Behind The Scenes: The First Women In Antarctica

Terry Tickhill (light hat) and Eileen McSaveney (red headband) use a hand augur to drill Lake Vanda, Wright Valley, Antarctica during the 1969-1970 field season. Water collected during this effort was used to date the lake. The green tent in the background was of the same type as the field crew used for housing during their work in Wright Valley. Credit: Lois Jones

From Live Science:

In the spring of 1969, Terry Tickhill Terrell was 19 and an undergraduate chemistry major at Ohio State University, bored with her lab work and restless. She had never traveled more than 250 miles from the Barnesville, Ohio farm where she grew up.

One day, after reading an article in the school newspaper about a graduate student who had just returned from Antarctica, Terrell decided that that was where she wanted to go.

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Looking Back At The 100 Best Innovations Of 2009

From Popular Science:

If you're like me, the holiday break is all about consuming everyone's year-end recaps--and of course, looking ahead to the year to come. We're taking a short break here on PopSci.com, but we're not going to leave you hanging with nothing--here we've compiled both our year-end Best of What's New list and our look ahead to 2010 in science, all in one place for your holiday enjoyment.

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Trading Shares In Milliseconds

A monitor at Tradeworx’s offices keeps track of the net trading operations during the day. It generally ticks up. Credit: Steve Moors

From Technology Review:

Today's stock market has become a world of automated transactions executed at lightning speed. This high-frequency trading could make the financial system more efficient, but it could also turn small mistakes into catastrophes.

If Manoj Narang is about to bring down the markets, he's certainly relaxed about it. Narang, who wears a goatee and wire-frame glasses, is casually dressed in a brown shirt and dark gray sweatshirt. Sitting on a swivel chair with one leg tucked under the other, he seems positively composed, especially for a man who has just bought and sold 15 million shares with a total value of $600 million. For Narang, however, such volume represents just the start of a normal day. Though it's about noon on a Friday morning, he has barely begun.

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Ouch! We Really CAN Feel The Physical Pain Of Others

In a recent study, a third of subjects claimed to feel real pain in the same
part of the body as the victim they were watching

From The Daily Mail:

For most of us the expression 'feeling someone else's pain' is simply a way of saying we sympathise with their sadness or discomfort.

But there are some who don't just have an emotional reaction to another's agony - they feel genuine physical pain as well, researchers have found.

The finding could explain why some people are more sympathetic to other people's misery.

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New Advances In Airport Screening Technology Will Deter Future Terrorist Attacks

T-rays can offer a safer, more effective alternative to current airport screeners
that employ X-rays. Getty Images

New Airport Screeners Could Save Time, Energy -- Discovery News

Holiday travelers: Sick of waiting in long airport security lines? T-rays are here to help.

Using several new advances in T-rays, or terahertz radiation, airport scanners could soon determine if a vial of white powder in a suitcase is common sugar or illegal drugs.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Rice University, in Europe and elsewhere have independently undertaken research to make it dramatically easier and cheaper to produce, amplify and direct T-rays.

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Glitter-Sized Solar Photovoltaics Could Revolutionize the Way Solar Energy Is Collected and Used

Representative thin crystalline-silicon photovoltaic cells -- these are from 14 to 20 micrometers thick and 0.25 to 1 millimeter across. (Credit: Image by Murat Okandan)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Dec. 23, 2009) — Sandia National Laboratories scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that could revolutionize the way solar energy is collected and used.

The tiny cells could turn a person into a walking solar battery charger if they were fastened to flexible substrates molded around unusual shapes, such as clothing.

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9 Things We Learned About Us In 2009

From Live Science:

For a species that has been studying itself for thousands of years, you might think humans would have learned everything there is to know about, well, us. But science never ceases to reveal more about the complex human body, mind and culture. Here are 9 of the most fascinating things we learned about ourselves in 2009:

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Why It's Better To Pretend You Don't Know Anything About Computers.

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The Innovative 787 Carries Boeing, And Aviation, Ahead

From Autopia:

Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner looks like any other airliner, so it might be hard for anyone but an airplane geek to get so excited about its inaugural flight. But the energy-efficient airliner is a bold step forward for Boeing, and for aviation.

As much as the 787 Dreamliner looks like the jet that carried you on that cramped, uncomfortable flight last month, almost everything about it is new. From the extensive use of composite materials and advanced aerodynamics to its fuel-efficient Rolls Royce engines and all-electric systems, Boeing is betting the 787 will be the plane to usher in a cleaner, greener future for the airline business.

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Surfing A Wave Of Californian Sunshine As America Looks For Renewable Future

The eSolar plant in the Mojave Desert generates enough electricity to power 4,000 homes

From Times Online:

On a dry, scrubby plain on the edge of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, 24,000 mirrors track the Sun’s progress across a clear, blue sky. The neat ranks of heliostats and the computer algorithm that moves them make the Sierra SunTower plant a focal point for a novel type of power generation and a new wave of energy companies looking to turn the search for renewables into successful businesses.

Solar tower technology uses mirrors to reflect sunlight on to a thermal receiver atop a tower. The reflected sunlight boils water inside the receiver to create superheated steam at 440C (824F), which drives a turbine and generates electricity.

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Congressional UAV Caucus Courts Robot Voters

Go Long via Buck McKeon's Flickr

From Popular Science:

The US Congress has well over 100 caucuses, or groups of common interests. They're like the clubs in a high school that play chess or work on the year book, except they usually focus on a constituency like fiscal conservatives or Americans of Asian descent. Well, thanks to California Representative Howard "Buck" McKeon, Congress has a new caucus focused entirely on unmanned aerial vehicles.

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The Year In Biomedicine

From Technology Review:

Advances in antiaging drugs, acoustic brain surgery, flu vaccines--and the secret to IQ.

We may look back on 2009 as the year human genome sequencing finally became routine enough to generate useful medical information ("A Turning Point for Personal Genomes"). The number of sequenced and published genomes shot up from two or three to approximately nine, with another 40 or so genomes sequenced but not yet published. In a few cases, scientists have already found the genetic cause of a disorder by sequencing an affected person's genome.

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Revenge Of The Chilli: Why Pepper Seeds Are Designed To Burn Your Mouth

Professor Sue Hartley (right) supports volunteer Adam after he eats a Naga chilli

From The Daily Telegraph:

Ever wondered why chilli peppers are so mind-blowingly hot? It's all down to their ultra-effective defense system developed in the ongoing war between plants and animals.

When humans bite down on chillis they crush the seeds the plants want to spread with their molar teeth. The peppers extract their revenge by releasing a mouth-burning mix of chemicals called capsinoids.

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BlackBerry Struggles With Second Outage In Less Than A Week

BlackBerry Users See The Fail Whale Twice In A Week -- Gadget Lab

The cult of the BlackBerry phone is based on the device’s ability to can bring e-mails to users faster than they can click through them.

But that could become history. BlackBerry users faced a service outage on Tuesday evening–the second time in less than a week–that made e-mail, text messages and web services such as Twitter and Facebook inaccessible.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion restored the service Wednesday morning and blamed it on a glitch in its instant messaging program called the BlackBerry messenger.

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Can We Find A Living Planet By 2020?

From Discovery News:

There was a lot of excitement last week about the discovery of a “waterworld” planet called GJ 1214b, as reported on Discovery News by my colleague Ian O’Neill.

This world belongs to an emerging class of planets dubbed “super-Earths.” It is 6.5 times Earth’s mass and nearly three times our diameter. Its mass, diameter and density suggest the planet is largely a ball of water with and icy/rocky core.

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Review Of The Year 2009: Discoveries

Skeleton key: the 47 million-year-old remains of 'Ida' are the most complete fossil of a primate ever found. The young female specimen was found in Germany. AFP/GETTY IMAGES

From The Independent:

We saw Darwin in a whole new light.

Climate change, stem cells and evolution were the three big science themes of 2009, which happened to be the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his seminal book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. It was the year when Darwin's remarkable insight into the evolution of life on earth was celebrated around the world.

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Brown Dwarf Pair Mystifies Astronomers

Artist's rendition of a brown dwarf and its moon orbiting a triple star system. (Credit: NASA)

From Daily Space:

Science Daily (Dec. 23, 2009) — Two brown dwarf-sized objects orbiting a giant old star show that planets may assemble around stars more quickly and efficiently than anyone thought possible, according to an international team of astronomers.

"We have found two brown dwarf-sized masses around an ordinary star, which is very rare," said Alex Wolszczan, Evan Pugh professor of astronomy and astrophysics, Penn State and lead scientist on the project.

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Santa Claus: The Real Man Behind The Myth

It wasn't until 1809 that Santa Clause got fat, and by the late 1800s he was wearing the full red suit with the fur trim and leather boots. Image credit: stockxpert

From Live Science:

Like America itself, the jolly figure we call Santa Claus is a melting pot of cultures, blending elements of folklore with the fantastical.

Santa Claus the man is actually loosely rooted in fact, though he hasn't always looked the way he does today, having evolved from a gift-giving Catholic saint who lived during the third century.

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Report: FBI Investigating Citibank Cyberattack

From CNET:

Citigroup denies it, but its Citibank unit was reportedly robbed of tens of millions of dollars, the victim of a cyberattack by members of a Russian criminal gang, says Tuesday's Wall Steet Journal (subscription required).

The attack was discovered this past summer, says the Journal, but investigators for the FBI and National Security Agency believe it could have happened months or a year prior. The two agencies have reportedly shared information with the Department of Homeland Security and Citigroup to defend against the attack. The investigation is supposedly ongoing, with no word on whether or not any of the stolen money has been found.

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Robotic Knee Helps Perfectly Healthy Runners Run Even Better

The Cyborg Leg It helps perfectly healthy runners run 30 percent more efficiently.
Tsukuba University

From Popular Science:

Attention cyborg wonks and lazy people: Japanese scientists at Tsukuba University have created a motorized knee that you can attach to your leg to increase your muscle power and running speed. The 11-pound kit's weight is shared by an exoskeleton-like attachment for your leg and a power source that's carried in a small backpack. But here's the best part: the device is not designed with any kind of rehabilitation or handicap-assisting function in mind; it's simply to make it easier for regular folks to run faster!

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