How The Human Brain Got Bigger By Accident And Not Through Evolution

Colin Blakemore believes the human brain became bigger through genetic accident and not evolution. Photograph: David Hartley / Rex Features

From The Guardian:

Oxford neurobiologist Colin Blakemore tells Robin McKie why he thinks a mutation in the human brain 200,000 years ago suddenly made us a super-intelligent species.

According to Woody Allen, it is his second favourite organ and it absorbs more than 25% of the energy that our bodies generate. But why? For what purposes did the human brain evolve and why does it take so much of our physiological resources?

Read more ....

3DTVs Too Expensive For Mass Market

Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana in Avatar, or Dances with Wolves in Space 3D, to give it its working title Photo: REUTERS

From The Telegraph:

A survey suggests that 53 per cent of consumers won’t pay more than £499 for 3DTVs, which currently retail at around £2,000.

Three dimensional television might be the latest product to be receiving all the hype, but a new survey suggests that just 1.4 per cent of consumers are willing to pay the £2,000 price tags that new sets typically carry.

In a survey for discount site VoucherCodes.co.uk, 28.6 per cent of those asked said they would like to buy a 3DTV but that current prices were far too high. More than half – 53 per cent – said that they would only be willing to pay up to £499.

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The Father Of Civilisation: Alexander The Great

Alexander the Great: The Greek leader made Alexandria a place of knowledge, discovery and sexual intrigues

From The Daily Mail:

There is not, and has never been, another city to match it. It was a glittering metropolis, home to the most sexually charismatic queen of all time, founded by a man whose megalomaniac ambitions knew no bounds.

It was a buzzing hub that boasted one of the seven wonders of the world, where intellectual geniuses from both East and West met to tussle and debate in a library containing all the knowledge on the planet.

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Physicists Detect Rare Geo-Neutrino Particles, Peek Into Earth's Core

Inside the scintillator at Borexino. (Credit: Borexino Collaboration)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 29, 2010) — Using a delicate instrument located under a mountain in central Italy, two University of Massachusetts Amherst physicists are measuring some of the faintest and rarest particles ever detected, geo-neutrinos, with the greatest precision yet achieved. The data reveal, for the first time, a well defined signal, above background noise, of the extremely rare geo-neutrino particle from deep within Earth.

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Toyota Recall Might Be Caused by Cosmic Rays

From Live Science:

It may not lessen Toyota's woes to hear that the problems the company has been having with faulty gas pedals could be blamed on cosmic rays from space. Sound unbelievable? The concept is actually a lot more plausible than you might think.

Toyota's sticky gas pedals caused sudden and unintended acceleration in several of the automaker's top-selling Toyota and Lexus-brand cars, which led to a massive recall of more than 9 million vehicles worldwide, beginning in November.

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'Infections Found': Inside The Great Scareware Scam

Fake virus scans often look just like the real thing.

From New Scientist:

ONE day in March 2008, Kent Woerner got a disturbing phone call from a teacher at an elementary school in Beloit, Kansas. An 11-year-old student had triggered a security scan on a computer she was using, revealing that the machine contained pornographic images. Worse still, the images had appeared on-screen as the scan took place.

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Earth's Biggest Tree Rings Tell Fiery Tales

The tree rings of 52 fallen giant sequoias, Earth's biggest trees, have revealed a 3,000-year-old history of droughts and fires. Hemera/ThinkStock

From Discovery News:

Fifty-two giant fallen giant sequoias reveal a 3,000-year-old history of fire and drought after giant chainsaws expose their rings.

Using huge chainsaws and strong backs, the largest trees in the world are finally giving up their 3,000-year record of fires and droughts. No trees, however, were harmed in the making of this fire history.

"We only used dead trees," emphasized tree ring researcher Thomas Swetnam of the University of Arizona. Swetnam led the study that was reported in a recent issue of the journal Fire Ecology. "We spent multiple years collecting the wood and hauling it back to Tucson."

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A Conversation With Microsoft's Marketing Strategist

Photo: David Webster isn't the typical 'Softie. Not only is he far from Redmond (he lives in Connecticut), but he's got more experience picking brand names than writing code. (Credit: Microsoft)

From CNET:

SAN FRANCISCO--David Webster had a pretty busy year in 2009, trying to convince the world that Windows 7 was their idea and adding the word Bing to their collective vocabulary.

That said, Microsoft's chief marketing strategist doesn't foresee much time to rest. This year, all Webster has to do is persuade consumers that Office is cool, that Mom and Dad need their own Xbox, and that a Windows Phone can be a credible alternative to the iPhone. Luckily, Microsoft is willing to spend a few bucks to do all that.

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Line2 Adds a Second Line to Your iPhone

The Line2 mobile application from Toktumi adds a second phone line to your iPhone.
(http://www.line2.com/)

From ABC News:

iPhone App Lets You Place Calls Without Using AT&T Minutes.

Line2 is a mobile app from Toktumi that's a refreshing option for iPhone users who need to maintain a separate personal and a business phone number.

It's also useful — and potentially revolutionary — for iPhone owners who want to cut down on their monthly voice minutes by allowing them to place calls over Wi-Fi as well as over 3G Voice Over IP (VOIP).

Read more ....

UK Beaches Swamped By Plastic Litter, Say Campaigners

From The BBC:

UK beaches are being ruined by an ever-accumulating tide of plastic litter, the Marine Conservation Society says.

Volunteers at 400 beaches collected 1,849 items of litter per kilometre in the weekend of the MCS's 2009 survey and 63% of it was plastic, it said.

It said the amount of rubbish was 77% higher than in 1994 - its first annual survey - and the proportion of plastic volunteers found had never been higher.

Read more ....

Secret Copyright Talks Document Leaks

Acta, the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, is designed to cover theft of copyright, from designer handbags to music online Photo: Romina Shama

From The Telegraph:

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is being negotiated in secret, but the full text has now been leaked.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the controversial global treaty that covers intellectual property from digital media to designer handbags, has been leaked in full for the first time. Secret negotiations are still going on regarding the document that, some groups hope, will make those who share copyrighted material online subject to far harsher penalties.

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Biblical Plagues Really Happened Say Scientists

From The Telegraph:

The Biblical plagues that devastated Ancient Egypt in the Old Testament were the result of global warming and a volcanic eruption, scientists have claimed.

Researchers believe they have found evidence of real natural disasters on which the ten plagues of Egypt, which led to Moses freeing the Israelites from slavery in the Book of Exodus in the Bible, were based.

But rather than explaining them as the wrathful act of a vengeful God, the scientists claim the plagues can be attributed to a chain of natural phenomena triggered by changes in the climate and environmental disasters that happened hundreds of miles away.

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Scientists Discover Moral Compass In The Brain Which Can Be Controlled By Magnets

Image: The moral compass, technically named the right temporo-parietal junction, lies just behind the right ear in the brain

From The Daily Mail:

Scientists have discovered a real-life 'moral compass' in the brain that controls how we judge other people's behaviour.

The region, which lies just behind the right ear, becomes more active when we think about other people's misdemeanours or good works.

In an extraordinary experiment, researchers were able to use powerful magnets to disrupt this area of the brain and make people temporarily less moral.

Read more ....

1 In 10 Chinese Adults Is Diabetic, Study Finds

From StlToday.com/AP:

After working overtime to catch up to life in the West, China now faces a whole new problem: the world's biggest diabetes epidemic.

One in 10 Chinese adults already have the disease and another 16 percent are on the verge of developing it, according to a new study. The finding nearly equals the U.S. rate of 11 percent and surpasses other Western nations, including Germany and Canada.

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Prolonged Climatic Stress Main Reason for Mass Extinction 65 Million Years Ago, Paleontologist Says

According to new research from a German paleontologist, long-term climate fluctuations -- not a giant meteorite impact -- were likely the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. (Credit: iStockphoto/Adrian Chesterman)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 27, 2010) — Long-term climate fluctuations were probably the main reason for the extinction of the dinosaurs and other creatures 65 million years ago. This conclusion was reached by PD Dr. Michael Prauss, paleontologist at Freie Universitaet Berlin, based on his latest research results.

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Mysterious Whale Die-Off Is Largest On Record

From Live Science:

Mass death among baby right whales has experts scrambling to figure out the puzzle behind the largest great whale die-off on record.

Observers have found 308 dead whales in the waters around Peninsula Valdes along Argentina's Patagonian Coast since 2005. Almost 90 percent of those deaths represent whale calves less than 3 months old, and the calf deaths make up almost a third of all right whale calf sightings in the last five years.

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Overeating Junk Food Similar To Drug Addiction

Over indulging your sweet tooth could decrease the reward response in your brain.
Credit: Wikimedia

From Cosmos:

PARIS: Whether their addictions are a drug such as cocaine or junk food such as cupcakes, all junkies are overstimulating the same receptor in the brain, scientists said.

The research, based on lab animals, bolsters long-standing suspicions that addiction to pleasure stems from overstimulus of a key reward mechanism in the brain, its authors say.

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Nuclear Disarmament Hinges On Missile Defence Dispute

Image from vrroom.naa.gov.au.

From New Scientist:

After almost a year of negotiation, the US and Russia have finally settled on a plan to further reduce their vast nuclear arsenals. If the new agreement is approved, the number of deployed warheads by will be cut by 30 per cent over previous targets. But an ongoing dispute over a European missile defence shield has the potential to scupper the plans.

The US and Russia hold some 95 per cent of the world's nuclear arms, including an estimated 4700 deployed nuclear warheads. The new agreement – a follow-up to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) – would cut the number to 1550 warheads per country over the course of seven years.

Read more ....

Pyramid Of Mystery Pharaoh Possibly Located

A photograph taken from the area immediately south of the Unas pyramid,
visible in the foreground. Giulio Magli

From Discovery News:

The long-lost tomb of the 4,300-year-old Egyptian pharaoh Userkare may have been located.

The missing pyramid of an obscure pharaoh that ruled Egypt some 4,300 years ago could lie at the intersection of a series of invisible lines in South Saqqara, according to new astronomical and topographical research.

Connecting the funerary complexes raised by the kings of the 6th Dynasty between 2,322 B.C. and 2,151 B.C., these lines would have governed the sacred space of the Saqqara area, in accordance with a number of criteria such as dynastic lineage, religion and astronomical alignment.

Read more ....

Rumor: 'iAd' Mobile Ad Platform Is Apple's Next Big Thing

(Credit: Gizmodo)

From CNET:

MediaPost reports that Apple's next next big thing, after iPads invade the world next weekend, will be iAd, a mobile advertising platform to be debuted April 7. Coffee dates and patent suits aside, this could be the true Apple-Google battleground.

Of course, if you've been reading the tea leaves, Apple's move into mobile advertising is anything but surprising. In January, they bought mobile advertising company Quattro for a reported $275 million, after Google snatched AdMob out from under them months before.

Read more ....

Door to Afterlife From Ancient Egyptian Tomb Found

Photo from Supreme Council of Antiquities

From ABC News:

Archaeologists unearth door to the afterlife from ancient Egyptian minister's tomb.

Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old door to the afterlife from the tomb of a high-ranking Egyptian official near Karnak temple in Luxor, the Egyptian antiquities authority said Monday.

These recessed niches found in nearly all ancient Egyptian tombs were meant to take the spirits of the dead to and from the afterworld. The nearly six-foot- tall (1.75 meters) slab of pink granite was covered with religious texts.

Read more ....

Gulf Stream 'Is Not Slowing Down'

From The BBC:

The Gulf Stream does not appear to be slowing down, say US scientists who have used satellites to monitor tell-tale changes in the height of the sea.

Confirming work by other scientists using different methodologies, they found dramatic short-term variability but no longer-term trend.

A slow-down - dramatised in the movie The Day After Tomorrow - is projected by some models of climate change.

Read more ....

Autonomous Submarinebot Heads Down on Deepest-Ever Undersea Search For Undiscovered Life

Autosub6000 via The Register

From The Popular Science:

While some scientists resort to undersea drilling to find undiscovered forms of life, a new group of researchers has decided that piloting a robotic submarine into a submerged volcano was the way to go. By exploring the deepest, hottest, undersea volcano ever probed, the researchers hope to find clues to both the beginnings of life on Earth, and the possible forms of life on other planets.

Read more ....

Pollution From Asia Circles Globe At Stratospheric Heights

Factories line the shores of the lower Yangtze River in China. Heavy pollution tied to China's rapid industrial growth has produced poor visibility and health effects. (Credit: Copyright UCAR, Photo by William Bradford)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 26, 2010) — The economic growth across much of Asia comes with a troubling side effect: pollutants from the region are being wafted up to the stratosphere during monsoon season. The new finding, in a study led by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, provides additional evidence of the global nature of air pollution and its effects far above Earth's surface.

Read more ....

Exorbitant Fees Offered to Human Egg Donors, Study Finds

Sperm is implanted into an egg in the process of artificial insemination. Credit: Dreamstime.

From Live Science:

Fertility companies are paying egg donors high fees that often exceed guidelines, especially for donors from top colleges and with certain appearances and ethnicities, a new study finds.

The upshot: Parents with infertility problems are willing to pay up to $50,000 for a human egg they hope will produce a smart, attractive child.

Read more ....

How Much Big Tech Companies Have In The Bank

From Royal Pingdom:

Have you ever wondered how much money Google, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Yahoo, Amazon and other tech giants have in the bank? What kind of assets do they have, how much spending money do they have? The vague answer is, “a lot.” But if you want to find out exactly how much, read on.

To answer these questions, we picked out 15 well-known tech companies and looked at two things:

* Total assets: The value of all assets of a company, including equipment, properties, offices, cash, etc. In short: “everything they own.”
* War chest: The part of a company’s assets that consists of either cash and equivalents, or short term investments that can be quickly converted to cash. In short: “spending money.”

Read more ....

Orbital Upkeep: International Space Station Home Improvement

From The Popular Mechanics:

During a recent NASA and Russian Flight Readiness Review (FRR), engineers described some problems afflicting the International Space Station that may, at first, seem familiar to homeowners on Earth.

Read more ....

A New Picture Of The X-47B

X-47B Northrop Grumman

Boot Process Complete, Awaiting Command -- Popular Science

Northrop Grumman has released a new photo of their carrier-based attack drone, the X-47B. It's due to make its first flight later this year as part of the Navy's J-UCAS program seeking a multi-purpose sea-based drone.

Read more ....

Hubble Confirms Cosmic Acceleration With Weak Lensing

This image shows a smoothed reconstruction of the total (mostly dark) matter distribution in the COSMOS field, created from data taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes. It was inferred from the weak gravitational lensing distortions that are imprinted onto the shapes of background galaxies. The color coding indicates the distance of the foreground mass concentrations as gathered from the weak lensing effect. Structures shown in white, cyan and green are typically closer to us than those indicated in orange and red. To improve the resolution of the map, data from galaxies both with and without redshift information were used. The new study presents the most comprehensive analysis of data from the COSMOS survey. The researchers have, for the first time ever, used Hubble and the natural "weak lenses" in space to characterise the accelerated expansion of the universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, P. Simon (University of Bonn) and T. Schrabback (Leiden Observatory)

From Reuters:

A group of astronomers [1], led by Tim Schrabback of the Leiden Observatory, conducted an intensive study of over 446 000 galaxies within the COSMOS field, the result of the largest survey ever conducted with Hubble. In making the COSMOS survey, Hubble photographed 575 slightly overlapping views of the same part of the Universe using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) onboard Hubble. It took nearly 1000 hours of observations.

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Dawn Of The Anthropocene Epoch? Earth Has Entered New Age of Geological Time, Experts Say

Scientists contend that recent human activity, including stunning population growth, sprawling megacities and increased use of fossil fuels, have changed the planet to such an extent that we are entering what they call the Anthropocene (New Man) Epoch. (Credit: iStockphoto)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Mar. 26, 2010) — Geologists from the University of Leicester are among four scientists- including a Nobel prize-winner -- who suggest that Earth has entered a new age of geological time.

The Age of Aquarius? Not quite -- It's the Anthropocene Epoch, say the scientists writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

And they add that the dawning of this new epoch may include the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth's history.

Read more ....

Saturday: Lights Off Worldwide for Earth Hour

The Golden Gate Bridge after lights out, during Earth Hour 2008 in San Fransisco, Calif. Credit: © John Storey / WWF-US

From Live Science:

Cities in 92 countries around the world prepare to shut off their lights for one hour tomorrow in observance of Earth Hour, an annual event geared at showing support for taking action on climate change issues.

During Earth Hour, people around the world are asked to turn off their lights for an hour at 8:30 p.m. local time on March 27. This year the event has topped its participation figure from last year, which was 88 countries.

Read more ....

The Secrets Of Firefly's Shepherd Book Will Finally Be Revealed

From The Escapist:

Shepherd Book, possibly the most mysterious character on Joss Whedon's ill-fated space-western Firefly is to star in in a comic book that will finally let us in on his past.

A character with a mysterious past is hardly a new idea for Joss Whedon, by Firefly's Shepherd Book was a particularly good one. Played by Ron Glass, the Shepherd - the term used for men of the cloth on the show - clearly had not been a God's servant all his life, and some pretty high-level connections with the Alliance. What made the mystery extra-potent however was that the show got cancelled, and we never got to find out what his mysterious past actually was.

Read more ....

Art Of The Steal: On The Trail Of World’s Most Ingenious Thief

Gerald Blanchard could hack any bank, swipe any jewel. There was no security system he couldn't steal. Illustration: Justin Wood

From Wired:

The plane slowed and leveled out about a mile aboveground. Up ahead, the Viennese castle glowed like a fairy tale palace. When the pilot gave the thumbs-up, Gerald Blanchard looked down, checked his parachute straps, and jumped into the darkness. He plummeted for a second, then pulled his cord, slowing to a nice descent toward the tiled roof. It was early June 1998, and the evening wind was warm. If it kept cooperating, Blanchard would touch down directly above the room that held the Koechert Diamond Pearl. He steered his parachute toward his target.

Read more ....

We're Staying In China, Says Microsoft, As Free Speech Row With Google Grows

Microsoft has rejected criticism of its compliance with China’s strict internet laws. Photograph: Claro Cortes/Reuters

From the Guardian:

Most big internet corporations, including household names such as Yahoo and MySpace, follow Microsoft's lead.

Hopes that Google's forthright stand on censorship in China would inspire other companies to follow suit appeared unfounded today, with the move instead threatening to widen the rift between some of the world's most powerful internet companies.

Read more ....

Women Should Exercise An Hour A Day To Maintain Weight, Study Says

Moderate-intensity activity was defined in the study as walking or hiking, jogging, running, bicycling, aerobic exercise or dance, use of exercise machines, yoga, tennis, squash, racquetball and swimming. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

From L.A. Times:

The recommendation is aimed at women who don't want to diet but do want to avoid gaining weight. Some experts say to take it with a grain of salt.

Gloria Hale rose at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, as usual, to swim laps before work. Active though she is, however, the 55-year-old Orange County woman was a bit stunned to learn the latest advice from researchers regarding exercise -- that women should work out 60 minutes a day, seven days a week, to maintain a normal weight over their lifetime.

"Most people are going to say, 'No way. I don't have time for that,' " said Hale, a trim 5-foot-5 and 138 pounds.

Read more ....

Biologist Wins Templeton Prize

Photo: Francisco J. Ayala

From The New York Times:

Francisco J. Ayala, a biologist and former Roman Catholic priest whose books and speeches offer reassurance that there is no essential contradiction between religious faith and belief in science, particularly the theory of evolution, has won the 2010 Templeton Prize.

The John Templeton Foundation awards the annual prize, worth about $1.5 million, to “a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.”

Read more ....

Gorillas Extinct in Ten Years in Central Africa?

Rangers observe a mountain gorilla in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's Virunga National Park. Photograph by Brent Stirton, National Geographic Stock

From National Geographic:

Rise in Chinese timber demand, ape-meat eating, and mining blamed.

Gorillas may soon go extinct across much of central Africa, a new United Nations report says. Among the threats are surges in human populations, the ape-meat trade, and logging and mining as well as the spread of the Ebola virus and other diseases, the report says.

Read more ....

Eye-Tracking Tablet And The Promise Of Text 2.0

From Epicenter:

The best thing about reading a book on a tablet (so far) is how closely it approximates reading a “real” book — which is why the Kindle’s screen is matte like paper rather than luminescent like a laptop. Some (not all) fear for the demise of real reading and writing, but it’s more likely we’re really at the leading edge of an innovation curve that could breathe new life into the written word.

Read more ....

Will Google Help Breach The Great Firewall Of China?

Getting round the censors (Image: Ng Han Guan/AP/PA)

From New Scientist:

From a technical perspective, Google's exit from China in the early hours of 22 March was a low-key affair. Google simply disconnected its self-censored search engine in Beijing, and rerouted its traffic to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong. Google says attacks on the email accounts of dissidents, which it believes came from the Chinese authorities, made it impossible for it to continue operating there.

Read more ....

World's Largest Particle Collider May Unlock Secrets of Universe

The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment at the CERN laboratory. (Credit: Courtesy of CERN)

From Science Daily:

Science Daily (Mar. 25, 2010) — The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator, could generate astonishing new insights into the Big Bang, the building blocks of the universe, the mysterious properties of dark matter and perhaps even extra dimensions in the universe.

Read more ....

Tiny Tyrannosaur Came From The Land Down Under

The fossil was uncovered in Dinosaur Cove, Australia. This map shows the location of Dinosaur Cove approximately 110 million years ago. Credit: Roger Benson, University of Cambridge.

From Live Science:

T-rex's relatives might have once roamed in the land Down Under, according to a new study. A pelvic bone uncovered in Australia marks the first evidence that tyrannosaurs could have inhabited the Southern Hemisphere.

Read more ....

GoDaddy To Stop Registering Domains In China

From CNET:

At least one company is ready to follow Google's stance on doing business in China: GoDaddy.

During a congressional hearing later today to discuss Internet freedom and China, GoDaddy executives plan to announce that they will stop registering domain names in China in response to a new government policy that requires extensive information about registrants, according to The Washington Post. Starting last December, individuals and businesses that wished to register a .cn domain name were being asked to submit a photograph of themselves as well as a serial number identifying their business license in China.

Read more ....

Cities Try Silly Antics To Grab Google's 'Golden Ticket'

From ABC News:

Forget decorum. City officials across the country are getting downright goofy for Google.

When the Mountain View Internet giant announced in February that it would choose at least one community in the U.S. to test an ultra high-speed broadband network, no one knew what kind of antics would ensue.

But over the past few weeks, hoping to lure Google and its experimental fiber optic network, everyone from mayors to ice cream makers have pulled out all the stops in what has become a heated nationwide competition.

Read more ....

Heat-Toting Ocean Currents Chugging Along

From The New York Times:

Here’s a brief update on the great heat-toting oceanic currents that at one time were thought to be at risk from human-driven warming of the climate. There’s been no slowdown at all through much of the past decade and probably none since the early 1990s, according to new work using methods developed by Joshua Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

Read more ....

Global Warming Making People More Aggressive?

A railroad worker in Australia takes a break from the heat. Photograph by William Albert Allard, National Geographic Stock

From National Geographic:

Global warming could make the world a more violent place, because higher temperatures increase human aggression and create volatile situations, a new study says.

The report combined government data about average yearly temperatures with statistics on the number of violent crimes committed between 1950 and 2008.

Read more ....

TJX Hacker Gets 20 Years In Prison

From The threat Level:

BOSTON — Convicted TJX hacker Albert Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday for leading a gang of cyberthieves who stole more than 90 million credit and debit card numbers from TJX and other retailers.

The sentence for the largest computer-crime case ever prosecuted is the lengthiest ever imposed in the United States for hacking or identity-theft. Gonzalez was also fined $25,000. Restitution, which will likely be in the tens of millions, was not decided Thursday.

Read more ....

'Super-Supernova' Challenges Astronomers

The first images of supernova SN2007if - the faint host galaxy could not be made out at the time the supernova was discovered. Credit: NBNL

From Cosmos:

SYDNEY: A star that exceeded its known upper mass limit before turning supernova could change the way scientists measure the expansion of the universe and study dark energy, scientists said.

The researchers, led by experts from Yale University, measured the mass of a supernova thought to belong to a unique subclass, type Ia, and found that it significantly exceeded the upper limit, known as the Chandrasekhar limit - which is 1.4 times the mass of our Sun.

Read more ....

Revealed: Why Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold

Freezing depends on impurities (Vilhjalmur Ingi Vilhjalmsson/Getty)

From New Scientist:

HOT water sometimes freezes faster than cold water - but why? This peculiar phenomenon has baffled scientists for generations, but now there is evidence that the effect may depend on random impurities in the water.

Fast-freezing of hot water is known as the Mpemba effect, after a Tanzanian schoolboy called Erasto Mpemba (see "How the Mpemba effect got its name"). Physicists have come up with several possible explanations, including faster evaporation reducing the volume of hot water, a layer of frost insulating the cooler water, and differing concentration of solutes. But the answer has been very hard to pin down because the effect is unreliable - cold water is just as likely to freeze faster.

Read more ....

Blocking Gene Forces Cancer Cells To Age

Image: The finding may offer a new strategy for fighting cancer (Source: iStockphoto)

From ABC News (Australia):

Instead of killing off cancer cells with toxic drugs, scientists have discovered a molecular pathway that forces them to grow old and die.

Cancer cells spread and grow because they can divide indefinitely.

But a study in mice, published today in Nature, shows that blocking a cancer-causing gene called Skp2 forces cancer cells to go through an aging process known as senescence - the same process involved in ridding the body of cells damaged by sunlight.

Read more ....

iPhone, Safari, IE 8, Firefox Hacked In CanSecWest Contest

Photo: Pedram Amini and Aaron Portnoy of TippingPoint look over Charlie Miller's shoulder as he conducts his Safari hack. (Credit: Elinor Mills/CNET)

From CNET:

VANCOUVER, B.C.--Researchers on Wednesday demonstrated that they could hack a non-jailbroken iPhone, Safari running on Snow Leopard and Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox on Windows 7 as part of the annual Pwn2Own contest at the CanSecWest security show here.

Charlie Miller, principal security analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, won $10,000 after hacking Safari on a MacBook Pro without having physical access to the machine. Miller won $5,000 last year by exploiting a hole in Safari, and in 2008 nabbed $10,000 hacking a MacBook Air, all on the same computer.

Read more ....

Honeybees Dying: Scientists Wonder Why, And Worry About Food Supply

From ABC News:

A Third of Our Food Depends on Plants Pollinated by Bees; 'We're Really Cutting It Close'.

No matter where you live -- in a brick Philadelphia row house, the sprawling suburbs of Dallas or an apartment in Seattle -- you depend, more than most of us know, on lowly honeybees raised in California or Florida.

The bees have been dying in extraordinary numbers, and scientists are trying to figure out why.

Read more ....

Ancient 'X-Woman' Discovered As Man's Early Ancestors Are Pictured Together For The First Time

From The Daily Mail:

A mysterious species of ancient human has been discovered in a cave in southern Siberia.

Nicknamed X-Woman, scientists say the human lived alongside our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago.

The discovery, which could rewrite mankind's family tree, was made after analysis of DNA from a fossilised finger bone.

Read more ....

The X-Woman’s Fingerbone

From Discover Magazine:

In a cave in Siberia, scientists have found a 40,000-year old pinky bone that could belong to an entirely new species of hominid. Or it may be yet another example of how hard it is to figure where one species stops and another begins–even when one of those species is our own. Big news, perhaps, or ambiguous news.

Read more ....

DARPA Bounces Smart Radar Off Buildings To Track Individual Urban Vehicles From The Sky

Tracking from Above It's difficult to use radar in urban environments because of all the structures that get in the way. But by bouncing highly sensitive radar off of buildings' facades, DARPA hopes to lock onto individual vehicles from UAVs and track them through urban streets even when buildings block line of sight. Zemlinki

From Popular Science:

Radar is great for tracking objects in the wide-open sky or even at sea, but when you try to take it to street level you run into some obstacles -- literally. Radar requires a good line of sight, and obstructions like buildings or terrain features can render radar useless. But now, using a handful of unmanned aircraft and technology that allows them to intelligently reflect radar off buildings, DARPA is developing a system that should be able to track individual vehicles even as they dart between skyscrapers and other structures.

Read more ....

My Comment: You can run .... but you cannot hide.

Mind Over Matter? How Your Body Does Your Thinking

Let your body do the thinking (Image: Stephen Simpson/Image Bank)

From New Scientist:

"I THINK therefore I am," said Descartes. Perhaps he should have added: "I act, therefore I think."

Our ability to think has long been considered central to what makes us human. Now research suggests that our bodies and their relationship with the environment govern even our most abstract thoughts. This includes thinking up random numbers or deciding whether to recount positive or negative experiences.

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UV Radiation, Not Vitamin D, Might Limit Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms

From Science News:

Sunshine effects on MS might be more complicated than previously thought, mouse study suggests.

Ultraviolet radiation from sunshine seems to thwart multiple sclerosis, but perhaps not the way most researchers had assumed, a new study in mice suggests.

If validated in further research, the finding could add a twist to a hypothesis that has gained credence in recent decades. The report appears online March 22 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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