The Four Ages Of The Universe

The Four Ages of the Universe -- What's Next? -- Discovery News

The Greek poet Hesiod described the Five Ages of Man in mythology.

They progress from the Golden Age, when people lived among the gods, through the warlike Bronze Age and on to the Heroic Age. His narrative ends with the Iron Age, a period of toil and misery for mankind.

Science has now replaced these mythologies. We are at the point where we look at the entire universe as a grand series of game-changing leaps toward our emergence as an intelligent species. It is an epic story more compelling than anything from creation mythology.

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Is This The Perfect Face?

Is This the Perfect Face? -- Discovery News

What would a scientifically perfect face look like?

England thinks it would mirror Florence Colgate's. The 18-year-old student recently won a competition to find Britain's most naturally beautiful face. Although the final test came down to an opinion poll, science backs up Colgate's perfection, according to the Daily Mail.

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My Comment: What's my take .... beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

A Search For The Bones Of An Early American

The Young Man of Chan Hol II skeleton was laid to rest 10,000 years ago when sea levels were much lower (Image: Eugenio Acevez/Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia/REUTERS)

Bones Of Early American Disappear From Underwater Cave -- New Scientist

One of the first humans to inhabit the Americas has been stolen – and archaeologists want it back.

The skeleton, which is probably at least 10,000 years old, has disappeared from a cenote, or underground water reservoir, in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

In response, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) in Mexico City has placed "wanted" posters in supermarkets, bakeries and dive shops in and around the nearby town of Tulum. They are also considering legal action to recover the remains.

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Is Global Warming Just Hot Air?

Global warming: A retreating glacier in Alaska USA. But despite alarmist theories, temperatures have barely risen in the past 20 years

Is Global Warming Just Hot Air? World Temperatures Have Risen By Just 0.29C In The Last Two Decades -- Daily Mail

'Green' policy burdens will cost families £267 a year extra by 2030

World temperatures have remained almost stagnant in the last two decades, new figures have revealed.

Temperatures across the globe rose by around a third of a degree last year from the average of 14 degrees Celsius recorded between 1961 and 1990.

In some years, temperatures rose by just 0.29 degrees C while in others they rose by .53 degrees.

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The Invasion Of The Black Tiger Shrimp

This black tiger shrimp was caught in 210 feet of water off the coast of Louisiana.

Scientists: Giant Cannibal Shrimp Invasion Growing -- CNN

An invasion of giant cannibal shrimp into America's coastal waters appears to be getting worse.

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Thursday that sightings of the massive Asian tiger shrimp, which can eat their smaller cousins, were 10 times higher in 2011 than in 2010.

“And they are probably even more prevalent than reports suggest, because the more fisherman and other locals become accustomed to seeing them, the less likely they are to report them,” said Pam Fuller, a USGS biologist.

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My Comment: Talk about jumbo shrimp.

Robots And Other Tech To Evacuate Wounded Soldiers (Maybe)

Airmule

Wanted: Robots To Evacuate Wounded Soldiers -- Popular Mechanics

A Pentagon study looks at the future technology for evacuating wounded soldiers, including UAV rescuers, human hibernation, and more.

On the battlefield of the future, a wounded soldier could be scooped up by a robot, placed in a specially equipped drone, and then flown to the closest manned-medical center, where he or she is diagnosed with automated equipment that can deliver treatment without human intervention. Of course, that brings up the question: If robots can do all that, will there be human soldiers on the battlefield?

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My Comment: A summary of what is in the works.

Who Is Flying Drones (And Where) In The U.S.

More Drones are Coming to U.S. Airspace U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Who Is Flying Drones In The U.S. And Where Are They Flying? -- Popular Science

FAA releases a list of authorized domestic UAVs.

A list of current entities permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration to fly unmanned aerial vehicles in U.S. airspace says one thing very clearly: if you fear the drones, stay the hell out of Texas. The Washington D.C. area as well, for that matter. The list of Certificates of Authorization, obtained by civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, shows that even as the FAA scrambles to open up the U.S. airspace to commercial drones over the next three years, there are already quite a few of them in the sky.

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My Comment: I expect this list of authorized domestic UAVs to increase substantially in the next few years.

Anti-Piracy Curtain

Video: 'Anti-Piracy Curtain' Makes Boarding Ships a Wet, Dangerous Mess for Pirates -- Popular Science

It’s perfectly understandable why commercial shipping vessels are prohibited from carrying arms in international waters. But when it comes to dealing with the threat of piracy, battles that pit water hoses against small arms and RPGs are decidedly one sided. So Japanese companies MTI and Yokoi have teamed to create what they call the “Anti-Piracy Curtain,” a system that makes it difficult--and quite intimidating--for anyone to board a ship without the consent of a crew.

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My Comment: Impressive.

Getting Ready For The True 4G Revolution

UN Clears The Way For Faster Mobile Devices -- US News and World Report

Faster networks could be up to 500 times faster than 3G smartphones.

GENEVA (AP) — A United Nations telecom meeting has approved the next generation of mobile technology, which experts say will make devices 500 times faster than 3G smartphones and eliminate the wait time between the tap of a finger and the appearance of a Web page.

The technology will be used immediately for planning changes to equipment but it could take two years to show up on consumers smartphone, tablets and other devices because of the time it takes to get to production, International Telecommunication Union spokesman Sanjay Acharya said Thursday.

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My Comment: 500 times faster than 3G smartphones .... now we are talking.

US Navy Is Developing 'Intelligent' Uniforms

One of the U.S. military's many attempts to design a uniform of the future. Photo: RDECOM

New Navy Uniform Could Monitor Sailors’ Pee for Signs of Nuclear Attack -- The Danger Room

The military’s uniforms will probably never be runway ready. But in the future, a soldier’s threads might very well be quite a bit sharper.

As in, more intelligent. At least if the Office of Naval Research gets its way. On ONR’s latest call for research proposals, the organization is asking for uniforms to be capable of measuring soldiers’ vital signs, detecting the location and severity of their bullet wounds and even transmitting their location to medical personnel via GPS sensors implanted into clothing fabric.

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My Comment: I expect the fruits of this research to one day also show up in regular clothing.

Earth's Glaciers Are 'Out Of Wack'

The retreat of McCall Glacier in North Alaska. The left panel is 1958; the right panel is 2003

World's Glaciers 'Out Of Balance' -- BBC

Earth's glaciers are seriously out of balance with the global climate and are already on their way to losing almost 40% of their volume.

That is the assessment of scientists after studying a representative group of 144 small and large glaciers around the world.

Their figure assumes no further warming of the climate.

However, if temperatures continue to rise as models predict, the wastage will be even higher, the team says.

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Your Next Password Could Be Your Brain

Forget fingerprints and eye scans, your next password could be your brain (Source: Petrovich9/iStockphoto)

Your Brain Could Become Your Password -- ABC Science

When it comes to high-tech passwords, there are fingerprint scanners for computers and facial recognition programs for closed-circuit cameras, and retinal scans are a mainstay of the movies.

Now researchers are looking beyond those technologies to using brain scans and heartbeats to identify people in ways that can't be faked.

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Ecstacy May "Reset" The Body Clock

The research is the first to look at the impact of a single low dose of the drug (Source: iStockphoto)

One Hit Of Ecstasy 'Resets Body Clock' -- ABC News (Australia)

Just one or two pills of ecstasy can reset your body clock and have lasting effects on your ability to sleep peacefully, new research suggest.

Rowan Ogeil, of Monash University, and colleagues, report their findings in a recent issue of Psychopharmacology.

"Of course ecstasy affects your sleep because it's a stimulant," says Ogeil, who did the research as part of a recently completed PhD, under the supervision of Dr Jillian Broadbear. "But we've shown is it has lasting effects and that the body clock is involved."

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My Comment: One more reason to stay away from drugs.

The History Of The Zipper Revealed

Google Honors Gideon Sundback: Father Of The Zipper -- Christian Science Monitor

Gideon Sundback is certainly the inventor of the modern 'zipper.' Except Sundback didn't invent the name.

Except, Sundback didn't invent the zipper. He invented the "Hookless No. 1" in 1914.

And as radically brilliant and enduring as his design may be, it wasn't until the 1920s, when B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio bought a bunch of "Hookless No. 2s" did the "zipper" make it's debut.

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My Comment: The zipper has gone a long way since it's invention in 1914.

Can Organic Food Feed The World?

Organic market in Vienna. (Credit: © Tupungato / Fotolia)

Can Organic Food Feed the World? New Study Sheds Light On Debate Over Organic Vs. Conventional Agriculture -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Apr. 25, 2012) — Can organic agriculture feed the world? Although organic techniques may not be able to do the job alone, they do have an important role to play in feeding a growing global population while minimizing environmental damage, according to researchers at McGill University and the University of Minnesota.

A new study published in Nature concludes that crop yields from organic farming are generally lower than from conventional agriculture. That is particularly true for cereals, which are staples of the human diet -- yet the yield gap is much less significant for certain crops, and under certain growing conditions, according to the researchers.

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Female Space Explorers (Infographic)

17 Equations That Changed the World

How 17 Equations Changed The World -- Brain Pickings

What Descartes has to do with C. P. Snow and the second law of thermodynamics.

When legendary theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was setting out to release A Brief History of Time, one of the most influential science books in modern history, his publishers admonished him that every equation included would halve the book’s sales. Undeterred, he dared include E = mc², even though cutting it out would have allegedly sold another 10 million copies. The anecdote captures the extent of our culture’s distaste for, if not fear of, equations. And yet, argues mathematician Ian Stewart in In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World, equations have held remarkable power in facilitating humanity’s progress and, as such, call for rudimentary understanding as a form of our most basic literacy.

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Last Fragments From 'Magical' Egyptian 'Book Of The Dead' From 1420 BC Found

Fragments of the missing parts of the manuscript have been discovered by renowned Egyptologist Dr John Taylor - potentially ending a search that has lasted a century

Last Fragments From 'Magical' Egyptian 'Book Of The Dead' From 1420 BC Found - After Century-Long Search By Archaeologists -- Daily Mail

* 'Last' pages of manuscript found after century-long hunt
* Egyptologist says he is 'floored' by discovery
* Papyrus book of spells supposed to guide spirits to land of dead

The last missing pages from a supposedly 'magical' Book of the Dead from an Egyptian priest, Amenhotep, have been found after a century-long search - in a museum in Queensland.

British Museum Egyptologist Dr John Taylor said he was 'floored' by the discovery of the 100 fragments.

It's the end of a worldwide search by archaeologists for the papyrus scroll - which supposedly contains spells to guide spirits into the afterlife.

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My Comment: One has to give credit to these academics. Even with the Egyptian revolution and political unrest continuing .... they are still doing their work.

The Ultimate Luxury Car

Secure: There is also the option of armour-plating for those high profile oligarchs or even politicians around the world who believe they need security

How's That For A Way To Travel: Luxury Limousine Comes Fitted Out With Drinks Cabinet, Computer System And Even An Exercise Bike -- Daily Mail

For most of us, taking a trip in the car means missing out on certain luxuries which we enjoy at home.

However, for anyone wealthy enough to own this luxury limousine, that needs not be the case.

The opulent vehicle comes fitted out with a number of incredible features, including a built-in exercise bike which can be used whilst sitting back in one of the leather seats.

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My Comment: If I was to have someone chauffeur me around .... especially for trips of one hour or more .... this vehicle would be perfect.

Unique And Rare Diamond Up For Sale

Rare Royal Diamond Up For Sale -- The Telegraph

An extremely rare, aristocratic Beau Sancy diamond, which has passed through the royal families of France, England, Prussia and the Netherlands' House of Orange, is to go up for auction at Sotheby's.

The stone, a 35-carat modified 'pear double rose cut' diamond belonging to Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia and head of the former ruling dynasty of the German empire, is expected to fetch betweem $2m (£1.24m) and $4m (£2.47m).

Chairman of Sotheby's jewellery in Europe and the Middle East, David Bennett, who sold a pink diamond for $46.2m (£28.5m) in 2010 which was a record for any jewel at auction, said estimating the value of a stone like the Beau Sancy was difficult given its rarity.

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My Comment: The history of diamond goes back 500 years .... the stories that it can tell.