The Great Tradition Of Bungling Boffins

Galileo wasn't immune to the odd bad idea himself. Simon Callow in the television production of Galileo's Daughter Photo: CHANNEL 4

From The Telegraph:

As recent events have shown, all scientists can make mistakes. Michael Brooks recounts their most heroic failures across the ages.

It is hardly surprising that public confidence in science has taken a dip lately, what with all the turmoil surrounding climate change research, the failure of the peer review process to block Andrew Wakefield's paper on MMR, and the near-comical troubles at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.

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Year Of The Laser

From Technology Review:

The laser, a device used in everything from astrophysics to biology, was invented 50 years ago.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the laser, a device used in applications from performing precise surgical procedures to measuring gravitational waves. In 1917, Albert Einstein proposed that a photon hitting an atom in a high energy state would cause the atom to release a second photon identical in frequency and direction to the first. In the 1950s, scientists searched for a way to achieve this stimulated emission and amplify it so that a group of excited atoms would release photons in a chain reaction. In 1959, American physicist Gordon Gould publicly used the term “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation” for the first time. A year later, scientists demonstrated the first working optical laser.

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Big Bang Collider Restarts At Cern In Bid To Discover Origins Of The Universe

Technicians install electric cables at the heart of the ATLAS detector, part of the Large Hadron Collider, which was restarted last night

From The Daily Mail:

Scientists have restarted the world largest atom smasher over-night, in a fresh bid to uncover the secrets of the universe.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, sent low energy beams of protons in both directions around the 17-mile particle accelerator under the Swiss-French border at Geneva.

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Why The Chile quake Tsunami Was Smaller Than Feared

Focused spread (Image: NOAA)

From New Scientist:

The earthquake in Chile on Saturday was one of the biggest the world has felt in the past century – so why was the tsunami that spread across the Pacific smaller than originally feared?

The magnitude-8.8 earthquake was devastating, claiming at least 700 lives. Large tsunami waves were reported along parts of Chile's coastline: reports suggest the town of Constitución was worst affected by the wave.

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Nose Scanning Techniques Could Sniff Out Criminals

Faces were analysed and mapped with a computer program

From The BBC:

We already have iris and fingerprint scanning but noses could be an even better method of identification, says a study from the University of Bath, UK.

The researchers scanned noses in 3D and characterised them by tip, ridge profile and the nasion, or area between the eyes.

They found 6 main nose types: Roman, Greek, Nubian, hawk, snub and turn-up.

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Chile Quake Among Most Powerful Ever

From Discovery News:

The so-called megathrust quake that rocked the western coast of South America is the most powerful of its kind.

THE GIST:

* The 8.8-magnitude earthquake is similar to the 2004 Indian Ocean temblor that triggered devastating tsunamis.
* Called megathrusts, these quakes occur when one tectonic plate dives beneath another.
* The Chile tremor unleashed about 50 gigatons of energy.

The huge earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile belongs to an "elite class" of mega earthquakes, experts said, and is similar to the 2004 Indian Ocean temblor that triggered deadly tsunami waves.

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A Bird's Eye View Of The Chile Earthquake's Energy Distribution

NOAA's Distributed Energy Map of the Chile Earthquake NOAA

From Popular Science:

It’s easy to think of tsunamis as phenomenon that mimic the behavior of ripples on the surface of water; you toss a stone into a pond and the resulting energy from the splash moves out away from the epicenter in a series of even, concentric circles. But this NOAA energy distribution map from the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile over the weekend tells a different story.

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New 'Alien Invader' Star Clusters Found in Milky Way

As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way -- many more than previously thought -- are invaders from other galaxies, according to a new study. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 26, 2010) — As many as one quarter of the star clusters in our Milky Way -- many more than previously thought -- are invaders from other galaxies, according to a new study. The report also suggests there may be as many as six dwarf galaxies yet to be discovered within the Milky Way rather than the two that were previously confirmed.

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Top 10 Spooky Sleep Disorders

From Live Science:

Sleep is supposed to be a time of peace and relaxation. Most of us drift from our waking lives into predictable cycles of deep, non-REM sleep, followed by dream-filled rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. But when the boundaries of these three phases of arousal get fuzzy, sleep can be downright scary. In fact, some sleep disorders seem more at home in horror films than in your bedroom.

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British Library To Offer Free Ebook Downloads

Jane Austen: Originals cost £250

From Times Online:

MORE than 65,000 19th-century works of fiction from the British Library’s collection are to be made available for free downloads by the public from this spring.

Owners of the Amazon Kindle, an ebook reader device, will be able to view well known works by writers such as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, as well as works by thousands of less famous authors.

The library’s ebook publishing project, funded by Microsoft, the computer giant, is the latest move in the mounting online battle over the future of books.

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Microsoft Urges Antitrust Complaints About Google

Image from Onecomics

From Times Online:

Microsoft has encouraged other companies to complain about Google to antitrust regulators in its most outspoken attack on its rival.

The software group, which for years has been the prime target of competition regulators in the US and Europe over the way it handled its near-monopoly of computer operating systems, wants to turn the spotlight on to Google's position as the world's biggest internet search and advertising company.

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Colossal Head Statue Of King Tut's Grandfather Dug Out In Luxor

The colossal head, after its excavation.
Courtesy: Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA)

From Discovery News:

A colossal head statue of King Tut's grandfather has been dug out in Luxor, Farouk Hosni, Egypt's Culture Minister, said Sunday.

Smoothly polished and perfectly preserved, the 2.5-meter (8-foot) head belonged to Amenhotep III, the pharaoh who was King Tutankhamun's grandfather, according to DNA tests revealed last week.

The ninth ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Amenhotep III (1390-1352 B.C.), reigned for 38 year during a time when Egypt was at the height of prosperity and cultural development.

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Suborbital Safety: Will Commercial Spaceflight Ramp Up the Risk?

From Popular Mechanics:

At the first-ever Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference, high-level officials from NASA and the FAA addressed the risks that new private and commercial suborbital vehicles will carry when transporting NASA-sponsored payloads and personnel.

Ever since the loss of the space shuttle Challenger, almost a quarter of a century ago, the watchword above all others at NASA has been "safety." Unfortunately, watchwords don't necessarily create actual safety, as we learned a little over seven years ago, with the loss of her sister ship Columbia.

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Video: A Silent Rotor Blade Paves The Way For Super-Stealth Choppers

From Popular Science:

For all the government conspiracy militia nuts out there, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that there is no such thing as silent, stealth black helicopters. The bad news is that, thanks to Eurocopter's noise-canceling Blue Edge rotor blades, there soon will be.

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Stonehenge "Hedge" Found, Shielded Secret Rituals?

Stonehenge (seen in an aerial view taken in the late 1990s) may have been protected by a green barrier, archaeologists say. Photograph by Jason Hawkes, Corbis

From The National Geographic:

Stonehenge may have been surrounded by a "Stonehedge" that blocked onlookers from seeing secret rituals, according to a new study.

Evidence for two encircling hedges—possibly thorn bushes—planted some 3,600 years ago was uncovered during a survey of the site by English Heritage, the government agency responsible for maintaining the monument in southern England.

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By Tracking Water Molecules, Physicists Hope To Unlock Secrets Of Life

Supercool. As individual water molecules fluctuate, breaking and forming bonds with their nearest neighbors, the result is slightly imperfect tetrahedral structures that are constantly in flux. Research suggests that these fluctuations give rise to some of water's most unusual and life-sustaining features. (Credit: Image courtesy of Rockefeller University)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 1, 2010) — The key to life as we know it is water, a tiny molecule with some highly unusual properties, such as the ability to retain large amounts of heat and to lose, instead of gain, density as it solidifies. It behaves so differently from other liquids, in fact, that by some measures it shouldn't even exist. Now scientists have made a batch of new discoveries about the ubiquitous liquid, suggesting that an individual water molecule's interactions with its neighbors could someday be manipulated to solve some of the world's thorniest problems -- from agriculture to cancer.

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How Bad Is Second-Hand Smoke?

From Live Science:

This Week’s Question: I live with my 40-year-old son and he smokes like the proverbial chimney around the house. I’m afraid of what it’s doing to his health. What can I do to get him to quit?

Tell him he may be killing you with his secondhand smoke.

Secondhand smoke—also called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)—is made up of the “sidestream” smoke from the end of a cigarette, pipe, or cigar, and the “mainstream” smoke that is exhaled.

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Clean Tech: A New Way To Hasten Energy Solutions

Solar panels cover the rooftop of the STAPLES Center sports complex in Los Angeles.
David McNew / Getty Images

From Time Magazine:

If we're going to find a way to fix our long-term energy woes — whether it's through biofuels made from algae or through the rise of miniature nuclear-power plants, — the solution is likely to come from northern California. Yes, in Silicon Valley, the same entrepreneurs who brought us the Internet — and, O.K., Pets.com — are exploring new ways to make and use energy. And we'll need them, as much for our economy's well-being as for our planet's.

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British Library Launches UK Internet Archive

From Times Online:

The UK's national library has created a fascinating snapshot of the way Britons have been using the web since 2004.

So, the internet of today's not big enough for you?

Then have a look at the 6,000 or so vintage sites that have been newly collected by the British Library for the UK Web Archive, which launched today.

The Library, which collects every periodical and book published in English, decided to extend its reach to cover the internet in 2004, when it was clear that the web's evolution would inevitably mean that some sites would disappear.

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Giant Antarctic Iceberg Could Affect Global Ocean Circulation

Satellite image showing 97km (60 mile) long iceberg, right, about to crash into the Mertz glacier tongue, left, in the Australian Antarctic Territory. The collision created a new 78km-long iceberg. Photograph: AP

From The Guardian:

Ice broken off from Mertz glacier is size of Luxembourg and may decrease oxygen supply for marine life in the area.

An iceberg the size of Luxembourg that contains enough fresh water to supply a third of the world's population for a year has broken off in the Antarctic continent, with possible implications for global ocean circulation, scientists said today.

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