Google’s Secret Switch To The Next Wave Of Networking

Going With the Flow: Google’s Secret Switch To The Next Wave Of Networking -- Wired Networking

In early 1999, an associate computer science professor at UC Santa Barbara climbed the steps to the second floor headquarters of a small startup in Palo Alto, and wound up surprising himself by accepting a job offer. Even so, Urs Hölzle hedged his bet by not resigning from his university post, but taking a year-long leave.

He would never return. Hölzle became a fixture in the company — called Google. As its czar of infrastructure, Hölzle oversaw the growth of its network operations from a few cages in a San Jose co-location center to a massive internet power; a 2010 study by Arbor Networks concluded that if Google was an ISP it would be the second largest in the world (the largest is Level 3, which services over 2,700 major corporations in 450 markets over 100,000 fiber miles.)

Read more ....

Daylight Fireball Streaks Over Nevada and California

Daylight Fireball Streaks Over Nevada and California -- Discovery News

When reports about a meteor make headline news in Los Angeles, it's time to pay attention. In fact, anything that isn't associated with a high-speed car chase or the latest celebrity DUI is usually worth paying attention to (take it from me, it doesn't happen very often). But tonight, local news stations are reporting excited eyewitness accounts of a daytime meteor that ripped through the skies above Nevada and California on Sunday morning.

Read more ....

New Benefits Of Aspirin?

New evidence is helping explain additional health benefits of aspirin. (Credit: © Veniamin Kraskov / Fotolia)

Aspirin: New Evidence Is Helping Explain Additional Health Benefits And Open Potential For New Uses -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2012) — New evidence is helping explain additional health benefits of aspirin. Researchers in Canada, Scotland and Australia have discovered that salicylate, the active ingredient in aspirin, directly increases the activity of the protein AMPK (AMP-activated protein kinase), a key player in regulating cell growth and metabolism. AMPK which is considered a cellular fuel-gauge is switched on by exercise and the commonly used anti-diabetic medication metformin.

Read more ....

Adult Males Will Soon Have The Same Life Expectancy As Females

Men Will Soon Live Longer Than Women For The First Time As They Ditch Their Unhealthy Lifestyles -- Daily Mail

* Boys born in 2000 will live to 87 - the same as girls
* Younger boys forecast to then outlive their female counterparts
* All due to a decline in heavy industry, fewer smokers and improved healthcare

Men could be about to win the lifelong battle of the sexes – or at least draw even.

Experts say that adult males will soon have the same life expectancy as females for the first time since records began.

By the time today’s 12-year-old boys reach 30, they can expect to live to a month or so over 87 – matching the lifespan of the girls they are in school with today.

Read more ....

My Comment: It's about time. But I suspect that women will still have the advantage for a very long time.

New Smart Weapons Will Not Use GPS

DARPA Seeks To Wean Smart Weapons Off GPS With Hybrid Inertial Navigation System-On-A-Chip -- Military & Aerospace

ARLINGTON, Va., 18 April 2012. Navigation and guidance experts at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., are trying to reduce the military's reliance on Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite guidance for advanced munitions, mid- and long-range missiles, and other weapons by creating a navigation-system-on-a-chip that combines traditional and atomic inertial guidance technology.

Read more ....

More News On DARPA Research To Fins An Alternative To GPS For Smart Weapons

DARPA wants navigation chip to guide smart weapons -- Defense Systems
C-SCAN For GPS-Denied Areas -- Shadow Spear
DARPA exploring miniature, atomic sensor systems as alternative to GPS -- Network World
New sensor sought to enable military missions in GPS-denied areas -- Physorg
Wanted: Atomic inertial navigation system -- UPI

My Comment: I guess advances in jamming GPS signals are raising concerns in some quarters.

Why Did Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle Test Failed?

An artist's rendering of the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2. (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency / April 20, 2012)

Pentagon Releases Results Of 13,000-Mph Test Flight Over Pacific -- L.A. Times

The results are in from last summer’s attempt to test new technology that would provide the Pentagon with a lightning-fast vehicle, capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

In August the Pentagon's research arm, known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, carried out a test flight of an experimental aircraft capable of traveling at 20 times the speed of sound.

Read more ....

Update: DARPA releases cause of hypersonic glider anomaly -- AP

My Comment: Now we know why the test failed .... but with no money in the budget for additional tests, it looks like this research is going to be put on hold for now.

iPhone 5 Rumors

Apple iPhone 5 'To Be Cased In Liquidmetal' -- The Telegraph

Apple’s next iPhone will be cased in ‘Liquidmetal’, according to reports.

The iPhone 5, likely to be released later this year, is expected to be cased in a ‘metallic glass’, otherwise known as Liquidmetal, says a Korean news outlet citing ‘industry sources’.

The case is expected to be 20 times stronger than the current encasement. According to The Register, ‘metallic glass is a metal alloy, but one with the disordered structure of glass’. The material has been around since the 1990s, but since a new breakthrough in ‘superspeed pulse mould technology’, this type of glass, which is as tough as metal, can now be used for phone casings.

Read more ....

Mining The Asteroids

Sean Connery in 1981's 'Outland,' a British thriller that takes place at a mining colony on a Jupiter moon. Warner Bros. Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

A Quixotic Quest to Mine Asteroids -- Wall Street Journal

A new company backed by two Google Inc. GOOG -0.54% billionaires, film director James Cameron and other space exploration proponents is aiming high in the hunt for natural resources—with mining asteroids the possible target.

The venture, called Planetary Resources Inc., revealed little in a press release this week except to say that it would "overlay two critical sectors—space exploration and natural resources—to add trillions of dollars to the global GDP" and "help ensure humanity's prosperity." The company is formally unveiling its plans at an event Tuesday in Seattle.

Read more ....

My Comment: There is only one problem with this plan on mining the asteroids .... it's how will we get there.

Sweden's Stonehedge

Could this megalithic structure, known as Ales Stenar, be much older than we thought? Getty images

Swedish Stonehenge? Stone Structure Spurs Debate -- Discovery News

A series of 59 boulders placed at a seaside cliff in Sweden might represent Stonehenge's "sister" site.

* An ancient stone structure in Sweden may be 1,500 years older than previously thought.
* New analysis suggests the stones represent an ancient astronomical calendar.
* Some researchers argue the stones were placed with the same underlying geometry of Stonehenge.

Ancient Scandinavians dragged 59 boulders to a seaside cliff near what is now the Swedish fishing village of Kåseberga. They carefully arranged the massive stones -- each weighing up to 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) -- in the outline of a 220-foot-long (67-meter) ship overlooking the Baltic Sea.

Read more ....

Some Facts On The U.S. Secret Service

Secret Service agents surround President Barack Obama during a visit to the Port of Tampa on April 13. Getty

Decoding The Secret Service -- Discovery News

Why football players make for good recruits and other facts about these secret protectors, now facing a prostitution scandal.

* Some Secret Service agents are involved in a prostitution scandal in Colombia.
* It’s a long road from Secret Service recruit to Presidential protection, and most agents never get close to the President.
* Agents work long hours with lots of travel, and divorce rates are high.

A recent scandal involving Colombian prostitutes and the Secret Service has drawn new attention to an agency that has long been shrouded in mystery and dominated by romantic images of sculpted men wearing sunglasses and earpieces.

While investigations into the late-night carousing continue, the scandal offers an opportunity to look inside the very secret organization.

Read more ....

'Huge' Water Resource Exists Under Africa

'Huge' Water Resource Exists Under Africa -- BBC

Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater.

They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.

The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.

Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they stress that large scale drilling might not be the best way of increasing water supplies.

Read more ....

Pentagon And State Support Lifting Some Controls On U.S. Satellite Exports

The Star Fighters -- Washington Free Beacon

Administration report warns that loosening exports on space technology could boost China’s space warfare capabilities.

China is building space weapons designed to defeat U.S. and allied long-range missiles, and U.S. plans to loosen controls on satellite exports likely will boost Beijing’s space warfare programs, according to a Obama administration report made public on Wednesday.

The report warned that if the U.S. government relaxes controls on satellite exports and related items, “China would purchase and acquire more of these items, and in turn, further reduce the technological edge of the United States’ and its allies’ space assets,” the report said.

Read more ....

Update: DoD, State Want Easier Satellite Exports; PRC Still Banned From Launching US Birds -- Aol Defense

My Comment: My prediction .... the White House will proceed with lifting the many controls that are in place to limit critical technology transfers .... and then a a few years from now .... we will be writing and reading stories on how did China get access to US space tech and info.

Amozon's Cloud Uses 1% Of The Internet

An Amazon data center in Sterling, Virginia. Photo: Eric Hunsaker/Flickr

Amazon’s Secretive Cloud Carries 1 Percent Of The Internet -- Wired Enterprise

Amazon’s cloud computing infrastructure is growing so fast that it’s silently becoming a core piece of the internet.

That’s according to an analysis done by DeepField Networks, a start-up that number-crunched several weeks’ worth of anonymous network traffic provided by internet service providers, mainly in North America.

They found that one-third of the several million users in the study visited a website that uses Amazon’s infrastructure each day.

Read more ....

Better Hair Transplants On The Horizon?

Bioengineered follicles can grow hair (as seen on the mouse’s head) when transplanted into normally hairless mice, a new study shows. Takashi Tsuji/Tokyo University of Science

Engineering Better Hair Transplants -- Science News

Cell-based approach to new follicles takes hold in skin.

A hair-raising trick may lead to better hair transplants. Engineered hair follicles patched into skin can be coaxed to connect to surrounding tissue and to grow hair in an organized way, a study in mice finds.

Unlike current hair transplant methods, which simply move existing hair follicles from one area of the scalp to another to cover a bald region, the approach would spur the creation of new hair follicles from existing cells.

Read more ....

My Comment: Being one who has been losing his hair for a while .... faster please.

Where Do Brain Waves Come From?

Pablo Picasso Photo: REX FEATURES

Where Do Brain Waves Come From?: Extract From Jonah Lehrer's Imagine -- The Telegraph

From surfing backwards to improvising a complex song, Jonah Lehrer explains why creativity lies within us all - and the fascinating science that can help us access it.

The search for emotion shapes the way the virtuoso classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma approaches every concert. He doesn’t begin by analysing his part or by glancing at what the violins are supposed to play. Instead, he reviews the complete score, searching for the larger story. “I always look at a piece of music like a detective novel,” Ma says. “Maybe the novel is about a murder. Well, who committed the murder? Why did he do it? My job is to retrace the story so that the audience feels the suspense. So that when the climax comes, they’re right there with me. It’s all about making people care about what happens next.”

Read more ....

Who Laid These Eggs?

Eggs-traordinary: A man looks at one of the dinosaur eggs, which number around 40 so far

Eggs-Traordinary: 40 Gigantic dinosaur Eggs Dating Back 60Million Years Found In Chechnya - but What Laid Them Is A Mystery -- Daily Mail

* The eggs are between 25cm and a metre in height

Geologists in Russia's volatile Chechnya region have discovered what they believe to be fossilised dinosaur eggs laid by one of the huge extinct reptiles that roamed the Earth more than 60million years ago.

'We've found about 40 eggs so far, the exact number has not been established,’ said Said-Emin Dzhabrailov, a geologist at the Chechen State University.

‘There could be many more lying under the ground.’

Read more ....

My Comment: Wow .... these dinosaurs must have been huge .... correction .... super huge.

Robot Prostitutes?

Photo: SEX TOURISM: Are sex robots the future, like in Steven Spielberg's AI Artificial Intelligence?

Robot Prostitutes 'The Future Of Sex Tourism' -- Sydney Morning Herald

The future of sex tourism lies in robot prostitutes, two New Zealand researchers have theorised.

Management professor Ian Yeoman, a futurist with an interest in tourism, and sexologist Michelle Mars from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, have looked to how red light districts might operate in the year 2050.

Read more ....

My Comment: Probably a discount will be involved (for the robots).

Nissan Unleashes 'BatMobile' DeltaWing Concept Car

This is the dramatic moment Nissan unleashed its flame-throwing 'Batmobile' in Europe for the first time

Like A Bat Out Of Hell: Nissan Unleashes 'BatMobile' DeltaWing Concept Car For Fire-Breathing Test Drive -- Daily Mail

Flames belched from the exhausts of Nissan's DeltaWing as it blasted round Norfolk's Snetterton race track on its first test drive.

The Deltawing is a revolutionary vehicle many have likened to the BatMobile.

The ultra-aerodynamic prototype will race at Le Mans this year and could change motorsport forever, its creators believe.

Read more ....

My Comment: Definitely something that Batman would drive.

One Day Cellphones Will Be Able To See Through Walls

Dr. Kenneth O, director of the Texas Analog Center of Excellence and a professor of electrical engineering, left, worked with a team including Dae Yeon Kim, who was among the authors of the research report. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Texas at Dallas)

New Research Could Mean Cellphones That Can See Through Walls -- Science Daily

ScienceDaily (Apr. 18, 2012) — Comic book hero superpowers may be one step closer to reality after the latest technological feats made by researchers at UT Dallas. They have designed an imager chip that could turn mobile phones into devices that can see through walls, wood, plastics, paper and other objects.

The team's research linked two scientific advances. One involves tapping into an unused range in the electromagnetic spectrum. The other is a new microchip technology.

Read more ....

Publishing World Struggles To Adapt To New Lines

London Book Fair: Publishing World Struggles To Adapt To New Lines -- The Guardian

The partying goes on at Earl's Court, but new formats and self-publishing are changing the industry

The trays of free wine and boastful talk of six-figure deals struck at dinner parties might seem to some like the last days of decadence for a publishing world in denial about the digital storm clouds gathering overhead.

But in the main hall of Earl's Court, hundreds of publishers gathered for the 41st London Book Fair have been showing stands of lovely new books as editors meet agents and foreign publishers keen to buy unpublished books, sell foreign rights, and relentlessly talk up their new titles.

Read more ....

My Comment: A sobering analysis that the hardcover book is the way of the dinosaur.