If You Missed The SpaceX Landing, You Can Watch It Here

Popular Science: Missed The SpaceX Landing? Watch It Here

Last night, SpaceX stuck its landing, setting down the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket after it launched satellites into space.

The move means that it may now be possible to re-use rockets that can transport cargo into orbit. But this particular rocket isn't slated to return to flight. The Verge reports that Elon Musk doesn't want this rocket to fly again because it's the first they've brought back, and is therefore unique. It will be test-fired on the ground, just to see if it could have been reused, then presumably retire to a farm upstate where it can frolic in the meadows. Other rockets that come later will actually be reused across multiple launches (which is kind of the point of re-usable rockets).

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CSN Editor: Cool

These Incredible Maps Reveal The World At A Glance

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This map shows how large parts of Asia have the smallest penis measurements, between 4.5 inches and 11.4cm, while men in Sudan, the Democratic of Congo and Columbia, amongst others, typically measure between 6.5 inches and 16.5cm in length

Daily Mail: The stunning maps that reveal the world at a glance: From manhood and breast size to obesity and divorce rates, how does YOUR country fare?

* Men in some African and Central American countries have the biggest penis sizes averaging more than 6.5 inches
* Women in Russia have the largest average breast size, with most measuring in at above a D-cup
* The places with the highest levels of obesity were the US and Saudi Arabia when it comes to both men and women

Ever wondered where women with big breasts are abundant and which country has men that are most well-endowed?

These colourful globes map the world's vital statistics but as you have never seen them before.

It seems that some of the stereotypes are true at least with men in many African countries having the biggest penis sizes on average.

Meanwhile, women in Russia have the largest cup-size, with most females measuring in at a D-cup or above.

From which fast-food joint is the most popular in Denmark to which nation keeps the most people incarcerated, some of the results are likely to surprise you.

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CSN Editor: This answers a few questions that I have accumulated over my many years of travel.

Why Modern Cars Are So Much Safer

Popular Mechanics: The Physics of Why Modern Cars Are So Much Safer, Explained in 146 Seconds

The science of why you should learn to love the crumple zone.

Car crashes are still extremely deadly—32,719 Americans died in car accidents in 2013, or almost 90 people a day. But the number of people dying in car crashes—particularly when expressed as how many people per 100,000 die in an auto accident—has essentially steadily declined since the early 1970s. the early 1970s.

CSN Editor: The problem with cars that easily "crumple" is that it is easy to damage them at minor speed ... hence higher insurance rates. But it is a still a no brainer .... at moderate to high speeds it is better to be in a a car that crumples than being in a car that does not.

A Look At How Animals Think

Economist: Animals think, therefore…

The inner lives of animals are hard to study. But there is evidence that they may be a lot richer than science once thought

IN 1992, at Tangalooma, off the coast of Queensland, people began to throw fish into the water for the local wild dolphins to eat. In 1998, the dolphins began to feed the humans, throwing fish up onto the jetty for them. The humans thought they were having a bit of fun feeding the animals. What, if anything, did the dolphins think?

Charles Darwin thought the mental capacities of animals and people differed only in degree, not kind—a natural conclusion to reach when armed with the radical new belief that the one evolved from the other. His last great book, “The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals”, examined joy, love and grief in birds, domestic animals and primates as well as in various human races. But Darwin’s attitude to animals—easily shared by people in everyday contact with dogs, horses, even mice—ran contrary to a long tradition in European thought which held that animals had no minds at all. This way of thinking stemmed from the argument of René Descartes, a great 17th-century philosopher, that people were creatures of reason, linked to the mind of God, while animals were merely machines made of flesh—living robots which, in the words of Nicolas Malebranche, one of his followers, “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it: they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.”

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CSN Editor: I sometimes wonder if my dog trained me .... and not the other way around.

Is There A Safe Level Of Alcohol Consumption?

Photo courtesy of www.somethingyoushouldread.com

The Guardian: There is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption

The idea that drinking small amounts of alcohol will do you no harm is a myth, claims Professor David Nutt

Last week I attended a discussion group chaired by the Observer's health correspondent Denis Campbell where one of the other experts, a public health doctor, asserted that alcohol should be treated differently from tobacco (and by inference other drugs) because there is no safe dose of tobacco whereas alcohol is safe until a person's drinking gets to "unsafe" levels. Its health benefits for the cardiovascular system are also often used to support the claim that in low doses alcohol is safe, for how else could it be health-promoting?

The myth of a safe level of drinking is a powerful claim. It is one that many health professionals appear to believe in and that the alcohol industry uses to defend its strategy of making the drug readily available at low prices. However, the claim is wrong and the supporting evidence flawed.

There is no safe dose of alcohol for these reasons:

CSN Editor: I need a drink.

Glitches Prevent Users From Using Skype

Daily Mail: Skype goes offline: Glitch prevents users from making calls and logging in

* Skype says glitch makes users appear to be offline even if they are online
* The technical problem is thought to be affecting users around the world
* Microsoft, which owns Skype, said engineers were working to fix the issue

Skype users around the world have been left unable to make calls with service after a glitch made everyone appear as if they were offline.

Microsoft, which owns Skype, said the technical problem meant users signed into were unable to change their status and all contacts showed as offline even if they were online.

This meant users were unable to initiate calls to each other.

CSN editor: I needed Skype today .... but in the end I had to make a long distance phone call. Yup .... you never appreciate the tech that we have until we no longer have it.

Some Surprising Facts About LEGOs

Popular Mechanics: 10 Surprising Facts About LEGO

You're never going to look at your favorite toy the same way again

Like Easy-Bake Ovens and Troll dolls, you probably remember these famous plastic bricks fondly from your childhood. But did you know the first one was made in 1932 and out of wood? Didn't think so. Here are a few more facts you might not know about the toy of the century:

CSN Editor: I guess this explains why they are so expensive.

How One Drop Of Blood Can Tell Your Medical History

The virus SV40, which might cause cancer in humans. Phoebus87 via Wikimedia Commons

Popular Science: Your History In A Drop Of Blood

A new test can see just about every virus you've ever had

A blood sample can now reveal a record of viruses you’ve had throughout life, thanks to a new test developed at Harvard called VirScan. It looks for evidence of antibodies produced by the immune system to kill viral invaders. “It’s kind of like fishing,” says geneticist Tomasz Kula. “We’ve made this huge pond [of viral bits], and we see which ones the antibodies stick to.”

How it works: VirScan matches antibodies in a person’s blood sample to a library of 93,000 snippets of viral code. It can find evidence of up to 1,000 different viruses.

Here are the viruses the team found in 303 blood samples--hover over the yellow circles to learn more.

CSN Editor: Recent advances in diagnostics have been truly impressive.

The Science Behind Melting Cheese

Serious Eats: The Science of Melting Cheese

Have you ever gotten all excited to make a grilled cheese and then...your cheese just doesn't melt? Or maybe it breaks, separating into a tough, stringy mass surrounded by a pool of oil? Yup, it's a crappy feeling. Luckily, there are ways to know what you're getting into before that happens. Science ways.

Want to reliably tell whether the cheese you're buying is gonna dominate the melting game or stay nice and solid for cooking or grilling? Wish you could make any melting cheese melt better? Here's what you need to know.

CSN Editor: Damn .... I feel hungry.

This Is What One Year In Space Does To Your Body

The Verge: Here’s what one year in space does to your body

Want to know how much poop an astronaut produces while spending a year on the International Space Station? It's somewhere around 180 pounds.

That fun fact is brought to you by NASA, which just released an infographic breaking down all the numbers surrounding astronaut Scott Kelly's one-year stay on the ISS. Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko are both in the midst of spending a full year on the station as part of the One Year Mission — an experiment to study the long-term effects of spaceflight on the human body. The mission will help NASA better prepare for its eventual journey to Mars in the 2030s. A trip to the Red Planet is going to take multiple months, so NASA wants to know how the microgravity environment of space will affect the body during that time.

CSN Editor: One year in space .... that is a long time.

Killer Whales Can 'Talk' Like Dolphins

Killer Whales Can 'Talk' Like Dolphins When The Two Species Spend Time Together: Orcas Imitate Sounds To Help Them Communicate -- Daily Mail

* Killer whales can engage in cross-species ‘vocal learning’ by matching the types of sounds made by bottlenose dolphins when spending time with them
* Results suggest vocal imitation may enable social interactions in cetaceans
* Killer whales make clicks, whistles and pulsed calls, which are repeated brief bursts of sound punctuated with silence
* When they spent time with dolphins they altered these noises to make more dolphin-like clicks and fewer pulsed calls, which dolphins don't make
* Study was conducted by Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in San Diego

Most animals make noises that are innate, not learned.

But scientists claim killer whales can learn to ‘talk’ like dolphins when the two species spend time together.

This means the ocean predators join the likes of bats, some birds and humans that each copy sounds and use them in appropriate social contexts.

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My Comment: I always find it amazing that we are still making discoveries even though we have been studying animals .... like killer whales .... for years.

A Means To Harness Wind Energy At 2,000 Feet

Altaeros' Buoyant Air Turbine: Last year, Altaeros tested a prototype of the turbine at a height of 500 feet in Maine, where it flew in 45mph winds. courtesy Altaeros

The Quest To Harness Wind Energy At 2,000 Feet -- Popular Science

High-altitude wind contains enough energy to power the planet. A Boston start-up wants to be the first to bring it down to Earth.

Nothing about the grooved, inflatable body taking shape inside Greentown Labs in Somerville, Massachusetts, resembles a wind turbine. It looks more like a jetliner's emergency ramp, or something you'd tie behind a boat and cling to desperately while bumping across the surface of a lake. But the 14-foot-long structure most resembles what it actually is--an air-filled wing.

To be more precise, it's a stabilizing fin, part of a tube-shaped, robotic airship designed to tap the power of high-altitude winds. The blade tips of today's tallest conventional wind turbine, installed at a test center in Denmark this year, stretch to 720 feet. The fully autonomous, lighter-than-air BAT (short for buoyant airborne turbine) will climb as high as 2,000 feet, where winds blow stronger and steadier.

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My Comment: People are protesting windmills on the ground .... I expect the same protests for these wind turbines 2,000 feet in the air.

'Tyupkin' Malware Lets Criminals Steal Millions From ATMs Around The World

Infected Cash Machines Are Giving Away Money: 'Tyupkin' Malware Lets Criminals Steal Millions From ATMs Around The World -- Daily Mail

* Malicious software allows thieves to visit cash machines and empty them
* Money has been stolen from machines in Latin America, Europe and Asia
* ATMs are deliberately infected with so-called Tyupkin malware by criminals
* They then visit the machines at night and enter codes to access the cash
* Security experts have warned banks to boost the security of ATMs

Computer viruses may make your laptop run slower and even steal personal details such as passwords, but they can also attack cash machines - with expensive results.

Experts have forensically investigated cybercriminal attacks targeting ATMs around the world and have discovered a piece of malware called 'Tyupkin' that is leaving hundreds of machines at risk.

This malicious software allows thieves to visit cash machines and empty them – stealing millions in the process - without the need for a card.

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My Comment: Not so secure after-all.

Everything Is CGI

This Is CG -- Techcrunch

This is your semi-regular reminder that CGI is at or beyond the point of absurdity, that everything on the Internet is fake, that there is no spoon, etc.

Because seriously. Look at that. Look at it.

I think this is the first time I’ve watched a video like this and wandered right on past the uncanny valley, only to plummet backwards into it when I realized — about halfway through, mind you — that it was rendered.

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My Comment: It fooled me.

Spain Has 1st Known Case Of Contracting Ebola Outside Of Africa

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Spain Has Outbreak's 1st Known Case Of Contracting Ebola Outside Of Africa -- CNN

(CNN) -- A nurse's assistant in Spain is the first person known to have contracted Ebola outside of Africa in the current outbreak.

Spanish Health Minister Ana Mato announced Monday that a test confirmed the assistant has the virus.

The woman had helped treat a Spanish missionary and a Spanish priest, both of whom had contracted Ebola in West Africa.

Both died after returning to Spain.

Health officials said she developed symptoms on September 30. She was hospitalized Sunday.

An investigation is under way to find everyone she may have had contact with while contagious. So far, there are no other known cases.

She was one of about 30 health professionals in Spain who helped to treat the Ebola patients.

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More News On The Ebola Epidemic: Spain Has 1st Known Case Of Contracting Ebola Outside Of Africa

Spanish Nurse Is Suspected of Ebola Infection -- AP
Nurse at Spain hospital contracts Ebola -- AFP
Nurse in Spain tests positive for Ebola in first infection outside west Africa -- The Guardian
Ebola outbreak: Nurse infected in Spain -- BBC
Spanish health-care worker contracts Ebola in first transmission case outside of Africa -- Washington Post
Health-Care Worker Contracted Ebola in Spanish Hospital -- WSJ
Spanish nurse tests positive for Ebola -- Al Jazeera
Spanish nurse tests positive for Ebola after treating victim in Madrid -- RT
Hospital Nurse in Spain Gets Infected With Ebola: Reports -- RIA Novosti
Spanish nurse infected with Ebola in Europe -- Deutsche Welle

The Whale Who Thought He Could Fly

(Click on Image to Enlarge)

Hello there: A humpback whale threw itself out of the water off the eastern coast of South Africa, waving to amazed onlookers in a tour guide's boat

The Whale Who Thought He Could Fly: Amazing Moment Humpback Is Captured Leaping Out Of The Water (And Even Manages A Wave) -- Daily Mail

* Marine tour guide Steven Benjamin captured the spectacular sight while whale-spotting off the coast of South Africa
* The 31-year-old was 'blown away' by the humpback, which disappeared for 20 minutes before leaping from the water
* The majestic animal even 'waved' his fin at the stunned onlookers in a rare close encounter with the huge creatures

These jaw-dropping images show the moment a humpback whale leapt majestically from the ocean, 'waving' to a tourist boat before crashing back down with an almighty splash.

The photos, taken off the coast of South Africa by marine tour guide Steven Benjamin, captured a sight rarely seen at such close proximity.

The 40 ton humpback put on an incredible aerial display, soaring through the air just yards from a boat as shocked onlookers screamed.

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My Comment: These people were lucky .... to see something like that in front of them .... it must have been incredible.

How Memories Are Formed

3D image of the hippocampus of a rat. Credit: © M. Pyka

A Glimpse Into The 3-D Brain: How Memories Form -- Science Daily

Summary: People who wish to know how memory works are forced to take a glimpse into the brain. They can now do so without bloodshed: Researchers have developed a new method for creating 3-D models of memory-relevant brain structures.

People who wish to know how memory works are forced to take a glimpse into the brain. They can now do so without bloodshed: RUB researchers have developed a new method for creating 3D models of memory-relevant brain structures. They published their results in the journal Frontiers in Neuroanatomy.

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My Comment: A first step (among many) on how memories are formed.

A New Underwater Robot Could Be Used To Sniff Out Smuggled Drugs, Weapons

The oval-shaped submersible robot is half waterpoof to keep electronic components safe from damage. Credit: Sampriti Bhattacharyya/MIT

Underwater Robots Could Sniff Out Smuggled Drugs, Weapons -- Live Science

A warning to all smugglers: A new underwater robot could be used to sniff out contraband — including weapons and drugs — hidden aboard ships.

Developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the new, oval-shaped robot may be small (it's slightly smaller than a football), but it features some big crime-stopping abilities. One side of the bot is flat, which enables it to slide along the bottom of a ship to perform ultrasound scans of the vessel's hull.

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My Comment: I can see this being deployed in war zones ... or potential war zones like the Persian Gulf.

You Can Now Make A Metal Gun In Your Home

The $1,200 Machine That Lets Anyone Make a Metal Gun at Home -- Threat Level/Wired

When Cody Wilson revealed the world’s first fully 3-D printed gun last year, he showed that the “maker” movement has enabled anyone to create a working, lethal firearm with a click in the privacy of his or her garage. Now he’s moved on to a new form of digital DIY gunsmithing. And this time the results aren’t made of plastic.

Wilson’s latest radically libertarian project is a PC-connected milling machine he calls the Ghost Gunner. Like any computer-numerically-controlled (or CNC) mill, the one-foot-cubed black box uses a drill bit mounted on a head that moves in three dimensions to automatically carve digitally-modeled shapes into polymer, wood or aluminum. But this CNC mill, sold by Wilson’s organization known as Defense Distributed for $1,200, is designed to create one object in particular: the component of an AR-15 rifle known as its lower receiver.

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My Comment: This technology is only going to develop and expand with time.

The Science Of Sharpening A Knife

How To Sharpen Any Knife -- Gizmodo

A sharp knife isn't just sharper, it's a safer, more efficient, more precise tool. And, like most people, your knives are probably dull. Here's how to fix that quickly, easily and cheaply.

Why do you need to sharpen knives? A sharp knife stands less chance of slipping on the material being cut and, because it requires less effort and force to use than a dull knife, you're less likely to cut yourself. Working with a sharp knife is faster and easier, too. It also damages the material being cut less — ever tried to slice a tomato with a dull knife? It doesn't exactly produce clean results.

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My Comment: For those who love to cook .... a sharp knife is essential. This is a good summary on how to have one.