayiomamitis. Used with permission

From Live Science:

The plume of ash from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which is now inching across Europe's skies, is creating vivid red sunsets while thwarting airline travel plans. The phenomenon could last for days, and depending on how long the volcano continues to erupt, it could spread volcanic clouds all around the Northern Hemisphere, a scientist says.

The volcanic sunsets might even be glimpsed from the United States if the volcano keeps erupting, but chances for that are slim, experts say.

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Supercomputers Map Pathogens As They Emerge And Evolve

A screenshot from a Supramap study of avian influenza, with red lines representing the spread of drug-resistant strains and the white lines drug susceptible strains. Credit: Ohio Supercomputing Center

From Cosmos:

BRISBANE: Instead of simply focussing on human infections, infectious disease researchers can now track the complex interactions, movement and evolution of the pathogens themselves using supercomputers.

The researchers are using a new program called Supramap, which operates on the computing systems at Ohio State University and the Ohio Supercomputer Center.

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Green-Eyed Monster: Why Women Can be Literally Blinded By Jealousy

Green-eyed-monster: jealousy, of the type enjoyed by Gabrielle and Carlos in Desperate Housewives, has been shown to affect women's ability to see

From The Daily Mail:

It's hard to see things clearly when you fall victim to the green-eyed monster. And sometimes jealousy can make it hard to see at all.

Researchers found that a woman can fail to notice things in front of her when distracted by the possibility that her husband or boyfriend is attracted to someone else.

Psychologists suggest this reveals something profound about social relationships and perception.

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Calorie Restriction Leads Scientists To Molecular Pathways That Slow Aging, Improve Health

Healthful cooking. Organisms from yeast to rodents to humans all benefit from cutting calories. In less complex organisms, restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. It's not yet clear just how much longer calorie restriction might help humans live, but those who practice the strict diet hope to survive past 100 years old. (Credit: iStockphoto/Diane Diederich)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2010) — Organisms from yeast to rodents to humans all benefit from cutting calories. In less complex organisms, restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. It's not yet clear just how much longer calorie restriction might help humans live, but those who practice the strict diet hope to survive past 100 years old.

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'Leaked' First Pictures Of iPhone 4G Surface On The Web With Rumours Of June Release... But Are They Real?

Apple's next iPhone? There is a fierce online debate on whether this grainy image is the new 4G

From The Daily Mail:

Gadget geeks, prepare yourselves to be overwhelmed - or at least feel a flutter of excitement.

For these grainy pictures are supposedly the first peek at the next generation of iPhone - the 4G.

Apparently leaked onto the internet, the images show what look like a sleeker version of the current iPhone, with a thinner, aluminium case.

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When Black Holes Go Rogue, They Kill Galaxies

A powerful jet from a supermassive black hole is blasting a nearby galaxy in the system known as 3C321 (Image: (NASA/CXC/CfA/D.Evans et al.; Optical/UV: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/VLA/CfA/D.Evans et al., STFC/JBO/MERLIN)

From New Scientist:

Massive black holes may be kicking the life out of galaxies by ripping out their vital gaseous essence, leaving reddened galactic victims scattered throughout the universe. While the case is not yet closed, new research shows that these black holes have at least the means to commit the violent crime.

It was already known that "supermassive" black holes at the centre of most galaxies sometimes emit vast amounts of radiation. But nobody had a good idea how common such violence is. A snapshot of the universe doesn't give enough information to judge this because the activity of the black holes is thought to be intermittent, depending on how much nearby matter they have to feed on.

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Infected XP Owners Left Unpatched

From The BBC:

Some of the latest security updates for Windows XP will not be installed on machines infected with a rootkit virus.

A rootkit is sneaky malware that buries itself deep inside the Windows operating system to avoid detection.

Microsoft said it had taken the action because similar updates issued in February made machines infected with the Alureon rootkit crash endlessly.

The latest updates can spot if a system is compromised by the Alureon rootkit and halt installation.

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Iceland Eruption: New Satellite Image of Volcanic Ash Cloud

This image, acquired on 15 April 2010 by Envisat's Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS), shows the vast cloud of volcanic ash sweeping across the UK from the eruption in Iceland, more than 1000 km away. The ash, which can be seen as the large grey streak in the image, is drifting from west to east at a height of about 11 km above the surface Earth. (Credit: ESA)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2010) — A vast cloud of volcanic ash has been sweeping across parts of northern Europe from the eruption of a volcano in Iceland. The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite has imaged the ash cloud, showing for example the extent over the UK, more than 1,000 kilometers away.

Carried by winds high up in the atmosphere, the cloud of ash from the eruption of the volcano near the Eyjafjallajoekull glacier in southwest Iceland has led to the closure of airports throughout the UK and Scandinavia, with further disruption in northern Europe expected later.

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What Was Different About China's Quake?

From Live Science:

The earthquake that struck China in the early hours of the morning was different than some of the major temblors that have struck around the world so far this year in that it occurred in the middle of one of Earth's tectonic plates, instead of at the junction between them.

The 6.9-magnitude quake, according to estimates by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), struck at 7:49 a.m. local time (2349 GMT, 7:49 p.m. EDT) near the area of Yushu in Qinghai province. This area is part of the Tibetan Plateau, which stands over 3 miles (5 kilometers) above sea level.

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Icelandic Volcano’s Ash Plume As Seen From Space

From Wired Science:

A NASA satellite captured an image of the ash plume from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano’s Wednesday eruption. We can see the ash plume from the event sweeping east just north of the United Kingdom en route to Norway.

The plume has disrupted air travel in western Europe, The New York Times reports, because of (well-founded) fears that the silicates in the ash could turn into molten glass inside planes’ jet engines.

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Viacom: Google Used Piracy To Coerce Content Owners

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

From CNET:

Viacom says newly released documents in its copyright fight with Google over its YouTube subsidiary help prove its case against the search engine.

We've heard these kinds of sweeping declarations from both sides throughout the legal standoff, which began when Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google in 2007. A review of the documents filed with the court on Thursday shows that much of the material, such as Google employees making critical statements about YouTube's "rogue" business model before buying it in October 2006 for $1.65 billion, have been well covered.

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Video: Swoop Through the Real New York as Google Earth Meets Google Street View

From The Popular Science:

Google Earth has long allowed users to zoom in on textured, three-dimensional representations of cities, but the view was more or less limited to one angle: straight down. But the search giant has now mashed up its wealth of high-res Street View data with some existing city textures, making it possible to zoom right down to street level and take in a pedestrian's view in 3-D.

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Icelandic Volcanologists Carefully Watching Eyjafjallajokull’s Big Sister

From Times Online:

The erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano may be causing its fair share of havoc but scientists say we may have seen nothing yet.

All eyes in the volcanology community are focused on Eyjafjallajökull’s far larger sister, called Katla, which could cause disruption on a far larger scale. Katla is about eight miles to the west under the Myrdalsjökull ice cap. An eruption could cause widespread flooding and disrupt air traffic between Europe and North America.

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Get Ready For Decades Of Icelandic Fireworks

Ready for more of the same? (Image: Icelandic Coast Guard)

From New Scientist:

We're not quite back to the pre-plane era, but air travel over and around the north Atlantic might get a lot more disrupted in the coming years.

Volcanologists say the fireworks exploding from the Eyjafjallajökull volcano on Iceland, which is responsible for the ash cloud that is grounding all commercial flights across northern Europe, may become a familiar sight. Increased rumblings under Iceland over the past decade suggest that the area is entering a more active phase, with more eruptions and the potential for some very large bangs.

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Allergies Worse Than Ever? Blame Global Warming

Blend Images / Getty Images

From Time Magazine:

Allergy sufferers like to claim — in between sniffles — that each spring's allergy season is worse than the last. But this year, they might actually be right.

Thanks to an unusually cold and snowy winter, followed by an early and warm spring, pollen counts are through the roof in much of the U.S., especially in the Southeast, which is already home to some of the most allergenic cities in the country. A pollen count — the number of grains of pollen in a cubic meter of air — of 120 is considered high, but in Atlanta last week the number hit 5,733, the second highest level ever recorded in the city.

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Widening Gullies On Mars Point To Liquid Water

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows gullies near the
edge of Hale crater on southern Mars. Credit: NASA

From Cosmos:

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Changes in gullies on Mars suggest that there is flowing water on the red planet, scientists said.

Martian gullies carved into hill slopes and the walls of impact craters were discovered several years ago. On Earth, gullies usually form through the action of liquid water – long thought to be absent on the Martian surface because the temperature and atmospheric pressure were believed to be too low.

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Whaling Peace Plan To Go Forward This Year

From The BBC:

A proposal aimed at bridging the split between whaling nations and their opponents will almost certainly come to governments for decision this year.

Sources say it could involve Japan accepting quotas below current levels; but Iceland is opposing proposed catch limits and an international trade ban.

Some anti-whaling countries see such a "peace package" as the only way to constrain whale hunting.

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Why Iceland's Volcano Is A Hazard For Air Travel

From Time Magazine:

Passengers sitting in planes on the runways of Heathrow Airport outside London on Thursday morning must have wondered what the problem was.

The sky above was clear and blue, yet the British government had closed the country's entire airspace, grounding all flights at five airports and disrupting the itineraries of tens of thousands of travelers — including those whose journeys originated elsewhere in Europe, North America and beyond and who would have only passed through Heathrow, Europe's busiest airport and a major international hub that handles more than 1,200 flights and 180,000 passengers per day.

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Biggest Comet Measured to Date: Comet McNaught

Comet McNaught viewed over the Pacific in 2007. (Credit: Sebastian Deiries/ESO)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2010) — British scientists have identified a new candidate for the biggest comet measured to date. Dr Geraint Jones of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory presented the results at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Glasgow on April 13. Instead of using the length of the tail to measure the scale of the comet, the group used data from the ESA/NASA Ulysses spacecraft to gauge the size of the region of space disturbed by the comet's presence.

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