The Secrets Of Intelligence Lie Within A Single Cell

Modelling the neuron as little more than a simple on/off switch is a big mistake (Image: Dan Webber)

From The New Scientist:

LATE at night on a sultry evening, I watch intently as the predator senses its prey, gathers itself, and strikes. It could be a polecat, or even a mantis - but in fact it's a microbe. The microscopic world of the single, living cell mirrors our own in so many ways: cells are essentially autonomous, sentient and ingenious. In the lives of single cells we can perceive the roots of our own intelligence.

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Police Seize Gizmodo's Computers In iPhone Probe

Gizmodo editor Jason Chen in a video embedded in his April 19 post titled "This is Apple's next iPhone." (Credit: Gizmodo.com/Screenshot by CNET)

From CNET:

Police have seized computers and servers belonging to an editor of Gizmodo in an investigation that appears to stem from the gadget blog's purchase of a lost Apple iPhone prototype.

Deputies from the San Mateo County Sheriff's office obtained a warrant on Friday and searched Jason Chen's Fremont, Calif., home later that evening, Gizmodo acknowledged on Monday.

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Field Guide: What's The Best Smartphone Operating System?

From Popular Mechanics:

Sure, a smartphone's specs matter—you'll want one with a fast processor, bright screen and decent camera. But the horsepower is wasted if the phone is difficult to use. When it comes to user experience, nothing is more important than a phone's operating system (OS). Here's what you need to know about the five top smartphone platforms.

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The Army Wants To Smell Your Fear

Smelling Threats from a Distance Using people's unique scents to identify them before they get too close to troops could save soldiers' lives.

The Army Wants Olfactory Sensors That Can Smell Potential Perps At A Distance -- Popular Science

If something doesn’t smell right, the Army wants to know about it. But while the Pentagon has been angling for a biosensors that can smell fear or nervousness in a person’s bodily emanations for some years now, the Army wants something more: The ability to “uniquely identify an individual based on scent” from a distance or even days after the person has left the scene.

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The “CSI Effect”

From The Economist:

Television dramas that rely on forensic science to solve crimes are affecting the administration of justice.

OPENING a new training centre in forensic science (pictured above) at the University of Glamorgan in South Wales recently, Bernard Knight, formerly one of Britain’s chief pathologists, said that because of television crime dramas, jurors today expect more categorical proof than forensic science is capable of delivering. And when it comes to the gulf between reality and fiction, Dr Knight knows what he is talking about: besides 43 years’ experience of attending crime scenes, he has also written dozens of crime novels.

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Is The U.S. Experiencing A Rocket Motor Shortage, And Will It Impact National Security?

U.S. Spy Satellite Program Could Be Undermined By Flagging Demand For Rocket Motors -- Lexington Institute

Amy Butler of Aviation Week & Space Technology reported last week that the super-secret National Reconnaissance Office will be launching new spy satellites over the next two years at the highest rate since the Reagan era. Butler quotes NRO director Bruce Carlson as stating that several "very large, very critical" spacecraft will be sent into orbit by his agency -- presumably systems that collect imagery of surface targets or eavesdrop on the radio-frequency transmissions of potential adversaries. Combined with impending launches of new military-communications and missile-warning satellites, news of the spy-satellite payloads will come as welcome news to the nation's endangered rocket-motor industry.

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Hat Tip: Defense Industry Daily

My Comment: Someone has taken the eye off the ball on this one.

Don’t Talk To Aliens, Warns Stephen Hawking

Hawking has depicted what kinds of alien could be out there

From Times Online:

THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

The suggestions come in a new documentary series in which Hawking, one of the world’s leading scientists, will set out his latest thinking on some of the universe’s greatest mysteries.

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A Counter Argument That Our Obesity Epidemic Is Not A Threat To National Security

From Slate:

The obesity epidemic has nothing to do with national security.

"My name's Dewey Oxberger; my friends call me 'Ox'. You might've noticed I've got a slight weight problem," said John Candy to his fellow Army recruits in the 1981 film Stripes. "So I figured while I'm here, I'll lose a few pounds. I'm gonna walk out of here a lean, mean fightin' machine!"

In real life, the 6-foot-2, 300-pound Ox wouldn't have made it through the barracks door. The movie's release coincided with a new weight-control program in the U.S. military. Recruits were already screened for height and weight; now they'd be checked for body fat percentage, too. It's been 30 years since Stripes came out, and the rate of obesity among adults has doubled. A report out this week estimates that 27 percent of all Americans of recruitment age—that's 9 million young adults—are too fat to fight for their country. At a press conference Tuesday, Sen. Richard Lugar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and a group of retired generals and admirals warned that our poor diets and lack of exercise have now become a danger to homeland security.

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My Comment: I could not have said it any better.

Humans Cannot Multitask (Even Women)

The research showed that humans prefer a simple choice of two options,
rather than three or more. ALAMY

From The Independent:

Study finds the structure of the brain means we struggle to do more than two jobs at once.

The human mind may be inherently incapable of dealing with more than two tasks at a time according to a study showing that "multi-tasking" skills are limited by the physical division of the brain into two hemispheres.

Scientists have found that when people have to carry out two tasks simultaneously their brains divide each job up so that one is performed largely by the left side of the brain and the other is carried out mainly on the right.

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Energy Research Spending Seen As Chump Change

From Future Pundit:

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and former Dupont CEO Chad Holliday say we spend too little on energy R&D and energy is a big problem.

But our country is neglecting a field central to our national prospect and security: energy. Although the information technology and pharmaceutical industries spend 5 to 15 percent of their revenue on research and development each year, U.S. companies' spending on energy R&D has averaged only about one-quarter of 1 percent of revenue over the past 15 years.

And despite talk about the need for "21st-century" energy sources, federal spending on clean energy research -- less than $3 billion -- is also relatively small. Compare that with roughly $30 billion that the U.S. government annually spends on health research and $80 billion on defense research and development.

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Volcanic Eruption In Eyjafjallajökull And Fimmvörðuháls In Iceland 2010 (Pics from Flickr)

The Gallery of pictures is here.

Volcanic Ash Cloud: Stunning Northern Lights Images Captured Over Iceland

The Northern Lights are seen through a valley leading away from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

A series of spectacular images of the Northern Lights have been captured over the ash plume from the Iceland Volcano.

The incredible images show in amazing detail the sky lit up in amazing green colour above the Eyjafjallajökull volcano.

In the images, captured by New York-based photographer Lucas Jackson, red lava can also be seen spewing from the top of the active volcano.

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Facebook Wants To Control The Web, Like It Or Not

From InfoWorld:

Facebook wants to dictate how you log in and share content across the Web. Should you let them? Cringely says nyet.

Mark Zuckerberg may look and sound like the irritatingly self-satisfied rich kid you always hated in high school, but I’ll say this for him: He’s got cojones the size of tractor tires.

Facebook just made a play to take over the entire Web -- or at least, the parts that get the most traffic -- via its new "social graph,” officially unveiled at this week’s F8 confab.

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Experimental Explanation Of Supercooling: Why Water Does Not Freeze In The Clouds

Droplet of a gold-silicon liquid alloy on a silicon (111) surface. Pentagonal clusters formed at the interface exhibit a denser structure compared to solid gold and prevent the liquid from crystallization at temperatures as low as 300 Kelvin below the solidification temperature. (Credit: Graphics by M. Collignon)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 23, 2010) — Supercooling, a state where liquids do not solidify even below their normal freezing point, still puzzles scientists today. A good example of this phenomenon is found everyday in meteorology: clouds in high altitude are an accumulation of supercooled droplets of water below their freezing point.

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Flying Car Could Transform Warfare

From Live Science:

The Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) has cleared the Transformer (TX) program for takeoff. If it flies, by 2015 U.S. soldiers will be able to ride into battle aboard a four-person flying car that can cruise in the air like an airplane, drive on the ground like an SUV, rove 250 miles on one tank of fuel and not require a runway to get airborne.

DARPA, the Department of Defense office that is tasked with exploring futuristic technologies that may have military applications, held an industry day workshop for companies earlier this year to solicit proposals for developing a prototype vehicle. Proposals are due May 27.

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Climate Scientist Sues Newspaper For 'Poisoning' Global Warming Debate

Andrew Weaver with the IPCC's 2007 report on which he was a lead author.
Photograph: Ray Smith.

From The Guardian:

Climate modeller Andrew Weaver launches libel action in Canada for publishing 'grossly irresponsible falsehoods'.

One of the world's leading climate scientists has launched a libel lawsuit against a Canadian newspaper for publishing articles that he says "poison" the debate on global warming.

In a case with potentially huge consequences for online publishers, lawyers acting for Andrew Weaver, a climate modeller at the University of Victoria, Canada, have demanded the National Post removes the articles not only from its own websites, but also from the numerous blogs and sites where they were reposted.

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IPad’s Rivals Are On The March

From Times Online:

As Apple prepares to unleash the iPad in Britain, its rivals are preparing their fightback, rushing to create and release their own tablet computers, devices already dubbed the “iPad killers”.

Moreover, the attack on the iPad is coming on several fronts. The mobile phone maker Nokia is believed to be planning a similar machine designed mainly to read electronic books. Microsoft is flirting with the idea of creating a tablet. Even Google could enter the fray with a slate of its own.

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Obama’s NASA Blueprint Is Challenged In Congress

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — President Obama may have hoped that a speech a week ago at the Kennedy Space Center would sway skeptics to his proposed space policy, but a Congressional hearing on Thursday gave little signs that the lines of contention have shifted yet.

Opponents like Richard C. Shelby, the Republican senator from Alabama where NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center has been leading the design of the Ares I rocket that the Obama administration would like to cancel, continued to denounce Mr. Obama’s plans. Those plans call for ending NASA’s current Constellation program that was to send astronauts back to the moon and turning to private companies for transportation into orbit.

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Maxed Out: How Long Can You Go Without Sleep?

Randy Gardner went without sleep for 11 days (Image: Don Cravens/Getty)

From New Scientist:

On 28 December 1963, Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old schoolboy in San Diego, California, got up at 6 am feeling wide awake and raring to go. He didn't go back to sleep again until the morning of 8 January 1964. That's 11 days without sleep.

Gardner's 264 hours remains the longest scientifically verified period without sleep, breaking the previous record of 260 hours. It was described in a 1965 paper by sleep researcher William Dement of the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, who stayed awake with Gardner for the final three days.

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SETI Releases Its Collected Data To The Public, Wants Open-Source Search For Whatever's Out There

The Allen Telescope Array Radio? What is this, the 1930s? Aliens, hit us back on Twitter. We're @Earth284. SETI, via MSNBC

From Popular Science:

Your chance to spot 50 years' worth of sneakily concealed aliens.

Over the past decade, those who wished to contribute to SETI's mission of locating life elsewhere in the universe could leave their computers on running a special screensaver and donate their unused computing power to the cause. Now, SETI director Jill Tarter is asking people around the globe to get more involved in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by opening up SETI's servers to the public calling for a worldwide, open source contribution to the search.

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