Can Weight-Loss Surgery Cure Diabetes?

New Study: Weight-Loss Surgery May Cure Diabetes -- CBS

Could weight-loss surgery be a cure for type 2 diabetes? That's exactly what a new study, published today by the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests.

The study showed that weight-loss surgery is dramatically more effective in the treatment of type 2 diabetes than a conventional treatment of diet changes and medication. Patients in the study suffered from severe type 2 diabetes, and most went into remission after undergoing one of two bariatric surgeries.

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The Powerful Antioxidant Properties Of Popcorn

Popcorn Has More Antioxidants Than Fruit, Study Says -- FOX News

Long heralded as a low-calorie snack, new research indicates popcorn may actually be good for your health in other ways as well.

Pennsylvania researchers reported popcorn actually contains more healthy antioxidants called polyphenols than fruits and vegetables. The study found that there were 300 mg of polyphenols in a serving of popcorn, compared to 160 mg in a serving of fruit.

Polyphenols have been shown in prior studies to boost cardiovascular health as well as protect against chronic diseases.

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My Comment: But soaking it in butter and salt probably counteracts the positive aspects of popcorn.

How Turbines Can Replace A Heart

Man With No Pulse: How Turbines Can Replace A Heart -- New Scientist

You no longer need a heartbeat to be alive. In a groundbreaking surgery last year, doctors William Cohn and Bud Frazier from the Texas Heart Institute in Houston replaced a dying man's heart with twin turbines, resulting in the first living person without a pulse.

In this short film called Heart Stop Beating, directed by Jeremiah Zagar, you can follow the revolutionary procedure. Compared to artificial hearts that mimic real ones, the device is thought to be much more durable, since it has no flexible membranes or complex twisting mechanisms. "No one has been able to make a self-contained pulsatile device that can last more than two years or so and most wear out sooner," says Cohn.

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My Comment: 30 years ago this was just a concept and a dream .... today .... reality.

Did Carbon Dioxide Just Save The Earth?

Earth's atmosphere lights up at infrared wavelengths during the solar storms of March 8-10, 2012. A ScienceCast video explains the physics of this phenomenon. Play it!

Carbon Dioxide Just Saved Earth -- Don Surber

God bless the John Amos power plant across the river from Poca, West Virginia, and all the other producers of CO2.

Those tiny molecules of carbon dioxide along with their cousins, nitric oxide, spared life on the planet from becoming crispy critters earlier this month.

It seems the Sun belched its biggest a coronal mass ejection in 7 years and the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy. The thermosphere is part of that invisible cloud of gases that blankets the Earth. Scientists call it the atmosphere.

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Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Absorbed 26 Billion kWh Of Energy

Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Hit by 26 Billion kWh of Energy -- Sci-Tech Daily

As researchers to continue monitor and assess the recent solar activity, new data shows that the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy over a three day period, March 8th -10th.

A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years.

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My Comment: That is a lot of juice.

How George Takei Conquered Facebook

Image courtesy of George Takei

How George Takei Conquered Facebook -- Forbes

George Takei earned his fame on the original Star Trek for playing Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on the Enterprise, and later Captain Sulu of the Excelsior in the movies. As a Starfleet officer, Sulu was dedicated to peaceful exploration. But when it comes to Facebook, he’s a conqueror. On March 23, 2011, Takei put up his fan page. Now, one year later, he has nearly 1.4 million fans on his Facebook page, who regularly like, share, and comment on his near endless stream of posts, videos and geeky pictures. By way of comparison, Twitter master Star Trek alum Wil Wheaton has a little over 76,000 fans and Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, has a little over 137,000.

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Cool Science Editor: His Facebook page is here.

The Eco-Friendly SuperYacht

Credit: Richard John Sauter

Assuage Your Liberal Guilt With An Eco-Friendly SuperYacht -- Science 2.0

Let's be honest, if you are a Republican, you don't care about the environment because you received your own oil well when you registered to vote. And you like vampire babies. So you do not care about the emissions of your yacht.

But if you are a rich Democrat, things are a little dicier. Buying pretend carbon offsets for a 29,000 square foot house can only get you so far. If you want to own a superyacht too, that's a lot of liberal guilt to agonize over. What to do?

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Editor: For more info on the Ocean Supremacy, go here.

The End Of The Space Shuttle Era

Cool Science News Editor: NPR has a special on the US space shuttle. The selection of stories and info starts here.

Woman, 83, Sues Apple Aafter Walking Into their Glass Door

‘Pane’ & Suffering At The Apple Store -- New York Post

Glassed granny walks smack into $1M suit

For one 83-year-old grandma, the most confusing piece of technology at an Apple Store wasn’t an iPad or iPhone — it was the front door.

Evelyn Paswall, a former Manhattan fur-company vice president, claims the tech company’s signature glass architecture is a menace to little old ladies after she failed to see the glass door at a Long Island location and smashed her face.

Now the Forest Hills, Queens, resident is suing Apple for $1 million, saying the company was negligent for not elderly-proofing the store’s see-through facade.

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My Comment: I have gone to this store on a few occasions .... it is very clear to me that there is a door in front of me. How did she hit her face .... makes no sense to me.

Face-Recognition System Can Sort Through 36 Million Faces Per Second

Video: Face-Recognition System Can Sort Through 36 Million Faces Per Second -- Popular Science

Japanese surveillance software can locate you, wherever you are.

Diginfo brings us news of this Hitachi Kokusai system that can monitor video feeds from around the world in real time, scanning for a particular face. When it finds what it's looking for, it closes in to provide footage of what the person has been doing previously and what he or she is doing next.

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My Comment: In short .... you can run .... but if a camera catches your face .... you cannot hide.

New Hope For Balding Men?

New Discovery Brings Hope For Balding Men -- The Telegraph

Scientists have identified a hair-loss protein in a development that could pave the way for a cure for male-pattern baldness.

The discovery could mean treatments are developed to suppress the protein and to stop baldness, although it would not reverse the effects to reverse hair loss.

Tests were carried out on tissue from the scalps of more than 20 men with male pattern baldness, known as androgenic alopecia (AGA).

The results showed bald areas had levels of the protein PGD2 three times higher than hairy areas.

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My Comment: I say live with it .... at least that is what I have been doing for the past 20 years. But .... if it can be cured and even reversed .... hmmmm .....

James Cameron's Successfully Completes Mariana Trench Pacific Dive

James Cameron Describes Mariana Trench After Pacific Dive -- ABC News

In 1997 James Cameron famously sent the RMS Titanic to the ocean floor. Now he has made an even deeper trip himself: in a submersible called the Deepsea Challenger, he descended to the bottom of the Mariana Trench -- seven miles beneath the western Pacific Ocean, deeper than Mt. Everest is high.

And he lived to tell about it. Today, on a conference call to reporters from the research vessel Mermaid Sapphire, he enthused about the mystery and adventure of being all alone in the darkness, 35,576 feet beneath the surface of the sea.

"I just sat there looking out the window, looking at this barren, desolate lunar plain, appreciating," Cameron said.

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More News On James Cameron's Mariana Trench Pacific Dive

James Cameron Completes Record-Breaking Mariana Trench Dive -- National Geographic
James Cameron on Earth's Deepest Spot: Desolate, Lunar-Like -- National Geographic
Cameron's Historic Dive Cut Short by Leak; Few Signs of Life Seen -- National Geographic
'To hell and back': James Cameron is first solo diver to reach deepest point on Earth - but has to race back to surface after hydraulic failure seven miles down -- Daily Mail
'Titanic' and 'Avatar' director James Cameron reaches ocean's deepest point [Updated] -- L.A. Times
Why James Cameron was forced to surface early -- Christian Science Monitor
James Cameron back on surface after deepest ocean dive -- BBC
James Cameron: 'desolate, lunar landscape' of Mariana Trench after record-breaking dive -- The Telegraph
In Photos: James Cameron’s solo deep dive -- Stark Insider

Is This Finally Proof We're NOT Causing Global Warming?

Evidence that the Earth heated up over a 1,000 years ago was found in a rare mineral called ikaite

Is This Finally Proof We're NOT Causing Global Warming? The Whole Of The Earth Heated Up In Medieval Times Without Human CO2 Emissions, Says New Study -- Daily Mail

* Evidence was found in a rare mineral that records global temperatures
* Warming was global and NOT limited to Europe
* Throws doubt on orthodoxies around 'global warming'

Current theories of the causes and impact of global warming have been thrown into question by a new study which shows that during medieval times the whole of the planet heated up.

It then cooled down naturally and there was even a 'mini ice age'.

A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that contrary to the ‘consensus’, the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn’t just confined to Europe.

In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica – which means that the Earth has already experience global warming without the aid of human CO2 emissions.

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My Comment: Bottom line .... more questions are being raised .... and there are not enough answers.

Which Tablet Runs The Hottest?

New iPad Versus 5 Tablet Competitors: Which Runs Hottest? -- Gadget Lab

You need not fear heat blisters when handling the new iPad. Apple’s new tablet is neither a burn risk, nor even particularly hot in the grand scheme of competing devices.

We know because we tested the iPad against five other tablets.

Sure, the new iPad, like all electronics hardware, heats up when pushed to its limits. This is just a matter of physics. Processors, batteries and back-lit displays generate heat under load.

Consumer Reports proved this when it recorded a temperature of 116 degrees Fahrenheit on the back of the new iPad — this after plugging the tablet into a wall socket and playing a demanding 3-D game, Infinity Blade 2, for 45 minutes. This little stunt spurred a lot of online chatter, but it didn’t explain whether the new iPad’s heat generation is above and beyond that of other tablets on the market.

So Wired decided to investigate.

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My Comment: The results are surprising.

A Look At The Planet Mercury

Purple marks low elevation and white high elevation in this rendering of ancient volcanic plains in Mercury’s northern hemisphere. Images like these suggest the planet had an active geologic past.NASA, JHUAPL, CIW-DTM, GSFC, MIT, Brown University. Rendering by James Dickson and Jim Head.

Smallest Planet Yields Big Surprises -- Science News

Mercury has a complicated inside and an active geologic past.

For starters, the planet’s interior is built differently than anything else scientists have blueprints for. Unlike Earth’s, Mercury’s core — which gobbles up 85 percent of the planet’s radius — consists of three layers instead of two. At the planet’s heart lies a probable solid layer, surrounded by a swirling liquid iron layer, all encapsulated by a third, solid iron-sulfur layer.

The new MESSENGER results were presented on March 21 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, as well as in two papers appearing online in Science. One paper discusses the gravity measurements leading to the new model of the planet’s interior, and the other describes surface features in the northern hemisphere.

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Top 50 Android Phone Apps

Android is interesting, because it attracts two very different kinds of people.

The Top 50 Android Phone Apps -- The Guardian

Android has overtaken iOS as the UK's most popular smartphone platform. We pick the best of its 450,000 apps, for music fans, children, gamers, shoppers… There's even an antidote for app addiction

There is far more to smartphone life than Apple's iPhone. Google launched its Android software in 2008 and has since sold more than 300m of its smartphones; currently, more than 850,000 are added to that number every day.

More than 450,000 apps are available on Google Play, which is generating more than 1bn app downloads every month. The latest Android smartphones are also viable competitors to the iPhone (stylish and powerful phones from companies such as Samsung, HTC and Sony Ericsson have been flying off the shelves in the UK), but Android apps haven't always had a great press. Android has been criticised on security grounds, with accusations that there are more viruses and malware apps on Google's store than on Apple's App Store. However, Android apps have to ask for explicit permission to access your personal data and phone features, so familiarise yourself with these permissions requests when installing apps and you'll be less at risk.

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Now THAT'S An Engagement Ring!

Groundbreaking: This extraordinary creation claims to be 'the world's first diamond ring'

Now THAT'S An Engagement Ring! Jeweller's $70m Diamond Sparkler Cut Entirely From One 150-Carat Rock -- Daily Mail

A Swiss jewellery company has created a ring made from one enormous chunk of diamond.

Shawish Jewellery, a company based in Geneva, unveiled what they have billed as ‘the world’s first diamond ring’.

The 150-carat ring has been valued at around $70million and took one year to construct.

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My Comment: $70 million for a rock .... albeit a diamond one .... I have only one word for that .... ouchhh!!!!!

Is Space Junk A Threat To National Security?

Space Clutter a Growing Concern for Pentagon -- Military.com/Stars and Stripes

Space may be the final frontier, but it’s turning into a rough neighborhood — a limited number of Earth orbits increasingly crowded with satellites and littered with debris that can destroy valuable space assets.

Overcrowding in space is now a national security threat, experts say. U.S. Defense and State Department officials are grappling with the challenge of cleaning up the mess and encouraging “best practices” without compromising national defense.

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My Comment: Hmmmm .... one can only imagine the mess that will be produced if an armed conflict did occur in space. One side may win the war .... but be unable to use space for years (if not longer) because of the debris fields.

Cyber And Drone Attacks Are Changing Warfare

The new look of drone-enabled war. Reuters.

Cyber and Drone Attacks May Change Warfare More Than the Machine Gun -- Ross Andersen, The Atlantic

From state-sponsored cyber attacks to autonomous robotic weapons, twenty-first century war is increasingly disembodied. Our wars are being fought in the ether and by machines. And yet our ethics of war are stuck in the pre-digital age.

We're used to thinking of war as a physical phenomenon, as an outbreak of destructive violence that takes place in the physical world. Bullets fly, bombs explode, tanks roll, people collapse. Despite the tremendous changes in the technology of warfare, it remained a contest of human bodies. But as the drone wars have shown, that's no longer true, at least for one side of the battle.

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My Comment: Cyber and drone attacks may change warfare!?!?!?! I say that it has already changed warfare.

George Clooney's Satellites Document The Atrocities In Sudan

George Clooney's Satellite Spies Reveal Secrets Of Sudan's Bloody Army -- The Guardian

Actor and activist funds a hi-tech project that is tracking troops and warning civilians of attacks

Nathaniel Raymond is the first to admit that he has an unusual job description. "I count tanks from space for George Clooney," said the tall, easygoing Massachusetts native as he sat in a conference room in front of a map of the Sudanese region of South Kordofan.

Close by, pins and ink scrawlings on the map detail the positions of Sudanese army forces and refugee populations in the troubled oil-producing province, where the Sudanese army is carrying out a brutal crackdown.

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My Comment: I support this project wholeheartedly. Someone has to focus and document the atrocities that are occurring in the Sudan, and thank God it is someone like George Clooney.

The Satellite Sentinel Project website is here.