The Negative Side Of Solar And Wind Power Projects

The Dark Side Of Solar And Wind Power Projects -- L.A. Times

Building and maintaining solar and wind power projects can be hazardous, and industry watchdogs worry that the push for more green energy places more workers and bystanders in harm's way.

They can look benign from a distance — solar panels glistening in the sun or turbines gently churning with the breeze to produce electricity for hundreds of thousands of homes. But building and maintaining them can be hazardous.

Accidents involving wind turbines alone have tripled in the last decade, and watchdog groups fear incidents could skyrocket further — placing more workers and even bystanders in harm's way — because a surge in projects requires hiring hordes of new and often inexperienced workers.

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Dieting Forces Brain To Eat Itself

A cross-section of the human brain

Dieting Forces Brain To Eat Itself, Scientists Claim -- The Telegraph

Dieters struggle to lose weight because a lack of nutrition forces their brain cells to eat themselves, making the feeling of hunger even stronger, scientists claim.

Like other parts of the body, brain cells begin to eat themselves as a last-ditch source of energy to ward off starvation, a study found.

The body responds by producing fatty acids, which turn up the hunger signal in the brain and increase our impulse to eat.

Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York said the findings could lead to new scientifically proven weight loss treatments.

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Water On Mars?

Dark Streaks On Mars Could Be Water -- The Telegraph

Dark finger-like channels stretching across the surface of Mars could be streams of salty water running down the sides of craters, scientists have claimed.

The clusters of trails, which fade during winter and reappear in warmer months, could prove to be the first solid evidence of liquid water currently existing on the red planet.

Scientists are convinced water probably flowed across the surface of the planet at some distant point in history, but have only been able to detect samples of frozen water near the surface.

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The U.S. Army Kills The Robotic Vehicle MULE Program

XM1219 Armed Robotic Vehicle, an unmanned ground combat vehicle based on the MULE Platform.

Why The Army Killed The Robotic Vehicle MULE -- Popular Mechanics

Over the weekend, the U.S. Army killed a Lockheed Martin program to build a heavy six-wheeled robot capable of hauling gear and countering improvised explosive devices. Here's why they did it, and what it says about the future of Army bots.

Late last Friday, July 29, the Army formally canceled the Multi-Function Utility/Logistics and Equipment Vehicle, a heavyweight, six-wheeled robot known as the MULE, which was built by Lockheed Martin. The MULE program was meant to produce three variants of combat robots: One to haul gear, another to counter improvised explosives and a heavily armed version. According to the Army, however, other programs had equaled or bettered the autonomous navigation research at MULE—yet there are plenty of other reasons that Lockheed's program got the ax. Here's what MULE's demise tells us about the Army's future:

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My Comment: Fortunately, there are scores of more 'robot' programs out there .... but this is a sign that a shake-up in the industry is going to occur.

Cleanup of Space Shuttle Launch Zone Chemicals Will Take Decades and Millions of Dollars

Atlantis Launch 1 Clearing the tower John Mahoney

With Shuttle Launches Over, Cleanup of Launch Zone Chemicals Will Take Decades and Millions of Dollars -- Popular Science

With every ending comes a new beginning, as they say — so with the ending of the space shuttle program comes the beginning of a long environmental remediation at NASA’s Florida facilities.

Five decades of spacecraft launches have taken a toll on the sandy soils beneath the Kennedy Space Center, according to a report by Florida Today. Plumes of chemicals will cost $96 million to clean up in the next 30 years, including $6 million this year.

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Meet The Man Who Is Trying To Cure Aging

Bill Andrews. Photograph by John B. Carnett, illustration by Alberto Seveso

The Man Who Would Stop Time -- PopSci

Bill Andrews has spent two decades unlocking the molecular mechanisms of aging. His mission: to extend the human life span to 150 years--or die trying

Bill Andrews’s feet are so large, he tells me, that back when he was 20 he was able to break the Southern California barefoot-waterskiing distance record the first time he put skin to water. Then he got ambitious and went for the world speed record. When the towrope broke at 80 mph, he says, “they pulled me out of the water on a stretcher.”

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Inside China's Hacker World

70% Of British Men Are 'Related' To The Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun

Offer: iGENEA's website advertises its service matching customers to King Tut to see if they are ancestors

We've Got The Same Mummy! Up To 70% Of British Men Are 'Related' To The Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun -- The Daily Mail

Swiss company reconstructs King Tut's DNA profile from Discovery Channel documentary
Results show he belonged to 'haplogroup' common to half of Western European men
Claims disputed by fellow geneticists

A Swiss genetics company has claimed that up to 70 per cent of British men are related to the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Scientists at Zurich-based DNA genealogy centre, iGENEA, say they have reconstructed the DNA profile of the boy Pharaoh based on a film that was made for the Discovery Channel.

The results showed that 'King Tut' belonged to a genetic profile group, known as haplogroup R1b1a2, to which more than 50 per cent of all men in Western Europe belong, indicating that they share a common ancestor.

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World's Oldest Living Animal Is 178-Year-Old Tortoise

Photo: This rare picture of a Boer war prisoner snapped on the remote island of St Helena, has shed light on one of the planets oldest living inhabitants.

World's Oldest Living Animal Is 178-Year-Old Tortoise Called Jonathan -- The Telegraph

As a photograph it looks fairly unremarkable - a tortoise nibbles at the grass in front of a Boer War prisoner and guard.

But the pictures helps to mark the reptile as the oldest animal on the planet.

Jonathan, the tortoise, is believed to be 178-years-old and was about 70 at the time the black and white picture was taken.

He was photographed during the Boer War around 1900, and his life has spanned eight British monarchs from George IV to Elizabeth II, and 50 prime ministers.

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Artist's illustration of a quasar similar to APM 08279+5255, where astronomers discovered huge amounts of water vapour. While this figure shows the quasar's torus approximately edge-on, the torus around APM 08279+5255 is likely positioned face-on from our point of view. Credit: NASA/ESA

Universe's Largest, Earliest Water Mass Found -- Cosmos

PASADENA: The largest and farthest reservoir of water in the known universe has been located. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a distant quasar more than 12 billion light-years away.

The quasar is one of the most powerful known objects in the universe and has an energy output of 1,000 trillion suns - about 65,000 times that of the Milky Way galaxy.

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Yesterday's Internet Explorer Story Was Bogus

Internet Explorer Story Was Bogus -- BBC

A story which suggested that users of Internet Explorer have a lower IQ than people who chose other browsers appears to have been an elaborate hoax.

A number of media organisations, including the BBC, reported on the research, put out by Canadian firm ApTiquant.

It later emerged that the company's website was only recently set up and staff images were copied from a legitimate business in Paris.

It is unclear who was behind the stunt.

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My Comment: It fooled me.

The Earth Once Had Two Moons

This artist's rendering shows a simulation of a collision between the moon and a companion moon about 4 billion years ago. (Martin Jutzi and Erik Asphaug)

Two Moons Above Earth May Have Collided To Create One, Study Says -- L.A. Times

Scientists say such a collision could explain why the moon is lopsided and why its far side is covered with mountains.

Once upon a time, the sky above Earth may have held two moons — until they smashed into each other to create the lunar body we know today. Such a collision early in the solar system's history could explain why the moon is lopsided, and why its far side looks so different from the face we can see, according to a report in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

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The Robot That Learns Functions It Was Not Programmed To Do

Thinking For Itself: The Robot That Learns Functions It Was Not Programmed To Do -- Daily Mail

It is not quite Skynet, but robots that can learn have finally arrived.
Japanese researchers have developed a robot that can perform functions it was not programmed to do.

The machine uses past experience and its own knowledge to make a judgement about the best way to proceed.

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Bionic Microrobot Walks On Water

The water strider robot in action. (Credit: Image courtesy of American Chemical Society)

Bionic Microrobot Mimics the 'Water Strider' and Walks On Water -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Aug. 2, 2011) — Scientists are reporting development of a new aquatic microrobot that mimics the amazing water-walking abilities of the water strider -- the long-legged insect that scoots across the surface of ponds, lakes and other waterways. The bionic microrobot incorporates improvements over previous devices of this kind that position it as a prime candidate for military spy missions, water pollution monitoring, and other applications, the scientists say.

Their study appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

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The World's Next Tallest Building

Architectural rendering of Kingdom Tower, a building designed by Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill that is set to become the world's tallest building in 2016. CREDIT: Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture

New World's Tallest Building To Continue Modern Trend -- Live Science

Construction will soon go forward of Kingdom Tower, a giant skyscraper planned for the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. When complete, the sleek, kilometer-tall building will be the world's tallest.

An investment firm headed by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal will pay the Binladen Group, a construction firm, 4.6 billion riyals ($1.2 billion) to erect the tower over the next five years. Housing offices, a hotel, luxury condos and the world's highest observation tower, it will stand as the centerpiece of a 100-billion-riyal development planned for the area called "Kingdom City."

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My Comment: Looks impressive .... if they build it.

End Of The Shuttle Program Could Lead To A Brain Drain Of Space Knowledge

Could U.S. Manned Spaceflight Suffer 'Memory Loss'? -- Discovery News

Astronaut Mark Kelly voices his concerns for the end of the shuttle program and the loss of NASA talent.

* Mark Kelly, commander of shuttle Endeavour's final mission, is concerned about a drain of NASA talent once the US shuttle program ends.
* Thousands of highly skilled people will be lost, and no replacement NASA rocket is planned.
* After the shuttle, NASA will depend on Russia for rides into space for over $51 million per seat.

US astronaut Mark Kelly, who commanded shuttle Endeavour's final space flight, said Tuesday he is concerned about a drain of NASA talent once the US shuttle program ends later this year

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Apollo Astronaut Recommends Ending NASA And Starting From Scratch

Photo: Schmitt (NASA)

Apollo Astronaut: End NASA, Start From Scratch -- Houston Chronicle

Not everyone is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s decision to go to the moon with best wishes for another century of NASA.

Harrison Schmitt, the 12th astronaut to walk on the moon and a former U.S. senator, has called for dismantling NASA and replacing it with a new agency devoted solely to deep-space exploration.

Its charter, he believes, should simply be:

Provide the People of the United States of America, as national security and economic interests demand, with the necessary infrastructure, entrepreneurial partnerships, and human and robotic operational capability to settle the Moon, utilize lunar resources, scientifically explore and settle Mars and other deep space destinations, and, if necessary, divert significant Earth-impacting objects.

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My Comment: He makes some salient points. What is my take .... a new start and direction is definitely need (both psychologically and structurally) for the U.S. space program.

Searching For Cleopatra

The Search for Cleopatra Continues -- Past Horizons

A radar survey of the temple of Taposiris Magna, west of Alexandria in Egypt, was completed last month as part of the ongoing search for the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony. The expedition excavating the temple and its surrounding area is headed by Dr. Zahi Hawass and Dr. Kathleen Martinez from the Dominican Republic.

The recent radar survey is a significant step forward and was carried out by an Egyptian team, with American expert Dr. Roger Vickers serving as a consultant. The radar revealed three possible areas of interest where a tomb may be located. These locations have been passed to the archaeological team who received the results of the survey with great interest, and will begin excavation of the targets next week.

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Tsunamis Buried Greece's Ancient Olympics Site

The ruined Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Photo: Karta24/Wikimedia Commons

Tsunamis Buried Ancient Olympics Site -- Discovery News

A series of devastating tsunamis -- not an earthquake -- might have swept away the birthplace of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece nearly 1500 years ago, according to new findings.

Scholars have long assumed that Olympia, located at the confluence of the Kladeos and Alpheios rivers in the western Peloponnese, was destroyed by an earthquake in 551 AD and later covered by flood deposits of the Kladeos river.

Indeed the site where the first Olympic Games took place in 776 BC, was rediscovered only some 250 years ago, buried under 26 feet of sand and debris.

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Picture 1 Million Robots

Foxconn Facility. Wikimedia Commons

Foxconn Plans To Replace Its Gadget-Building Unhappy Human Workforce With 1 Million Robots -- Popular Science

For some people, this story about robot workers taking human jobs may be good news.
Foxconn, the Taiwan-based factory firm that makes nearly half the world’s electronics, aims to replace 1 million of its workers with robots within in the next three years, the company announced over the weekend. The factory bots will reduce labor costs and improve efficiencies, the company’s founder, Terry Gou, told the Xinhua news agency. And they will be unable to take their own lives.

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