Beware Of The Coming Zombie Apocalypse

Will Budget Cuts Leave Us Unprepared For Zombie Apocalypse? -- ABC News

If zombies ever start taking over the planet, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says we'd better be prepared for it.

If the undead really start roaming the earth looking for fresh brains to eat, we can't rely on our ability to shoot 'em dead the way people do in video games or in horror flicks. Instead, the agency says, we need to treat it like any other disaster.

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More News On The Upcoming Zombie Apocalypse

US officials prepare for 'zombie apocalypse' -- The Guardian
CDC prepares for Zombie Apocalypse: tips on how to survive -- Washington Post
Ready for a zombie apocalypse? CDC has advice -- CNN
CDC Advises on Zombie Apocalypse … and Other Emergencies -- Wall Street Journal
CDC Zombie Apocalypse: What we're watching now -- CBS News
Ready for a zombie invasion? Center for Disease Control has tips on popular new blog post -- New York Daily News
Zombies Upstage a Routine Public Health Bulletin -- New York Times
Preparing for a zombie apocalypse? The CDC weighs in -- L.A. Times
CDC: Here’s what to do in case of zombie apocalypse -- Chicago Sun Times
CDC helps Americans prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse -- USA Today
US offers coping tips on 'zombie apocalypse' -- AFP
CDC reveals safety plan for Zombie Apocalypse -- The Register
CDC "Zombie Apocalypse" disaster campaign crashes website -- Reuters
CDC Launches Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide: Supplementary Tech Tips -- ZDNet
CDC to America: How to Prepare for a Zombie Apocalypse -- Time

By Working As A Team, Autonomous Swarming 'Bots Can Quickly Explore and Map Structures

GT's Henrick Christensen With One of the Team's Autonomous Mapping 'Bots Georgia Tech

Working as a Team, Autonomous Swarming 'Bots Quickly Explore and Map Structures -- Popular Science

A swarm of intelligent, autonomous robots from Georgia Tech may soon be leading the charge into dangerous and uncertain situations, providing valuable mapping intel to first responders, military, or police behind them. A team of researchers there have developed a team of small, rolling robots that can autonomously communicate with one another to quickly build a detailed floor plan map of an entire structure and beam it to nearby humans.

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My Comment: I can see recon units and FOBs having this tech as standard in the next 15-20 years (if not sooner).

Planets More Numerous Than Believed

An artist's depiction illustrates a Jupiter-sized planet wandering free in interstellar space. The new findings appear to confirm the existence of many such planets. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / May 19, 2011)

Planets May Be Vastly More Numerous Than Believed -- L.A. Times

Researchers say that millions of Jupiter-sized planets are wandering in our galaxy far from any star. The findings suggest that there may be twice as many planets as stars in the Milky Way, perhaps several times as many.

The Milky Way galaxy may be filled with millions upon millions of Jupiter-sized planets that have escaped their solar systems and are wandering freely in space, researchers said Wednesday in a finding that seems certain to make astronomers rethink their ideas about planetary formation.

Scientists had previously thought that about 20% of stars had massive planets attached to them, but the new results reported in the journal Nature suggest that there are at least twice as many planets as stars, and perhaps several times as many.

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Rare Colour Photographs Of The Depression

Distributing surplus commodities in St Johns, Arizona, October 1940

In The Bleak Light Of The Depression: Rare Colour Photographs Of The Era That Defined A Generation -- Daily Mail

It was an era that defined a generation. The Great Depression marked the bitter and abrupt end to the post-World War 1 bubble that left America giddy with promise in the 1920s. Near the end of the 1930s the country was beginning to recover from the crash, but many in small towns and rural areas were still poverty-stricken. These rare photographs are some of the few documenting those iconic years in colour. The photographs and captihttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifons are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color. The images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, shed a bleak new light on a world now gone with the wind.

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My Comment: A fascinating gallery of photos from a time when America was all black and white.

Protecting Ones Home From The Floods

Citizens in Flood Zone Build Homemade Levees to Protect Their Homes -- Popular Science

All of that water pouring out of spillways and topping levees up and down the Mississippi River has to go somewhere, and many living in those areas prone to flooding have taken drastic action to keep from being inundated. In what could be called a testament to the human instinct to protect hearth and home, some in the disaster zone are holding out by taking civil engineering into their own hands, building makeshift levees to keep the rising waters at bay. Click through the gallery to see how far some homeowners have gone to protect their properties.

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Using Viagra 'Could Make You Deaf'?

The researchers are not sure how Viagra might affect hearing Photo: Alamy

Viagra 'Could Make You Deaf' -- The Telegraph

Viagra could make you deaf, doctors have warned.

Viagra and similar impotence drugs have been linked to hundreds of cases of sudden hearing loss around the world, including some in the UK.

Doctors have begun to warn that the drugs could damage users' hearing after a spate of people in the US with auditory problems.

Experts, including some from Charing Cross, Stoke Mandeville and Royal Marsden hospitals, were so concerned by the claims that they demanded an investigation from official watchdogs across three continents.

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Moment Tsunami Swamps Japan's Doomed Fukushima Nuclear Plant

(Click on image to Enlarge)
Disaster strikes: The tsunami rushes over a protective sea wall and towards tanks of heavy oil for the Unit 5 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex

Genesis Of A Disaster: Moment Tsunami Swamps Japan's Doomed Fukushima Nuclear Plant -- The Daily Mail

This is the moment the Japanese tsunami destroyed a sea wall designed to protect the Fukushima nuclear plant and surged towards reactors.

Tons of water can be seen destroying the wall and sweeping away reactor equipment, cars and other machinery in pictures released by plant owners.

The tsunami knocked out cooling systems at the plant, causing the reactors to melt down and numerous explosions as engineers tried to release a build up of radioactive hydrogen gas.

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My Comment: Another example on why we should never underestimate the power of nature.

The Marvels Of Imaging Technology On Fossils Trapped In Amber

The 49 million-year-old Huntsman spider seen using X-ray computed tomography. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Manchester)

Imaging Technology Reveals Intricate Details of 49-Million-Year-Old Spider -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2011) — Scientists have used the latest computer-imaging technology to produce stunning three-dimensional pictures of a 49 million-year-old spider trapped inside an opaque piece of fossilized amber resin.

University of Manchester researchers, working with colleagues in Germany, created the intricate images using X-ray computed tomography to study the remarkable spider, which can barely be seen under the microscope in the old and darkened amber.

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My Comment: 49 million years trapped in amber .... wow.

Japan Earthquake Was 'In The Air' Days Before

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. local time (05:46 UTC), a magnitude 8.9 earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan. The epicenter was 80 miles (130 kilometers) east of Sendai, and 231 miles (373 km) northeast of Tokyo. If initial measurements are confirmed, it will be the world’s fifth largest earthquake since 1900 and the worst in Japan's history. This image of Japan from 1999 was taken as part of SeaWiFS, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor Project. CREDIT: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, SeaWiFS Project and ORBIMAGE

Japan Earthquake Was 'In the Air' Days Before, Scientist Claims -- Live Science

The atmosphere above the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake in Japan underwent unusual changes in the days leading up to the disaster, according to preliminary data.

The research has not yet been published in an academic journal or reviewed by other scientists, but it could offer an intriguing possibility for earthquake prediction — though the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," said study researcher Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California.

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My Comment: This is very intriguing, and deserves more study.

Small Pox Fears?

'Bizarre Bits' Exhibition Took a Strange Turn When Feds Arrived -- Wall Street Journal

A 135-Year-Old Piece of Skin Launches a Smallpox Scare at a Virginia Museum.

An outbreak of smallpox was the farthest thing from Paul Levengood's mind when his staff at the Virginia Historical Society put together an exhibit of "bizarre bits" in the society's collection since its founding in 1831.

There was Confederate President Jefferson Davis's cigar, confiscated by Union troops. There was a fungus carving of Robert E. Lee on his horse Traveller and a wreath made of human hair.

Then someone mentioned a letter, handwritten and dated 1876, with what appeared to be a smallpox scab pinned inside—light brown, about the size of a pencil eraser, and crumbling.

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Update: 135-Year-Old Piece of Skin Triggers Smallpox Scare At Virginia Museum -- FOX News

My Comment: Small Pox has been one of history's worst scourges .... stories like this one should always raise our eyebrows and make us grateful that small pox epidemics are a thing of the past. As to this story .... I doubt that small pox will ever turn to plague mankind .... but it is another wake-up call on why we should always be vigilant.

China Admits Three Gorges Dam Has Problems

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province is seen in this 2009 file photo. China's landmark dam project provides benefits to the Chinese people, but has created a myriad of urgent problems from the relocation of more than a million residents to risks of geological disasters, the Chinese government said on Thursday. Reuters/File

Controversial Three Gorges Dam Has Problems, Admits China -- Christian Science Monitor

The world's largest hydroelectric project was designed to tame the flood-prone Yangtze River and to generate clean energy. But the water is becoming polluted, and regular landslides are making life near the dam dangerous.

The Chinese government made a rare admission Thursday of something that millions of people living around the Three Gorges dam know only too well: There is a dark side to the country’s proudest engineering achievement.

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My Comment: Critics have been saying the same thing for years .... I guess are now listening.

The Coming Population Explosion

Graph From The Economist

Can The World Feed 10 Billion People? -- Raj Patel, Foreign Policy

With an exploding global population -- and Africa's numbers set to triple -- the world's experts are falling over themselves arguing how to feed the masses. Why do they have it so wrong?

The world's demographers this week increased their estimates of the world's population through the coming century. We are now on track to hit 10 billion people by 2100. Today, humanity produces enough food to feed everyone but, because of the way we distribute it, there are still a billion hungry. One doesn't need to be a frothing Malthusian to worry about how we'll all get to eat tomorrow. Current predictions place most of the world's people in Asia, the highest levels of consumption in Europe and North America, and the highest population growth rates in Africa -- where the population could triple over the next 90 years.

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More News On The World's Growing Population

World population to reach 10.1 billion by 2100 -- AP
U.N.: Earth's population to hit 9 billion by 2050, 10 billion by 2100 -- CNN
Rising Sea of Humanity: UN Says Pop. Will Hit 10B by 2100—& Keep Going Up -- Discover
World population to pass 7 billion on Oct. 31-UN -- Reuters
Global population to reach 7 billion this year, UN report says -- Deutsche Welle
U.N.: World population to pass 7 billion on October 31 -- Baltimore Sun/Reuters
World population expected to hit 7 billion in October 2011 -- Xinhuanet
Coming to a Planet Near You: 3 Billion More Mouths to Feed -- New York Times
New Population Projections Show Us Growing Unsustainably, But We Can Put on the Brakes -- Time
UN projects world population of 6.2 to 15.8 billion in 2100 with 10.1 billion midrange -- Next Big Future
Counting to Ten Billion -- Huffington Post
World population projections. Growing pains -- The Economist

The Role Of Social Media In Today's Revolutions

A student-run Facebook page shows an image depicting the Tunisian national flag smeared in red on a computer screen, 11 Jan 2011. Photo Reuters.

Social Media - a New Battleground for Activists and Governments Alike -- Voice of America

Protesters in Libya are refusing to give up their calls for an end to Moammar Gadhafi’s 42-year rule, fighting deadly street battles against forces aligned with the Libyan leader. Their struggle is the latest in a series of anti-government protests that have swept through North Africa and the Middle East in what some have come to call the “Facebook Revolution.”

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More News And Commentary On The Role Of Social Media In Today's Revolutions

Russia, China Get Tough with Social Media Companies to Avoid Unrest -- BNet
‘Tweets From Tahrir’ Captures Egypt’s Social Media-Led Revolution in a Book -- Forbes
Technology's Role in Government Change -- Tim Bajarin, PC Mag
Social media: Twitter uprisings -- M.Khalid Rahman, DAWN
Andy Carvin: The Middle East revolutions one tweet at a time -- Melissa Bell, Washington Post
Myths of Facebook, Twitter ‘revolutions’ -- Amando Doronila, Inquirer.net
The dangers of social media revolt: Dissidents using Facebook and Twitter have been traced and arrested by authoritarian governments. -- Jillian C. York, Al Jazeera
Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go -- Evgeny Morozov, The Guardian

Australia's Honeybees To Be Devastated By The Asian Bee

Asian honeybees (right) might be much smaller than European honeybees (left), but they are much quicker, and can often get past the European bees' guards to rob their hoards. Credit: Paul Zbrowski/Queensland Government

Asian Bee Will Devastate Australia's Honeybees -- Cosmos

SYDNEY: Scientists have predicted the spread of a wild and highly invasive species of bee across Australia, and being a natural carrier of the deadly varroa mite, will likely devastate current populations of farmed honeybees.

The Asian honeybee (Apis cerana) was first identified in the north-eastern city of Cairns in 2007, after having spread from Papua New Guinea to the Solomon Islands. According to experts at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), these bees are impossible to farm and are prone to robbing farmed honeybees of their hoards and building nests in houses and letterboxes.

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Japan's Geminoid Robot Is Uncomfortably Realistic

Japan's New Goateed Geminoid Robot Is Uncomfortably Realistic -- Popular Science

The latest Geminoid robot is one of the most realistic, and thus creepiest, android we've ever seen. The skin, hair, goatee (!), and facial expressions are real enough to fool you for a few seconds while it sinks in that something very, very weird is going on.

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Lung Cancer Rates Double In Women Over 60 Since The 1970s

Lung cancer in a woman Photo: Alamy

Lung Cancer Rates Double In Women Over 60 Since 1970s -- The Telegraph

Lung cancer rates for retired women have more than doubled since the mid-1970s because of an increase in the number of female smokers, new figures have shown.

Rates for British women aged 60 and over rose from 88 per 100,000 in 1975 to 190 per 100,000 in the latest figures from 2008.

Almost 5,700 women over 60 were diagnosed with lung cancer in 1975. This jumped to more than 15,100 in 2008.

The rise, revealed by Cancer Research UK, can almost all be attributed to increase in smoking among women in the latter half of the last century.

Men on the other hand have seen a dramatic decrease in rates as millions have stopped smoking over the same period.

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My Comment: More proof that smoking increases the chances of getting cancer.

Could 'Supermoon' Next Week's 'Supermoon' Disrupt Earth's Weather?

Earth will be at its closest point - some 221,567 miles away - to the moon in 19 years on March 19. Some fear the 'lunar perigee' will affect our climate pattern

Could 'Supermoon' Next Week Disrupt Earth's Weather? -- The Daily Mail

Moon comes at its closest approach for 19 years

It promises a unique photo opportunity for amateur astronomers.

Earth will next week be at its closest point to the moon since 1992.

The March 19 event - known as a 'lunar perigee' - will see the moon pass just 221,567miles away from our planet.

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My Comment: I guess we will find out next week.

Using Google Earth To Find Ancient Tombs In The Saudi Desert

Google Earth maps showed 1,977 structures built of basalt stone from the surrounding lava field in Jeddah, including various pendants, or circular mounds similar to collapsed tombs with processions of small stone piles branching out from them (A, B, C and D). Google Earth, Courtesy of David Kennedy/Journal of Archaeological Science

Thousands of Tombs in Saudi Desert Spotted From Space -- Live Science

Little is known about the archaeology of Saudi Arabia, as the government has historically forbid aerial photographs of the landscape and religious sensitivities have made access tricky. But Google Earth is changing that. Satellite images available via the Web-based 3-D map program show that large portions of the country hold a wealth of archaeological remains that predate Islam and may be several thousand years old.

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My Comment: Very impressive.

We Should Learn To Speak To Dolphins Before Talking To Aliens

To Talk With Aliens, Learn to Speak With Dolphins -- Wired Science

The Kepler Space Telescope announced a new bonanza of distant planets this month, reconfirming that solar systems, some possibly hosting life, are common in the universe.

So if humanity someday arrives at an extraterrestrial cocktail party, will we be ready to mingle? At the Wild Dolphin Project in Jupiter, Florida, researchers train for contact by trying to talk with dolphins.

Behavioral biologist Denise Herzing started studying free-ranging spotted dolphins in the Bahamas more than two decades ago. Over the years, she noticed some dolphins seeking human company, seemingly out of curiosity.

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My Comment: This is a novel idea .... but I am more hopeful that the aliens will be better at communicating to 'us' than 'us' communicating to dolphins.

Reverse Engineering The Brain

RUBI the robot tutor interacting with children in San Diego. RUBI is an acronym for Robot Using Bayesian Inference. Credit: University of California at San Diego

Reverse Engineering The Brain -- Cosmos

SYDNEY: Can we really create a computer which can discern complex patterns, recognise facial expressions, decode meaning from speech and even understand our emotions? It's only a matter of time, says a leading researcher.

That’s the vision that drives Terrence Sejnowski, a leading authority on computational neuroscience who is trying to understand the inner-workings of the human brain – how we learn, form memories and interact with our environment – in order to develop computer devices that can emulate these processes.

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