The New iPod Line: A Mix Of Hits And Misses

From Chicago Sun Times:

September means three things: letter carriers and UPS delivery drivers tentatively start wearing long pants again, there will be a day when your entire sunny disposition is soured by the sounds of the first Christmas ad of the season ... and Apple releases updates to all of their iPods.

I’ve had time to use the new Shuffle, Nano, and Touch and I declare the 2010 editions to be a mixed bag. One is a retreat back that amounts to a big step forward; another is set of “under the hood” upgrades that adds true muscle car performance; and the third is ...

... um ...

Quite creative.

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Junkie Food: Tastes Your Brain Can't Resist

A delicious indulgence, or your next desperate hit? (Image: Jonphotography.com)

From New Scientist:

Is that cupcake an innocent indulgence? Or your next hit? We're finding that a sweet tooth makes you just as much an addict as snorting cocaine

SETTLED on the sofa watching the usual rubbish on TV, I notice that predictable, uncontrollable, nightly craving. At first I sit there, fighting it. But the longer I fight, the worse it gets. After 20 minutes, I can't concentrate on anything, I feel anxious, and start fidgeting like crazy. Finally, admitting my addiction, I break. I go to the freezer - to my stash of white stuff - and take a hit. Almost instantly, I relax, my brain in a state of bliss as the chemical courses through my veins. Isn't it amazing what a few scoops of ice cream can do?

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Brace For Global Cooling, Says The Old Farmer's Almanac

The Statue of Liberty, depicted frozen solid in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow." Many weather forecasters and scientists wonder whether a coming period of "global cooling" may be on the way. Twentieth Century Fox

From FOX News:

DUBLIN, N.H. – Most of the country will see a colder-than-usual winter while summer and spring will be relatively cool and dry, according to the time-honored, complex calculations of the "Old Farmer's Almanac."

The 2011 issue of the almanac, which claims to be the nation's oldest continuously published periodical, was released Tuesday. It predicts that in the coming months, the Earth will continue to see a "gradual cooling of the atmosphere ... offset by any warming caused by increased greenhouse gases."

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Optical Speedbumps Create Illusion of Little Girl Darting Out In Front Of You

Slow Down As the driver approaches, this 2-D optical illusion painted on the pavement comes into focus, appearing in 3-D and reminding drivers to slow down.

From Popular Science:

Civil authorities around the world have tried all kinds of tricks to get drivers to slow down: speed bumps, rumble strips, flashing lights, the decoy police cruiser, and of course the good old-fashioned speed trap. The British Columbia Automobile Association Traffic Safety Foundation is taking a different tack: scaring the living hell out of drivers. In an effort to brusquely remind drivers of the consequences of wanton acceleration, they’re painting an elongated image of a child chasing a ball into the street in 2-D on the pavement in such a way that it appears three-dimensional.

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Human Body Parts Found in Tiger Shark's Stomach

From Discovery News:

The legs, arms and severed torso of a person were all found inside the stomach of a tiger shark caught by sport fishermen last weekend, according to The Press Association, The Boston Herald, and numerous other reports.

Tiger sharks can swim over long distances, so it is not yet clear where the 12-foot-long shark consumed its human victim. Police are currently conducting DNA tests on the person's remains, Assistant Police Commissioner Glenn Miller in Nassau, Bahamas, told AP.

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Ipad Killers

(Photo: Apple iPad)

From CBS:

The product that ignited what until then had been a dormant market, Apple's iPad dominates the category. But its success has ignited the imagination of rivals who are prepping their own tablet computers - some of which are now available, others which are expected soon. Some made a splash last week at the IFA Berlin show last week and more doubtless will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. This much is clear: If the iPad is not your cup of tea, sit tight - fairly soon, there are going to be far more consumer touch-screen tablets to choose from.

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One In Four Gives Fake Net Names

From The BBC:

More than a quarter of people online have lied about their name and more than one in five has done something online they regret, says a new report.

The behavioural and psychological impacts of online life are outlined in a report from the security firm Norton.

The report suggests that two-thirds of web users have been hit by cybercrime, with the costs and time to resolve the crime varying widely around the world.

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Fundamental Constant Might Change Across Space

A team of astronomers have obtained new data by studying quasars, which are very distant galaxies hosting an active black hole in their center. As the light emitted by quasars travels throughout the cosmos, part of it is absorbed by a variety of atoms present in interstellar clouds, providing astronomers with a natural laboratory to test the laws of physics billions of light-years away from the Earth. Credit: Dr. Julian Berengut, UNSW, 2010.

From Space Daily:

New research suggests that the supposedly invariant fine-structure constant, which characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic
force, varies from place to place throughout the Universe. The finding could mean rethinking the fundaments of our current knowledge of physics.

These results will be presented tomorrow during the Joint European and National Astronomy Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, and the scientific article has been submitted to the Physical Review Letters Journal.

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The Brain Speaks: Scientists Decode Words From Brain Signals

This photo shows two kinds of electrodes sitting atop a severely epileptic patient's brain after part of his skull was removed temporarily. The larger, numbered, button-like electrodes are ECoGs used by surgeons to locate and then remove brain areas responsible for severe epileptic seizures. While the patient had to undergo that procedure, he volunteered to let researchers place two small grids -- each with 16 tiny "microECoG" electrodes -- over two brain areas responsible for speech. These grids are at the end of the green and orange wire bundles, and the grids are represented by two sets of 16 white dots since the actual grids cannot be seen easily in the photo. University of Utah scientists used the microelectrodes to translate speech-related brain signals into actual words -- a step toward future machines to allow severely paralyzed people to speak. (Credit: University of Utah Department of Neurosurgery)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 6, 2010) — In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, University of Utah researchers translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain.

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NASA Team To Trapped Miners: No Alcohol Or Cigarettes

Workers stand next to a special drill, the Xtrata 950, which will dig an escape hole for the miners who are trapped underground in a copper and gold mine, as it is transported to the top of a hill at Copiapo, some 725 km (450 miles) north of Santiago August 27, 2010.(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

From Live Science:

After spending almost a week in Chile, a team of NASA personnel sent to provide nutritional advice and psychological support to 33 trapped miners reported Tuesday that the efforts of the Chilean government have been outstanding so far, and the focus needs to be on long-term strategies that will allow the men to live sustainably underground as a community.

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The Shark Soup Massacre And How To Stop It

From New Scientist:

Sharks attacking humans is big news; humans attacking sharks, not so much. Conservation photographers Paul Hilton and Alex Hofford are trying to redress this imbalance. In revealing the extent of the bloody trade in shark fins, their book Man and Shark is a testament of our cruelty towards these majestic creatures.

Hilton and Hofford, who both live in Hong Kong, have witnessed the butchery of sharks in places as diverse as Mozambique, Yemen and Sri Lanka. But Hofford had seen nothing until he went to Japan.

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Scientists Invent A Tractor Beam

In "Stak Trek," Federation starships relied upon tractor beams to hold and tow other vessels. Scientists may not be there yet, but they have managed to tow a small particle using light beams

From FOX News:

WASHINGTON – Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects.

Researchers from the Australian National University have announced that they have built a device that can move small particles a meter and a half using only the power of light.

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Airborne Laser Weapon Fails to Take Down Dummy Nuke In Critical 100-Mile Test Shot

The Airborne Laser Test Bed Missile Defense Agency

From Popular Science:

The Missile Defense Agency’s Airborne Laser Test Bed (ALTB) – formerly known simply as the Airborne Laser – has endured a back-and-forth existence, at different times the darling of the MDA, at other times on the verge of catching the Pentagon or Congressional axe. But after an all-around success in February, the scales have tipped back the other way for the embattled ICBM-blaster as it failed a critical test on September 1.

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Hubble Spots Ghostly Space Spiral

From Discovery News:

When I first saw this ghostly Hubble Space Telescope image, I assumed that faint blurry spiral was a lens flare or some other photographic anomaly. But on closer inspection, the details started to present themselves.

As imaged by the space telescope's sensitive Advanced Camera for Surveys, this striking pattern is formed by material being ejected from a dying star. But this isn't a lone star; there's a second star -- a binary partner -- orbiting with it and modulating the expanding gas.

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Mystery Of Google Doodles Answered: 'Google Instant'

From CBS News:

The big tease of the last few days is over: Google earlier today announced a search enhancement called Google Instant.

Google Instant, which is rolling out through the course of the day, evolved from the company's mission to speed up search results for Internet queries. The basic change means that users will find a changing set of results in the middle of the page each time they type in a character into the search box. The added technology is designed to help Google's search engine predict what a person might be searching for.

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Are We Closer To A 'Theory Of Everything'?

From The BBC:

The physicists' ultimate dream is the search for a "theory of everything", a unifying explanation that can make sense of the infinitely tiny as well as the infinitely large.

From the strange particles that are the terrain of atom-smashing machines such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern, to galaxies beyond our own, about which we're learning more and more through increasingly powerful telescopes and observatories.

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Evolution Of The Star Trek Warp Drive Effect

[Via Gizmodo]

Two Asteroids To Pass By Earth Wednesday

Two small asteroids in unrelated orbits will pass within the moon's distance of Earth on Wed. Both should be observable with moderate-sized amateur telescopes.

From Space Daily:

Two asteroids, several meters in diameter and in unrelated orbits, will pass within the moon's distance of Earth on Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Both asteroids should be observable near closest approach to Earth with moderate-sized amateur telescopes. Neither of these objects has a chance of hitting Earth.

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The Boss Is Robotic, And Rolling Up Behind You

Dr. John Whapham, using a robot, discussed care with a patient at Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago. Sally Ryan for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

SACRAMENTO — Dr. Alan Shatzel’s pager beeped at 9 on a Saturday morning. A man had suffered a stroke, and someone had to decide, quickly, whether to give him an anticlotting drug that could mean the difference between life and death.

Dr. Shatzel, a neurologist, hustled not to the emergency room where the patient lay — 260 miles away, in Bakersfield — but to a darkened room at a hospital here. He took a seat in front of the latest tools of his trade: computer monitors, a keyboard and a joystick that control his assistant on the scene — a robot on wheels.

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Can We Spot Volcanoes On Alien Worlds? Astronomers Say Yes

This artist's conception shows an extremely volcanic moon orbiting a gas giant planet in another star system. New research suggests that astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope could potentially detect volcanic activity on a distant Earth-sized planet by measuring volcanic gases in its atmosphere. Credit: (Credit: Wade Henning)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2010) — Volcanoes display the awesome power of Nature like few other events. Earlier this year, ash from an Icelandic volcano disrupted air travel throughout much of northern Europe. Yet this recent eruption pales next to the fury of Jupiter's moon Io, the most volcanic body in our solar system.

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