Turning Planetary Theory Upside Down: Nine New Exoplanets Found, Some With Retrograde Orbits

Exoplanets, discovered by WASP together with ESO telescopes, that unexpectedly have been found to have retrograde orbits are shown here. In all cases the star is shown to scale, with its rotation axis pointing up and with realistic colours. The exoplanets are shown during the transit of their parent star, just before mid-transit. The last object at the lower right is for comparison and has a “normal” orbital direction. The size of each image is three solar diameters. (Credit: ESO/A. C. Cameron)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 13, 2010) — The discovery of nine new transiting exoplanets has been announced at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting. When these new results were combined with earlier observations of transiting exoplanets astronomers were surprised to find that six out of a larger sample of 27 were found to be orbiting in the opposite direction to the rotation of their host star -- the exact reverse of what is seen in our own solar system.

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Alzheimer's Self Test Works Surprisingly Well

From Live Science:

A newly developed handwritten test designed to assess cognitive abilities in older adults could one day serve as a tool to help detect Alzheimer's disease in its early stages, new research suggests.

While previous pen-and-paper tests have been developed to help identify memory problems, most of them require a doctor to administer it. The new test, on the other hand, is self-administered.

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2010 Forecast As Busy Year For Hurricanes

From USA Today:

The Atlantic basin is facing a busier-than-usual hurricane season, in part because of record warm water in the ocean, according to the latest hurricane forecast.

Colorado State University's forecast, released Wednesday, calls for 15 named tropical storms this year in the Atlantic basin, which includes the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico. The team says eight will become hurricanes, with sustained winds reaching 74 mph. Four are expected to be major hurricanes — Categories 3, 4 or 5 — with maximum wind speeds of 111 mph or greater.

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Instead Of "Arms Control", We Have "Cyber Controls"

Photo: Cyber warrior: Vladislav Sherstuyuk, a retired four-star Russian general who leads the Institute of Information Security Issues at Moscow State University, announced a new cyber security research collaboration on Monday. Credit: Veni Markovski

Exposing Hackers As A Deterrent -- Technology Review

Two researchers propose a novel form of "arms control" at a conference in Germany.

Cyber attacks can come from governments, terrorists, thieves, or bored high school students. This makes the cyber security equivalent of "arms control" difficult to achieve. But a pair of researchers yesterday proposed methods of deterrence that they believe could work in cyberspace.

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GM Viruses Offer Hope Of Future Where Energy Is Unlimited

Photosynthesis is probably the most critical chemical process on earth. It mostly takes place in tiny structures called chloroplasts found inside the cells of a plant's leaves. Alamy

From The Independent:

Breakthrough as US researchers replicate photosynthesis in laboratory.

Scientists have made a fundamental breakthrough in their attempts to replicate photosynthesis – the ability of plants to harvest the power of sunlight – in the hope of making unlimited amounts of "green" energy from water and sunlight alone.

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Study: Spanking Kids Leads To More Aggressive Behavior

A mother spanks her daughter. Peter Dazeley / Photographer's Choice / Getty Images

From Time Magazine:

Disciplining young children is one of the key jobs of any parent — most people would have no trouble agreeing with that. But whether or not that discipline should include spanking or other forms of corporal punishment is a far trickier issue.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) does not endorse spanking for any reason, citing its lack of long-term effectiveness as a behavior-changing tactic. Instead the AAP supports strategies such as time-outs when children misbehave, which focus on getting kids to reflect on their behavior and the consequences of their actions. Still, as many parents can attest, few responses bring about the immediate interruption of a full-blown tantrum like a swift whack to the bottom.

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Take From ATM Malware Caper Exceeded $200,000

From Threat Level:

A Bank of America worker who installed malicious software on his employer’s ATMs was able to siphon at least $200,000 from the hacked machines before he was caught, according to a plea agreement he entered with prosecutors last week.

Rodney Reed Caverly, 37, was a member of the bank’s IT staff when he installed the malware, which instructed the machines to dispense free cash without creating a record of the transaction. The Charlotte, North Carolina, man made fraudulent withdrawals over a seven-month period ending in October 2009, according to prosecutors, who’ve charged him with one count of computer fraud.

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Russian President Calls Station, Suggests 'Space Summit'

The International Space Station's six-member crew participates in a Cosmonautics Day call from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev early Monday. Back row, left to right: Timothy Creamer, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Soichi Noguchi. Front row, left to right: Alexander Skvortsov, commander Oleg Kotov and Mikhail Kornienko. (Credit: NASA TV)

From CNET:

JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston--Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called the International Space Station Monday to mark the 49th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's launch on the first manned space flight, suggesting an international space summit to discuss future cooperative ventures on the high frontier.

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Computer-Enhanced Vision Adds A 'Sixth Sense'

In the future you could be reminded about your experiences with people and places just by looking at them. Credit: iStockphot

From Cosmos:

MEGEVE, FRANCE: Picture this: as your eyes alight for the first time on a skyscraper in a foreign cityscape, a disembodied voice whispers in your ear the phone number of a posh bar on the top floor.

Or this: You have been spotted on the street by an old friend whose name suddenly eludes you. But even before there is time to shake hands, a glance at your smartphone reveals her identity and the date of your last encounter.

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Rivers Heating Up With Warming

Image: Rivers that flow near U.S. cities, as the Delaware River, shown here, are warming at the fastest rate. Getty Images

From Discovery News:

Twenty major U.S. streams and rivers have warmed significantly over the last few decades, according to new research.

Along with warmer air and warmer oceans, rivers also seem to be heating up with global warming. Across the United States, a new study found, water temperatures in some rivers have risen by more than 3 degrees Celsius in the last few decades.

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Hawaiian Submarine Canyons Are Hotspots Of Biodiversity And Biomass For Seafloor Animal Communities

Large gorgonian observed at 650 m off the North Coast of Moloka i, dubbed "Cousin It." (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Hawaii at Manoa)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2010) — Underwater canyons have long been considered important habitats for marine life, but until recently, only canyons on continental margins had been intensively studied. Researchers from Hawaii Pacific University (HPU) and the Universtiy of Hawaii at Manoa (UHM) have now conducted the first extensive study of canyons in the oceanic Hawaiian Archipelago and found that these submarine canyons support especially abundant and unique communities of megafauna (large animals such as fish, shrimp, crabs, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins) including 41 species not observed in other habitats in the Hawaiian Islands.

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Town From Before Invention Of Wheel Revealed

The Tell Zeidan site is about 48 feet high at its tallest point and covers about 30 acres. It sits in an area of irrigated fields at the junction of the Euphrates and Balikh Rivers in what is now northern Syria. Credit: Gil Stein, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.

From Live Science:

A prehistoric town that had remained untouched beneath the ground near Syria for 6,000 years is now revealing clues about the first cities in the Middle East prior to the invention of the wheel.

The town, called Tell Zeidan, dates from between 6000 B.C. and 4000 B.C., and immediately preceded the world's first urban civilizations in the ancient Middle East. It is one of the largest sites of the Ubaid culture in northern Mesopotamia.

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Gorillas Losing Battle Against Loggers And Hunters In Central Africa

From Times Online:

Gorillas in Central Africa are in danger from illegal logging, mining and from hunters killing great apes for meat, says a new report from the United Nations and Interpol.

In 2002 it was estimated that only 10 per cent of gorillas would remain by 2030.

“We fear now that the gorillas may become extinct from most parts of their range in perhaps 15 years,” said Christian Nellemann, of the UN Environmental Programme.

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New Species 'Live Without Oxygen'

One of the species has been named Spinoloricus Cinzia, after Dr Danovaro's wife

From The Telegraph:

Three species of creature, which are only a millimetre long and resemble jellyfish encased in shells, were found 2.2 miles (3.5km) underwater on the ocean floor, 124 miles (200km) off the coast of Crete, in an area with almost no oxygen.

The animals, named Loriciferans due to their protective layer, or lorica, were discovered by a team led by Roberto Danovaro from Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy.

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How Carbon Dioxide In The Blood Could Be Responsible For Near-Death Experiences

Towards the light: People who have out-of-body experiences on the operating table may have high levels of carbon dioxide in their blood

From The Daily Mail:

Some experience an out-of-body floating sensation, others an intense feeling of joy and peace.

Now scientists believe they have explained what causes the near death experiences reported by thousands of people on the operating table.

A study of heart attack victims has found a link between out of body experiences and high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood.

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Wonder Lust: Trinity Test Site

Making the pilgrimage to ground zero (Image: Joe Raedle/Getty)

From New Scientist:

AT 15 seconds to 5.30 am on 16 July 1945, the world's first nuclear explosion turned 4 hectares of sand into glass and signalled the start of the atomic age. It happened at the Trinity site in the Jornada del Muerto desert of southern New Mexico.

It's hard to imagine a more isolated, desolate spot. Yet the site, part of the White Sands missile range, is open two days each year to pilgrims to this "ground zero" of the nuclear arms race. Aside from a bus that runs between the blast site and a historic ranch house where the bomb's plutonium core was assembled, visitors have to fend for themselves.

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Robo-Suit Will Help Aging Japanese Farmers Pick Crops ith EaseW

Robotic Suit Aids Farmers A postgraduate student at the Tokyo Agriculture and Technology University models a motorized exoskeleton developed to help aging farmers endure the strain of hard labor. AFP

From Popular Science:

Harvesting the bounty of the earth is harder than it looks, especially you're over 65 years old -- as two-thirds of Japan's farmers are. For those whose joints ache more with every radish pulled out of the ground, Shigeki Toyama, a professor at Tokyo Agriculture and Technology (TAT) University, has developed a motorized exoskeleton designed to boost the wearer's strength by 62 percent.

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Hewlett Packard Outlines Computer Memory Of The Future

Image: 17 memristors captured by an atomic force microscope

From The BBC:

The fundamental building blocks of all computing devices could be about to undergo a dramatic change that would allow faster, more efficient machines.

Researchers at computer firm Hewlett Packard (HP) have shown off working devices built using memristors - often described as electronics' missing link.

These tiny devices were proposed 40 years ago but only fabricated in 2008.

HP says it has now shown that they can be used to crunch data, meaning they could be used to build advanced chips.

That means they could begin to replace transistors - the tiny switches used to build today's chips.

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Did A Comet Trigger A Mini Ice Age?

A sudden plunge of global temperatures 12,900 years ago may have been caused by a comet impact, a British researcher argues. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

From Cosmos/AFP:

PARIS: A sudden plunge of global temperatures at the dawn of human civilisation may have been caused by a comet impact, a British researcher argues.

Known as 'the Younger Dryas', it has been also called the Big Freeze and the Last Blast of the Ice Age - but for researchers trying to understand the Earth's ancient climate, it's one of the big mysteries of the field.

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Space Skydiver Suit Revealed

From Discovery News:

Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner wants to attempt a record-breaking free fall from 120,000 feet above the Earth. It's not the kind of jump a person can do with a conventional sky-diving suit and helmet. After all, Baumgartner will break the speed of sound during his fall. He will need life-support.

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