Taking Cues From Medical Tech, Big Oil Could Use Nanoparticles to Hunt for Leftover Crude in Spent Wells

Using Nanotech to Reach Every Drop of Oil Flcelloguy via Wikimedia

From Popular Science:

You can't throw a rock in the realm of biotech right now without hitting some scheme or another for tapping the unique properties of nanoparticles to hunt tumors, target drug delivery, or monitor the body internally for specific biomarkers. But a perhaps unlikely field of scientific exploration is also tapping these nano-biotechnology applications to search for the elusive hydrocarbons that are its lifeblood: the oil industry.

Read more ....

4 Big Losers From Apple's TV, iPod Announcement

From Popular Mechanics:

At today's music-themed keynote in San Francisco, Apple rolled out a lot of goodies as fanboys cheered each announcement. It was hard not to imagine entire industries turning red with fear. Apple is a powerful company, and their business decisions and product announcements have a tendency to radically reshape entire industries. Let's look at some of the biggest potential losers from today's announcements.

Read more ....

Can Nanotechnology Save Lives?

Polymer fronds a few thousand nanometers long wrap around even tinier plymer spheres. Felice C. Frankel

From The Smithsonian:

Harvard professor and scientific genius George Whitesides believes that nanotechnology will change medicine as we know it

Finding George Whitesides is often tricky even for George Whitesides. So he keeps an envelope in his jacket pocket. “I don’t actually know where I am in general until I look at it,” he says, “and then I find that I’m in Terre Haute, and then the question really is, ‘What’s next?’” During a recent stretch, the envelope revealed that he was in Boston, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai, Delhi, Basel, Geneva, Boston, Copenhagen, Boston, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles and Boston.

Read more ....

Inception: 'The Most Resilient Parasite Is An Idea Planted In The Unconscious Mind'

From The Telegraph:

The movie 'Inception' raises interesting questions about the brain’s susceptibility to new ideas during dreaming, says Roger Highfield.

Are you dreaming as you read this sentence? I’m sure you’re confident that you’re wide awake – but if you’ve seen Inception, the new blockbuster movie, you may harbour a nagging doubt.

Read more ....

5 Nanometer Computer Chips

From Future Pundit:

While Moore's Law for increasing computer chip transistor density won't go on for more than another 20 years it is still happening. Intel introduced 32 nanometer chips in 2009 and will introduce 22 nm chips in 2011. The New York Times reports on Rice University and Hewlett-Packard researchers who have developed 5 nanometer logic devices.

These chips store only 1,000 bits of data, but if the new technology fulfills the promise its inventors see, single chips that store as much as today’s highest capacity disk drives could be possible in five years. The new method involves filaments as thin as five nanometers in width — thinner than what the industry hopes to achieve by the end of the decade using standard techniques. The initial discovery was made by Jun Yao, a graduate researcher at Rice. Mr. Yao said he stumbled on the switch by accident.

Read more ....

How To Make Money Developing Mobile Apps

iPad, iPhone, iPod

From Tod.fm:

Do you want to make money developing applications for iPhones, iPads, and other mobile devices? I went from almost zero experience to earning a regular income from my apps in a few short months. Let me show you how I did it.

This is a long article (6,217 words). I will go through some important aspects of writing successful apps, from finding and choosing the right ideas to develop, to a very important money saving tip. Although I’m writing from the perspective of an iOS developer, the general ideas apply to other platforms like Android. Whether you develop for Apple’s devices or not, you can still benefit from the article.

Read more ....

My Comment: A rather long article, but an interesting read.

This Is Weird

A game character from Love Plus is superimposed over a cellphone photo of Kanji Nagasawa, the owner of a Korean barbecue restaurant in Atami, Japan, holding a specialty dish created for the game's fans. Akiko Fujita

Only In Japan, Real Men Go To A Hotel With Virtual Girlfriends -- Wall Street Journal

Dating-Simulation Game a Last Resort For Honeymoon Town and Its Lonely Guests.

ATAMI, Japan—This resort town, once popular with honeymooners, is turning to a new breed of romance seekers—virtual sweethearts.

Since the marriage rate among Japan's shrinking population is falling and with many of the country's remaining lovebirds heading for Hawaii or Australia's Gold Coast, Atami had to do something. It is trying to attract single men—and their handheld devices.

Read more ....

What Is Consciousness?

From Think Big:

What does it mean to be conscious? It's a question that philosophers and scientists have puzzled over perhaps since there have been philosophers and scientists.

In his book "Consciousness Explained," Tufts University philosopher Daniel Dennett calls human consciousness "just about the last surviving mystery," explaining that a mystery is something that people don't yet know how to think about. "We do not yet have all the answers to any of the questions of cosmology and particle physics, molecular genetics and evolutionary theory, but we do know how to think about them," writes Dennett. "With consciousness, however, we are still in a terrible muddle. Consciousness stands alone today as a topic that often leaves even the most sophisticated thinkers tongue-tied and confused. And, as with all of the earlier mysteries, there are many who insist—and hope—that there will never be a demystification of consciousness."

Read more ....

Second Super-Fast Flip Of Earth's Poles Found

On the flip, in record time (Image: G.Glatzmaier/Los Alamos National Laboratory/P.Roberts/UCLA/SPL)

From The New Scientist:

SOME 16 million years ago, north became south in a matter of years. Such fast flips are impossible, according to models of the Earth's core, but this is now the second time that evidence has been found.

The magnetic poles swap every 300,000 years, a process that normally takes up to 5000 years. In 1995 an ancient lava flow with an unusual magnetic pattern was discovered in Oregon. It suggested that the field at the time was moving by 6 degrees a day - at least 10,000 times faster than usual. "Not many people believed it," says Scott Bogue of Occidental College in Los Angeles.

Read more ....

They Crawl, They Bite, They Baffle Scientists

THE ICK FACTOR The lab of Stephen A. Kells, a University of Minnesota entomologist. Bedbugs are not known to transmit disease. Allen Brisson-Smith for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

Don’t be too quick to dismiss the common bedbug as merely a pestiferous six-legged blood-sucker.

Think of it, rather, as Cimex lectularius, international arthropod of mystery.

In comparison to other insects that bite man, or even only walk across man’s food, nibble man’s crops or bite man’s farm animals, very little is known about the creature whose Latin name means — go figure — “bug of the bed.” Only a handful of entomologists specialize in it, and until recently it has been low on the government’s research agenda because it does not transmit disease. Most study grants come from the pesticide industry and ask only one question: What kills it?

Read more ....

What Created This Smooth, 200-Mile-Long Trench On Mars?

Orcus Patera ESA

From Popular Science:

The European Space Agency has released a series of new images of Orcus Patera, a long crater near Mars's Mons Olympus whose rim rises some 6,000 feet. But the images, taken by the Mars Express craft, only deepen the mystery of the crater's origin.

The ESA says "the most likely explanation is that it was made in an oblique impact, when a small body struck the surface at a very shallow angle." Sounds almost definitely like aliens.

Read more ....

How the 105-mph Fastball Tests The Limits Of The Human Body

Pitcher Aroldis Chapman #51 of the Louisville Bats throws a pitch during a game on May 14, 2010 against the Rochester Red Wings at Frontier Field in Rochester, New York. Gregory Cammett/Diamond Images/Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics:

A Triple-A pitcher shocked the baseball world with a pitch clocked at an insanely fast 105 mph. Here's why we won't see pitchers throw it much faster than this—ever.

Last Friday was a mixed bag for fans of the fastball. Early in the day, the Washington Nationals announced that phenom Stephen Strasburg, who hurled a 101-mph pitch in his debut in June, would likely require Tommy John surgery for his injured elbow; a procedure that could sideline him for up to 18 months. But later that night Aroldis Chapman, a 22-year-old Cuban defector pitching for the Cincinnati Reds' triple-A affiliate in Louisville, captured baseball fans' attention when he threw a pitch clocked at 105 mph.

Read more ....

Apple Ping Network Slammed With Spam

Apple Ping is having some spam problems. Lots of them. So is Ping finished? Probably not. Newscom

From Christian Science Monitor:

Earlier this week, Apple launched a platform called Ping, which is built into the latest iteration of iTunes. Ping is a sort of Facebook or MySpace for iTunes people: You can use the service to share your favorite songs and videos, suggest content to friends, and search for concerts and events in your area. But Ping has gotten off to a rocky start.

Read more ....

Gadget Lab Podcast: iPods, Apple TV and Samsung's Galaxy Tab

India To Build World's Largest Solar Telescope

Photo: Currently, the world's largest solar telescope is the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope, with a diameter of 1.6 metres in Kitt Peak National Observatory at Arizona in the US.

From Space Daily:

India is inching closer towards building the world's largest solar telescope in Ladakh on the foothills of the Himalayas that aims to study the sun's microscopic structure.

The National Large Solar Telescope (NLST) project has gathered momentum with a global tender floated for technical and financial bidding by the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA).

Read more ....

Health Checkup: Who Needs Organic Food?

Foodpix / Getty Images
Organic food comes with real health benefits and significant costs. TIME looks at both sides of the debate

From Time Magazine:

Looking for a quick way to feel lousy about yourself? Then forget the idea of a healthy diet and just eat what your body wants you to eat. Your body wants meat; your body wants fat; your body wants salt and sugar. Your body will put up with fruits and vegetables if it must, but only after all the meat, fat, salt and sugar are gone. And as for the question of where your food comes from — whether it's locally grown, sustainably raised, grass-fed, free range or pesticide-free? Your body doesn't give a hoot.

Read more ....

Yet Another Human Job Is Replaced By A Robot

EMILY To the Rescue: An Automated Lifeguard -- The Economist

Yet another human job is replaced by a robot.

BIG crowds, strong surf and powerful rip currents are only a few of the obstacles that lifeguards must overcome to keep swimmers safe. Strong winds can pull many bathers out to sea simultaneously, overwhelming the guards if there are only a few of them. And, since average swimming speed is about 3kph (2mph) even a single rescue mission can take more than half an hour.

Read more ....

Stephen Hawking: Ten Pearls Of Wisdom

Professor Stephen Hawking Photo: DISCOVERY CHANNEL

From The Telegraph:

After Professor Stephen Hawking apparently rubbished the idea of a God, claiming the Big Bang was an inevitable result of physics, here are ten of our favourite quotes.

Stephen Hawking on why the universe exists:

"If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God."

Read more ....

Kepler Probe Ffinds Two Saturn-Sized Planets Orbiting A Single Star 2,000 Light Years Away

An artist's impression of the two Saturn-sized planets as they orbit the same star

From The Daily Mail:

Two giant Saturn-sized planets have been spotted passing in front of the same star, Nasa scientists announced today.

It is the first time more than one planet has ever been discovered 'transiting' a single star.

The two planets were discovered by the space telescope Kepler and will give scientists vital information about how planets were formed and how they interact with each other.

Read more ....

Scientists Figure Out Magical 'Banana' Free Kick

From The CBC:

Thirteen years after Roberto Carlos stunned onlookers with his amazing "banana" free kick that seemed to defy the law of physics, scientists have finally worked out how he did it.

In what many people regard as the best free kick ever, the Brazil defender struck the ball with the outside of his left foot 35 yards out, bending it around the outside of France's three-man wall during a friendly tournament in Lyon in 1997.

Read more ....