Fermi Paradox Points to Fewer Than 10 Extraterrestrial Civilizations

From Technology Review:

The absence of alien probes visiting the solar system places severe limits on the number of advanced civilizations that could be exploring the galaxy.

The Fermi paradox focuses on the existence of advanced civilizations elsewhere in the galaxy. If these civilizations are out there--and many analyses suggest the galaxy should be teeming with life--why haven't we seen evidence of them?

Today Carlos Cotta and Álvaro Morales from the University of Malaga in Spain add another angle to the discussion. One consideration is the speed at which a sufficiently advanced civilization could colonize the galaxy. Various analyses suggest that using spacecraft that travel at a tenth of the speed of light, a colonization wave could take some 50 million years to sweep the galaxy. Others have calculated that it may be closer to 13 billion years, which may explain why we have yet to spot extraterrestrials.

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Mercury Released By Dental Amalgam Fillings Are Not High Enough To Cause Harm, FDA Finds

The FDA has found that while elemental mercury has been associated with adverse health effects at high exposures, the levels released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 31, 2009) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a final regulation classifying dental amalgam and its component parts – elemental mercury and a powder alloy—used in dental fillings. While elemental mercury has been associated with adverse health effects at high exposures, the levels released by dental amalgam fillings are not high enough to cause harm in patients.

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Skype Could Be Cut Off For Good Over Dispute

(Paul Rogers/The Times)

From Times Online:

Skype might have to shut down because of a dispute over the core technology used to make the internet telephone system work.

EBay, which paid $2.6 billion (£1.6 billion) for the voice-over-the-internet system in 2005, is facing a court battle with the original founders of the company who retained the rights to the technology at the heart of the system.

EBay admitted in a regulatory filing that it might have to close down the company. It said it was trying to develop alternative software but if that did not work, or if eBay lost the right to the original software: "Skype would be severely and adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible."

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Nap Time! One-Third Of Americans Do It

From Live Science:

A mid-day nap is more common than you might think in America.

One-third of U.S. adults nap on a typical day, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

Naps are more common among men than women, and more common among the poor than the rich.

Naps can be good for you. A study last year in the journal Nature Neuroscience found a 90-minute daytime nap helped test subjects remember things better.

And naps are natural. Humans are bi-phasic sleepers, experts say, which means we're meant to sleep in bouts, not long stretches.

The new survey of 1,488 adults was released this week.

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My Comment: I am one of the guilty nappers.

Why Does Coke From a Glass Bottle Taste Different?

The Usual Suspects: Various container materials might impart slight changes to Coke's flavor. Courtesy The Coca-Cola Company

From Popular Science:

It doesn’t. That’s what Coca-Cola’s spokespeople say, anyway. “The great taste of Coca-Cola is the same regardless of the package it comes in,” they insist. Rather, they say, “the particular way that people choose to enjoy their Coke can affect their perception of taste.” Sure, most people would agree that the cola is indeed delicious and refreshing, and pouring it into a glass or serving it over ice could influence the sensation of its flavor. But is it possible that the subtle variation in taste that some notice among aluminum cans, plastic bottles and glass bottles is more than just a psychological effect of their soda-consumption rituals?

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Space Shuttle Endeavour Successfully Lands Back At Florida -- News Roundups

This NASA image taken by the crew aboard the International Space Station shows the space shuttle Endeavour shortly after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking separation on July 28, 2009. Endeavor is scheduled to land Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The STS-127 crew was on a 13-day service mission to the International Space Station. (UPI Photo/Kevin Dietsch)

Shuttle Back After 16-Day Mission -- New York Times

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — The shuttle Endeavour closed out a grueling 16-day space station assembly mission with a smooth Florida landing on Friday, bringing Japan’s first long-duration astronaut back to Earth after four and one-half months in orbit.

Approaching from the south after a high-speed computer-orchestrated descent, the mission commander, Mark Polansky, took over manual control 50,000 feet above the Florida spaceport, banked to line up on runway 15 and guided the 110-ton shuttle to a picture-perfect touchdown at 10:48 a.m. Eastern time.

“Welcome home. Congratulations on a superb mission from beginning to end,” astronaut Alan Poindexter radioed from mission control in Houston. “Very well done.”

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Space Shuttle Endeavour lands at the shuttle landing facility at Kennedy Space Center.
Photo AFP

More News On Today's Landing Of The Space Shuttle Endeavour

Space shuttle Endeavour lands safely after 16-day mission -- AFP
Shuttle Endeavour, 7 astronauts return to Earth -- AP
Space shuttle Endeavour returns home to Florida -- Reuters
Shuttle Endeavour Lands Safely -- FOX News
Space shuttle Endeavour returns home -- UPI
Space shuttle touches down safely -- BBC
Endeavour lands safely -- CBC
Cdn astronaut Julie Payette lands aboard shuttle Endeavour after 16-day mission -- Canadian Press
Astronaut Koichi Wakata didn't change underwear for a month -- Times Online

Italian Archaeologists Find Lost Roman City Of Altinum Near Venice

From Times Online:

The bustling harbour of Altinum near Venice was one of the richest cities of the Roman empire. But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun, its inhabitants cut their losses and fled in AD452, leaving behind a ghost town of theatres, temples and basilicas.

Altinum was never reoccupied and gradually sunk into the ground. The city lived on in Venetian folk tales and historical artefacts but its exact position, size and wealth gradually faded into obscurity.

Now, using aerial photography of the region, Italian archaeologists have not only located the city, but have produced a detailed map revealing its remarkably intact infrastructure and showing it to be slightly larger than Pompeii.

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Panel Wants Deep Space, Not Landings as U.S. Goal

From The New York Times:

A panel examining the future of the United States’ human spaceflight program will suggest that the Obama administration may want to skip the part about landing on other worlds.

That could, panel members said Thursday, enable the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to send astronauts to more corners of the solar system more quickly while keeping within a limited budget. But it would also eliminate the possibility of astronauts leaving new iconic footprints on the Moon or Mars for a couple of decades.

At a public meeting in Cocoa Beach, Fla., the 10-member panel discussed at length the possibilities of where NASA might go next and how it might get there.

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Crew Inspects Shuttle And Preps For Landing Friday

From Space Daily:

Twin satellite deployments and a check of the systems that will control Endeavour's return home to the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, are on tap today as the shuttle leads the International Space Station in orbit.

The crew was awakened at 1:03 a.m. CDT to the sounds of "I Got You Babe," performed by Sonny and Cher. The song was a special request for Koichi Wakata, the first Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut to serve as a long-duration resident of the station. Wakata spent 133 days as an Expedition 18, 19 and 20 crewmember, and will be returning home after 138 days in space.

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Human Activity Is Driving Earth's 'Sixth Great Extinction Event'

The leatherback turtle is endangered - but scientific reports expose worrying signs of mass extinctions among other wildlife species. Photograph: Frans Lemmens/Getty Images

From The Guardian:

Population growth, pollution and invasive species are having a disastrous effect on species in the southern hemisphere, a major review by conservationists warns.

Earth is experiencing its "sixth great extinction event" with disease and human activity taking a devastating toll on vulnerable species, according to a major review by conservationists.

Much of the southern hemisphere is suffering particularly badly, and Australia, New Zealand and neighbouring Pacific islands may become the extinction hot spots of the world, the report warns.

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Mysterious Bright Spot Found On Venus

A new, bright spot in the clouds of Venus was found by amateur astronomer Frank Melillo on 19 July (Illustration: Melillo/Maxson/ESA/University of Wisconsin-Madison/ALPO)

From New Scientist:

A strange spot emerged on Venus last week, and astronomers are not sure what caused it. They hope future observations will reveal whether volcanic activity, turbulence in the planet's atmosphere, or charged particles from the sun are to blame.

Amateur astronomer Frank Melillo of Holtsville, New York, first spotted the new feature, which is brighter than its surroundings at ultraviolet wavelengths, on the planet's southern hemisphere on 19 July. That same day, an amateur observer in Australia found a dark spot on Jupiter that had been caused by a meteoroid impact.

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Red Hot: Ferrari Previews F430 Successor

Ferrari 458 Italia Set for Frankfurt Debut this Fall: Ferrari today revealed its latest V8-powered sports car, the Pininfarina-designed 458 Italia. A successor to the current F430, the 458 gets a new, high-compression 4.5-liter V8 producing 570 horsepower and 398 pounds-feet of torque. Top Speed: 202 mph. Ferrari

From Popsci.com:

There's nothing like the curves of a new Ferrari to bring optimism back to the table. Ferrari today revealed its latest V8-powered sports car, the 458 Italia. The new model will succeed the current V8 hottie, the F430. Sporting a sexy new design by long-time Ferrari styling partner Pininfarina, the 458 Italia gets a new, high-compression 4.5-liter V8 producing 570 horsepower and 398 pounds-feet of torque. Top Speed: 202 mph. That makes it the first stock V8 Ferrari to break the 200-mph mark.

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Will Comets Wipe Out Life On Planet Earth? -- News Roundup

According to scientists Jupiter and Saturn have protected life on Earth for hundreds of millions of years by catching and batting away dangerous comets Photo: PA

Comet 'Unlikely To Wipe Out Earth' -- The Telegraph

The Earth is being protected from comets, thanks to the gravitational pulls of Saturn and Jupiter, according to new research

It is the plot of many a Hollywood science fiction thriller - a comet on a direct collision course with Earth destined to wipe out all known life.

But the producers of Deep Impact and other blockbusters might be wide of the mark, scientists have found, as new evidence suggests comets pose less of a threat to life on earth than previously imagined.

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More News On Comets And Striking The Earth

Comets probably won't destroy life on Earth, researchers say -- National Post
Comets probably won't cause the end of life as we know it: study -- AFP
Comets Not So Likely to Smash Into Earth and Kill Us All -- Discover Magazine
Comets From Edge of Solar System Unlikely to Hit Earth -- Space.com
Comet Collisions Won’t Spark The End Of The World -- Red Orbit
Doomsday Comet Less Likely, Calculations Show -- Discovery
Crashing Comets Not Likely The Cause Of Earth's Mass Extinctions -- Science Daily

White Roofs Catch On as Energy Cost Cutters

A Wal-Mart store in Chino, Calif., has both a cool roof and solar panels to cut its energy use. J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

From The New York Times:

SAN FRANCISCO — Returning to their ranch-style house in Sacramento after a long summer workday, Jon and Kim Waldrep were routinely met by a wall of heat.

“We’d come home in the summer, and the house would be 115 degrees, stifling,” said Mr. Waldrep, a regional manager for a national company.

He or his wife would race to the thermostat and turn on the air-conditioning as their four small children, just picked up from day care, awaited relief.

All that changed last month. “Now we come home on days when it’s over 100 degrees outside, and the house is at 80 degrees,” Mr. Waldrep said.

Their solution was a new roof: a shiny plasticized white covering that experts say is not only an energy saver but also a way to help cool the planet.

Relying on the centuries-old principle that white objects absorb less heat than dark ones, homeowners like the Waldreps are in the vanguard of a movement embracing “cool roofs” as one of the most affordable weapons against climate change.

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Fiery Images As Killer Volcano That Claimed 36,000 Lives Stirs Once More

Ticking timebomb: Islanders thought they had avoided
another disaster after things went quiet last year

From The Telegraph:

An amateur photographer has captured new images of the re-awakening of the world's most famous volcano.

In a breathtaking series Marco Fulle, who specialises in shots of comets, has photographed the Anak Krakatoa against a backdrop of constellations such as the Big Dipper.

These stunning pictures show the latest activity during the rebirth of the infamous volcano which holds a long-standing record for causing the highest number of human deaths ever - a staggering 36,000 in 1883.

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Who Should Get the H1N1 Vaccine First?

A doctor at the Centers for Disease Control examines specimens in an effort to develop new influenza vaccines. James Gathany / CDC / Reuters

From Time Magazine:

World health officials are carefully watching the H1N1/09 swine flu virus as it makes it way through the Southern Hemisphere, which is currently in the thick of its flu season. They are particularly interested in seeing how severely the virus affects infected people in parts of Africa, South America and Australia, since their illnesses could be a good predictor of how aggressive the virus will be when flu season returns to the rest of the world in the fall.

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Adult Brain Can Change Within Seconds

The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity. (Credit: iStockphoto/Sebastian Kaulitzki)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 30, 2009) — The human brain can adapt to changing demands even in adulthood, but MIT neuroscientists have now found evidence of it changing with unsuspected speed. Their findings suggest that the brain has a network of silent connections that underlie its plasticity.

The brain’s tendency to call upon these connections could help explain the curious phenomenon of “referred sensations,” in which a person with an amputated arm “feels” sensations in the missing limb when he or she is touched on the face. Scientists believe this happens because the part of the brain that normally receives input from the arm begins “referring” to signals coming from a nearby brain region that receives information from the face.

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WD-40: Strange Facts and Myths

From Live Science:

John S. Barry, the man "who masterminded the spread of WD-40," as The New York Times puts it, has died at age 84. The product he promoted is more popular than an iPod.

WD-40 can be found in 4 out of 5 American households, the company claims. Its ingredients are a secret, and it has generated its share of myths and strange applications over the years.

Barry didn't invent the stuff. "Norm Larsen, founder of Rocket Chemical Company, is considered the original founder of WD-40," according to wd40.com.

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Beyond The Solar System

Far out: Pluto’s methane ice boils off into its thin atmosphere in a misty scene no human has observed. In the background are Pluto moons Charon and tiny Nix (upper left). Beyond lies the Kuiper Belt, one of the solar system’s most mysterious regions. (Illustration by Ron Miller

Where the Wild Things Are -- Air & Space

We’re about to get a peek at the solar system’s final frontier.

Twenty years ago, the existence of a distant wilderness beyond Neptune—seeded with tiny planets, dormant comets, and bits of ice and rock —was mere conjecture. There was Pluto, discovered practically by luck in 1930, and that was it. Astronomers photographed squares of the night sky and compared the images to see if anything was moving, but either their technology was not good enough, or they were searching in the wrong place. Or there was nothing more to find.

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Can The Military Find The Answer To Alternative Energy?

From Business Week:

DARPA, the Defense Dept. agency that helped invent the Internet, is setting its sights on cleantech.

Nine years ago, Robert J. Nowak, an electro-chemicals expert for the Defense Dept., learned that senior generals weren't happy with their troops' electronic gear. While the night-vision, laser, and GPS devices worked well, the batteries that powered them weighed some 25 pounds per soldier, heavy enough to hurt some of the troops.

So Nowak, who worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Dept.'s famous research branch, solicited bids for a new device that would power a soldier's gear at a tenth of the weight and a fraction of the $100 cost of the batteries. Today, the original 18 companies that took up Nowak's challenge have been whittled down to two: Livermore (Calif.)-based UltraCell and Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor, Mich. Their solution: small, sturdy fuel cells that can power a soldier's clutch of mobile devices for a week on a gallon or so of methanol or propane. Battle-ready versions of the fuel cells will be available this year.

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My Comment: The military are the biggest consumers of energy. If they can find a way to provide alternative energy, this will go a long way to help the everyday consumer.

Organic 'Has No Health Benefits'

From The BBC:

Organic food is no healthier than ordinary food, a large independent review has concluded.

There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found.

The Food Standards Agency who commissioned the report said the findings would help people make an "informed choice".

But the Soil Association criticised the study and called for better research.

Researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at all the evidence on nutrition and health benefits from the past 50 years.

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Humans Time Blinks So They Don't Miss Information

From The Telegraph:

Humans subconsciously time their blinks so not to miss useful information, scientists have found.

A study of eighteen volunteers found they synchronized their blinks while watching video clips taken from the comedy TV show Mr Bean.

But the same phenomenon did not occur when they viewed a background video or listened to an audio recording of a Harry Potter book.

Dr Tamami Nakano, of Tokyo University, said: "We seem to be unconsciously searching for a good timing for a blink to minimize the chance of losing critical information during the blink."

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Neuroscientist's Research Holds Clues About Short-Term Memory

George Mason graduate student John Fedota, right, takes the kind of memory test that helped identify Subject 7 at Raja Parasuraman's lab. "Ninety percent of neuroscience work has been done on animals. The techniques are all invasive and cannot be used on humans. But in the last 20 years we’ve developed noninvasive techniques to study human brain functions," says Parasuraman.

From Popular Mechanics:

What is a cognitive superstar? One grad student's exceptional brain could help settle the debate of nature versus nurture. For a full interview with neuroscientist Raja Parasuraman.

Last year, Raja Parasuraman was conducting a study of brain function among 650 participants at George Mason University in Virginia, when he stumbled across what he calls a “cognitive superstar.” The university professor studies neuroergonomics—a merger of neuroscience, the study of the brain, with ergonomics, the study of how to design systems and tech-nologies to be more compatible with users. Parasuraman hooks subjects to MRI, EEG and other brain scanners while conducting memory and attention tests to see what parts of the brain activate.

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Why Those Nigerian Scam Emails Have Decreased In Frequency

Damaged Cable Causes Internet Blackout In Four West African Countries -- Open Net Initiative

Five days ago, the Appfrica tech blog reported an Internet blackout in Benin, a West African country roughly the size of Ohio. The outage, which also affected neighboring Togo, Niger and Nigeria, was caused by damage to the SAT-3 submarine communications cable, which links Portugal and Spain to South Africa via the West African coastline.

The Internet blackout left Benin, Togo and Niger without an optical fiber link to the outside world, meaning Internet users in these countries have been forced to rely on rare, expensive satellite connections to get online. Appfrica managing editor Theresa Carpenter Sondjo, who is based in Benin, writes:

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The Long And Short Of How Men And Women See

Eye for the ladies: Women are better at short-range focusing, says a study

From The Daily Mail:

If your husband accuses you of missing the bigger picture or your wife says you have no eye for detail, there may be more than an element of truth to it.

Scientists have shown that men are better at processing distant targets, while women
are good at short-range focusing.

The finding reflects the way men and women’s brains evolved thousands of years
ago. Hunters, traditionally the men, needed an ability to spot targets from afar.

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World's First Computer May Be Even Older Than Thought

From New Scientist:

From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, the desire to impress with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000 years.

This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer, dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track the timing of the Olympic games.

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First Photos Inside Virgin Galactic's Mothership Cockpit

WhiteKnight Two Left Seat copyright Flightglobal/Reed Business Information

From Popsci.com:

We previously showed you construction of Virgin Galactic’s WhiteKnight Two, the mothership that will help launch SpaceShipTwo into sub-orbit. However, Flight Global was able to sneak in some exclusive photos and video from inside the cockpit.

WhiteKnightTwo flew for the public on Tuesday at Wisconsin's massive Oshkosh AirVenture show, complete with head honcho Sir Richard Branson strapped into the jump seat. Without knowing it's a custom-fabbed Rutan space tourism mothership, it may look like any other new airliner's all-glass cockpit. But if you're thinking of dropping millions on one of Virgin Galactic's first seats, it's good to know everything about what will carry you into the heavens.

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World Temperatures Set For Record Highs

From The Telegraph:

World temperatures are set to rise much faster than expected as a result of climate change over the next ten years, according to meteorologists.

In the last few years the world has experienced a "cooler period" since record high temperatures in summer 1998.

This has been used by global warming sceptics as proof that greenhouse gases are not causing a rise in temperatures.

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My Comment: Temperatures go up .... temperatures go down .... golly gee, this has been going on for billions of years. But the idea that "experts" can figure out the weather a few years from now when they have trouble predicting the weather for next week .... sighhhh .... you get the picture.

'Brain-Reading' Methods Developed

Scientists have developed a highly accurate way to peer into the brain to uncover a person's mental state and what sort of information is being processed before it reaches awareness. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2009) — It is widely known that the brain perceives information before it reaches a person’s awareness. But until now, there was little way to determine what specific mental tasks were taking place prior to the point of conscious awareness.

That has changed with the findings of scientists at Rutgers University in Newark and the University of California, Los Angeles who have developed a highly accurate way to peer into the brain to uncover a person’s mental state and what sort of information is being processed before it reaches awareness. With this new window into the brain, scientists now also are provided with the means of developing a more accurate model of the inner functions of the brain.

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Why We Get Lost in Books

From Live Science:

Any avid reader knows the power of a book to transport you into another world, be it the wizard realm of "Harry Potter" or the legal intrigue of the latest John Grisham.

Part of the reason we get lost in these imaginary worlds might be because our brains effectively simulate the events of the book in the same way they process events in the real world, a new study suggests.

The new study, detailed in the July 21 issue of the journal Psychological Science, builds on previous work that links the way our brains process images and written words to the way they process actions we perform ourselves.

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Abu Dhabi Firm Takes Stake In Virgin Galactic, Plans Spaceport

SpaceShip Two and Mothership Virgin Galactic

From Popsci.com:

Space tourism is coming to the Middle East, as Abu Dhabi-based Aabar investments announced today it has taken a $280 million, 32 percent stake in Virgin Galactic. As part of the deal, which is still pending regulatory approval, Aabar plans to build a spaceport in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, and will have rights to all Virgin Galactic traffic in that region. Aabar is also setting aside $100 million to build a small satellite launching facility, suggesting that the team plans to use the spaceport as a base for scientific research as well as space tourism.

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Space Shuttle Endeavour Readies Return To Earth

This image provided by NASA, shows a partial view of Space Shuttle Endeavour

From AFP:

WASHINGTON — The space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday to take photographs of the orbiting research facility before final maneuvers to prepare its return home.

Endeavour separated from the ISS 1:26 pm (1726 GMT), NASA said.

"After completing a fly-around of the space station, shuttle Endeavour will perform a maneuver to separate from the station," it added.

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Panel Backs NASA Bid For Bigger Shuttle Budget

From Yahoo News/Reuters:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – The United States needs to boost NASA's budget by $1.5 billion to fly the last seven shuttle missions and should extend International Space Station operations through 2020, members of a presidential panel reviewing the U.S. human space program said on Tuesday.

A subcommittee of the 10-member board also proposed adding an extra, eighth shuttle flight to help keep the station supplied and narrow an expected five- to seven-year gap between the time the shuttle fleet is retired and a new U.S. spaceship is ready to fly.

A third option would keep the shuttle flying through 2014 as part of a plan to develop a new launch system based on existing shuttle rockets and components.

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Longer Life For The Space Station Is Advised

From The New York Times:

Members of the government panel reviewing NASA’s human spaceflight program said Tuesday that the life of the International Space Station should be extended past its planned demise in 2016.

After the shuttle Endeavour, which undocked from the space station Tuesday afternoon, returns to Earth, NASA has seven flights left on its schedule before the shuttle fleet is to be retired in September 2010. At that point the space station, under construction since 1998, would finally be complete, but current plans call for operating it only through 2015 before it is deliberately disposed of in the ocean the following year.

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Pictured: The Soap Bubble Nebula Causing Astronomical Excitement Among Star-Gazers

This startling image of the newly discovered Soap Bubble Nebula has generated enormous excitement among astronomers

From The Daily Mail:

It may look as if a child's soap bubble has strayed in front of a camera lens, but this extraordinary image from the heavens shows a newly discovered planetary nebula.

The phenomenon, which is caused when stars die and blast out a glowing shell of gas and plasma, was spotted by an amateur astronomer earlier this month.

Most planetary nebulae are elliptical or cigar-shaped, but in this case, its unusual shape was caused after a vast spherical cloud of gas was ejected from each pole of an ageing star.

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The Futility Of Emissions Controls

A cyclist rides past a China Huaneng Group power plant in Beijing
Photograph: China Newsphoto/Reuters

China's Three Biggest Power Firms Emit More Carbon Than Britain, Says Report -- The Guardian

Greenpeace report names top three polluters and calls for tax on coal to improve efficiency and encourage switch to renewables

China's three biggest power firms produced more greenhouse gas emissions last year than the whole of Britain, according to a Greenpeace report published today.

The group warned that inefficient plants and the country's heavy reliance on coal are hindering efforts to tackle climate change. While China's emissions per capita remain far below those of developed countries, the country as a whole has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest emitter.

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Cheaper Solar Thermal Power

Sun catchers: This is the latest design of a system for focusing sunlight on a Stirling engine to generate electricity. Credit: Sandia National Laboratories/Randy Montoya

From Technology Review:

A simpler design could reduce the cost of solar power generated by concentrating sunlight on Stirling engines.

Stirling Energy Systems (SES), based in Phoenix, has decreased the complexity and cost of its technology for converting the heat in sunlight into electricity, allowing for high-volume production. It will begin building very large solar-power plants using its equipment as soon as next year.

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Kenya To Build Africa's Biggest Windfarm

A wind farm in the Ngong hills on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya
Photograph: Stephen Morrison/EPA

From The Guardian:

With surging demand for power and blackouts common across the continent, Africa is looking to solar, wind and geothermal technologies to meet its energy needs.

One of the hottest places in the world is set to become the site of Africa's most ambitious venture in the battle against global warming.

Some 365 giant wind turbines are to be installed in desert around Lake Turkana in northern Kenya – used as a backdrop for the film The Constant Gardener – creating the biggest windfarm on the continent. When complete in 2012, the £533m project will have a capacity of 300MW, a quarter of Kenya's current installed power and one of the highest proportions of wind energy to be fed in a national grid anywhere in the world.

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Imaginary Friends: Television Programs Can Fend Off Loneliness

Photo: By yourself, but not alone Flickering friends count for something. Lukasz Laska/iStock

From Scientific American:

Stomach growling, but have no time for a meal? A snack will do. Drowsy and unable to concentrate? A short nap can be reviving when a good night’s rest is unavailable. But what should you do when you are alone and feeling lonely?

New psychological research suggests that loneliness can be alleviated by simply turning on your favorite TV show. In the same way that a snack can satiate hunger in lieu of a meal, it seems that watching favorite TV shows can provide the experience of belonging without a true interpersonal interaction.

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Finding King Herod's Tomb

Herod built an elaborate palace fortress on the 300-foot mountain, Herodium, to commemorate his victory in a crucial battle. Duby Tal / Albatross / IsraelImages

From Smithsonian:

After a 35-year search, an Israeli archaeologist is certain he has solved the mystery of the biblical figure’s final resting place.

Shielding my eyes from the glare of the morning sun, I look toward the horizon and the small mountain that is my destination: Herodium, site of the fortified palace of King Herod the Great. I'm about seven miles south of Jerusalem, not far from the birthplace of the biblical prophet Amos, who declared: "Let justice stream forth like water." Herod's reign over Judea from 37 to 4 B.C. is not remembered for justice but for its indiscriminate cruelty. His most notorious act was the murder of all male infants in Bethlehem to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy heralding the birth of the Messiah. There is no record of the decree other than the Gospel of Matthew, and biblical scholars debate whether it actually took place, but the story is in keeping with a man who arranged the murders of, among others, three of his own sons and a beloved wife.

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Hydrocarbons In The Deep Earth?

This artistic view of the Earth's interior shows hydrocarbons forming in the upper mantle and transported through deep faults to shallower depths in the Earth's crust. The inset shows a snapshot of the methane dissociation reaction studied in this work. (Credit: Image courtesy A. Kolesnikov and V. Kutcherov)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (July 27, 2009) — The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could also have been created deeper in the Earth and formed without organic matter. Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle —the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of the core.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, with colleagues from Russia and Sweden, and is published in the July 26, advanced online issue of Nature Geoscience.

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Brain's Potential Explained by Big New Idea

From Live Magazine:

Different species and individuals have limits as to what they can learn. For instance, you can't teach your dog to read. But what sets these boundaries?

According to a new hypothesis, components of an organism's brain cortex may help determine how well that organism — be it dog, monkey or human — learns and improves its cognitive skills.
The cortex is your brain's outer layer — the exterior part you can see if you look at a picture of the whole organ.

The new idea posits that small sets of neuronal cells in the cortex, called cortical modules, determine our "cognitive plasticity," that is, our capacity to learn new ways of thinking, or improve upon old ones.

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Food Dye 'May Ease Spinal Injury'

From The BBC:

A dye similar to that used in sweets may potentially minimise the severity of spinal cord injuries.

A cascade of molecular changes triggered in the hours following an initial injury can cause further severe damage to the spinal cord.

But US researchers found this can be halted by using a dye known as Brilliant Blue G (BBG).

However, rats given the treatment in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study turned blue.

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Like Tarzan, Orangutans Glide Through Trees

DLILLC / Corbis

From Time Magazine:

Husky and hairy, with the flaming orange coloring of a bad dye job, the orangutan doesn't look like the most agile of primates. But in fact these great apes, native to the jungles of Malaysia and Indonesia, climb and swing nimbly through the canopy more than 100 feet in the air, their fleet-footed acrobatics allowing them to make their home in the treetops and access remote food sources, like the fruit at the very ends of branches.

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One Quarter Of Giant Panda Habitat Lost In Sichuan Quake

From CNN:

(CNN) -- The earthquake in Sichuan, southwestern China, last May left around 69,000 people dead and 15 million people displaced. Now ecologists have assessed the earthquake's impact on biodiversity and the habitat for some of the last existing wild giant pandas.

According to the report published in "Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment", 23 percent of the pandas' habitat in the study area was destroyed, and fragmentation of the remaining habitat could hinder panda reproduction.

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Sleeping in Space is Easy, But There's No Shower

From Space:

Astronauts may have some tough jobs in orbit - like building a $100 billion International Space Station - but apparently getting a goodnight's sleep isn't one of them.

In fact, sleeping is pretty comfy in space because you can slumber without gravity's incessant pull, according to Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, who has been living aboard the linked space station and shuttle Endeavour for more than a week.

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Crowd Sees Spaceship Launcher Fly

WhiteKnightTwo follows two photos planes as it circles Monday, July 27, 2009 above the Experimental Aircraft Association's annual AirVenture convention in Oshkosh, Wis. British billionaire Sir Richard Branson hopes to use WhiteKnightTwo to carry a spaceship into the upper atmosphere. The spaceship would then detach and rocket into space. Branson hopes to use the system to create a commercial space travel business. (AP Photo/Mike Roemer)

From Yahoo News/AP:

OSHKOSH, Wis. – Hundreds of earthlings turned their faces to the sky Monday to see an airplane built to launch a ship into space, watching the gleaming white craft soar overhead.

The twin-fuselage craft named WhiteKnightTwo, looking like two planes connected at the wing tips, circled the runway several times before touching down at the Experimental Aircraft Association's Air Venture annual gathering.

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Australia's Swine Flu Fight Holds Lessons For World, Say Scientists

Credit: AFP

From COSMOS:

MELBOURNE: Hard-hit Australia has become a global case study for swine flu, with Europe and the United States watching closely as it battles the disease in the southern hemisphere winter.

The outbreak began here in early May, as Australia was entering its annual flu season, speeding up infections so much that in a month Melbourne was the world's 'swine flu capital' with the highest number of cases per capita in the world.

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Photo: Docked Space Shuttle And Station Cross The Sun

From Wired News:

A photographer has captured a stunning photo of the space shuttle Endeavor docked with the International Space Station crossing the face of the sun.

You couldn’t just aim your digital camera at the sky and get results like this. Thierry Legault, who is known for his amazing astronomical imagery, uses specialized solar filters to capture the images.

When the shuttle docked with the ISS on July 15, the combined crews set a new record for space-vehicle occupancy. The 13 people aboard the station are the most that have been aboard the same vehicle in space. The astronauts have installed a “porch” on the space station for space-exposed experiments. The new addition effectively completes the Japanese Kibo laboratory.

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Fertile Crescent 'Will Disappear This Century'

Photo: The Fertile Crescent is left dry as Turkish dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle (Image: AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

From The New Scientist:

Is it the final curtain for the Fertile Crescent? This summer, as Turkish dams reduce the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to a trickle, farmers abandon their desiccated fields across Iraq and Syria, and efforts to revive the Mesopotamian marshes appear to be abandoned, climate modellers are warning that the current drought is likely to become permanent. The Mesopotamian cradle of civilisation seems to be returning to desert.

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