New Tech Sees Dead People

Using hyperspectral imaging, scientists from McGill University have found unmarked animal graves with special cameras that measure changes in the light coming from soil and plants. (Getty Images)

From ABC News:

Technology Can Detect Chemicals Released by Decomposing Bodies

A spooky sounding technology is finding old, unmarked graves. Using hyperspectral imaging, scientists from McGill University have found unmarked animal graves with special cameras that measure changes in the light coming from soil and plants.

Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes light from across the electromagnetic spectrum, including visible light as well as ultraviolet and infrared light. The research could help police solve missing persons cases or reveal new mass graves from hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago.

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The Page: An E-Ink Newspaper That Won't Smudge Your Fingers

From Gizmodo:

For some reason I'm skeptical that the one thing keeping newspaper readers from switching to E-Ink readers is the form factor, but that doesn't make this semi-transparent E-Ink newspaper display concept any less cool.

The key word, of course, is concept, but flexible/foldable displays aren't anything new. Nor are interactive content or E-Ink. It's bringing these concepts together in a workable package that might take some time. Meanwhile, though, here's how it would ideally work (without all the wobbly images):

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Microsoft Debuts 'Fix It' Program

From The BBC:

Microsoft has launched "Fix It" software that keeps an eye on a PC and automatically repairs common faults.

The software basically adds the automatic diagnostics system in Windows 7 to older versions of Microsoft's operating system.

The software, currently available as a trial or beta version, is intended for users of Windows XP and Vista.

The package also tries to anticipate how security updates will affect a PC before they are installed.

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Why Can't Planes Fly Through Volcanic Ash? NASA Found Out The Hard Way

Jet Engine Meets Volcanic Ash This British Airways engine experienced a run in with a volcanic ash plume in 1982. Image: Eric Moody, British Airways

From Popular Science:

If you’ve been anywhere near a television or Web enabled device in the last week (and you must have been), you know that a volcanic eruption in Iceland has grounded airline flights across Europe and even halted a few flights into the northeastern-most areas of Canada. What you probably don’t know is how to pronounce the name of the volcano (Eyjafjallajökull) or why an eruption in Iceland is grounding flights in London, Madrid and Berlin.

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Dry Regions Becoming Drier: Ocean Salinities Show an Intensified Water Cycle

An Argo robotic profiling instrument being deployed from the research vessel, Southern Surveyor. (Credit: Alicia Navidad)

From Live Science:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2010) — The stronger water cycle means arid regions have become drier and high rainfall regions wetter as atmospheric temperature increases.

The study, co-authored by CSIRO scientists Paul Durack and Dr Susan Wijffels, shows the surface ocean beneath rainfall-dominated regions has freshened, whereas ocean regions dominated by evaporation are saltier. The paper also confirms that surface warming of the world's oceans over the past 50 years has penetrated into the oceans' interior changing deep-ocean salinity patterns.

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Will The Iceland Volcano Change The Climate?

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 Live Science:

The vast plume of material spewing from this week's eruption of an Icelandic volcano is reddening sunsets and clouding skies across Europe. If the eruptions continue and get bigger — a possibility given the explosive history of Iceland's volcanoes — even the global climate could be affected. But the current eruption is too wimpy to have any significant impact, scientists say.

The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano may be treating European sky watchers to spectacular sunsets and hampering air travel due to the ash and gas it has spewed into the atmosphere. But "there will be no effect on climate," said Alan Robock of Rutgers University, who studies the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate.

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Ash Cloud Reminds Us That We Should All Be Afraid Of Volcanoes

From The Telegraph:

Eyjafjallajökull's giant cloud of ash is a nuisance, but a supervolcano's catastrophic eruption could threaten the fabric of civilisation, says Kate Ravilious.

Every so often the Earth chooses to remind us that we really aren't in control of this planet. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, which began on Wednesday, is just such a reminder. As ash spews out across northern Europe, grounding all flights across Scandinavia and the UK, we begin to realise how powerless we humans are.

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Space Shuttle Discovery Soars Over Crystal Clear Caribbean On Long Journey Home

Astronaut Soichi Noguchi sent this amazing picture of the underside of the Discovery Shuttle from the International Space Station

From The Daily Mail:

Gliding over the deep blue waters of the Caribbean, the shuttle Discovery has started its long journey back to Earth.

The crew, including a record-breaking trio of female astronauts, wrapped up a two-week mission on the International Space Station on Saturday before undocking from the orbiter.

Pilot Jim Dutton performed a loop the loop, which gave ISS astronaut Soichi Noguchi a fantastic view of the shuttle's well-weathered underside. Mr Noguchi was quick to snap the impressive sight and share his pictures with his 200,000 followers on Earth.

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The Biggest Bangs In History

From New Scientist:

The colossal Toba supervolcanic eruption 74,000 years ago was big – but not the biggest in Earth's history. Here's our rundown of chart-topping blasts from the past.


The Tunguska event

One of the 20th century's most notorious bangs happened at 7.14 am on 30 June 1908. At that moment, something exploded with enormous force over the Tunguska river in Siberia, Russia.

The resulting shock wave flattened trees over an area of 2000 square kilometres, and people tens of kilometres away were knocked off their feet.

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For Prom, Teens Let YouTube Do The Asking

From ABC News:

High School Students Woo Would-Be Prom Dates With Online Creativity.

Sweaty-palmed, tongue-tied teens take note: If you want to score a date to the prom, asking the simple question just might not cut it anymore.

Hallway conversations and handwritten notes might have worked for previous generations, but with prom season under way, high school students across the country are turning to YouTube to give an age-old rite of passage a new media moment of fame.

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This Is Apple's Next iPhone

From Gizmodo:

You are looking at Apple's next iPhone. It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it. We disassembled it. It's the real thing, and here are all the details.

While Apple may tinker with the final packaging and design of the final phone, it's clear that the features in this lost-and-found next-generation iPhone are drastically new and drastically different from what came before. Here's the detailed list of our findings:

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Water - Another Global 'Crisis'?

Sharper, more intense rains may reduce the water available to farmers

From The BBC:

If you look at the numbers, it is hard to see how many East African communities made it through the long drought of 2005 and 2006.

Among people who study human development, it is a widely-held view that each person needs about 20 litres of water each day for the basics - to drink, cook and wash sufficiently to avoid disease transmission.

Yet at the height of the East African drought, people were getting by on less than five litres a day - in some cases, less than one litre a day, enough for just three glasses of drinking water and nothing left over.

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Behind The Air Force's Secret Robotic Space Plane

Behind The Air Force's Secret Robotic Space Plane -- Popular Mechanics

Move over NASA. The U.S. Air Force has spent decades on the concept: an unmanned space plane that can be used to spy, reposition satellites, possibly even bomb targets, then return to base. A successful launch next week could turn that vision into a reality.

When the engines of a 19-story Atlas V ignite in April at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the liftoff will look like any other for the workhorse launch vehicle. After about 4 minutes, the engines will cut off and the rocket's first stage will fall away, freeing the second stage to boost the upper section of the rocket into low Earth orbit.

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My Comment: A lot of eyes are now focused on this program .... from NASA to foreign powers. After many years and mega-billions spent .... they better succeed.

A Mobile Touchscreen Projectable On Any Flat Surface

Light Blue Optics Light Touch Price not set; lightblueoptics.com Gregor Halenda

From Popular Science:

This tiny projector casts images that you can click and swipe.

When you go to a restaurant in the near future, you might order your food by poking at icons on your table -- they'll vanish when the plates arrive, and spilled drinks won't do them any harm. Light Blue Optics's pico projector is the first to turn any flat surface into a computer touchscreen. It beams a 10-inch display, which can show photos, videos, Web sites or apps running on its simple interface, and uses an infrared sensor to track your fingers' movements. Done browsing?

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Climatologists Ponder Earth's Missing Heat

From Science A Go-Go:

Astonishingly, climatologists can't account for roughly half of the heat that is believed to have built up on the Earth in recent years. "The heat will come back to haunt us sooner or later," lament National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientists in an article in the journal Science.

The scientists believe that satellite sensors, ocean floats, and other instruments used to measure energy are inadequate to track this "missing" heat, which may be building up in the deep oceans or elsewhere in the climate system. "The reprieve we've had from warming temperatures in the last few years will not continue. It is critical to track the build-up of energy in our climate system so we can understand what is happening and predict our future climate," said NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth, the article's lead author.

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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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