All Entries in the "Science & Technology" Category

Handy Google Search Tips: 19 Simple Tricks You Need To Know

Google may be expanding into cell phones, operating systems, and tablet PCs, but it’s still known best for search.

Google’s engineers have tricked out the search engine with a number of tools, shortcuts, and features that can help you better access the information you’re after–whether it’s finding out how many Euros to the dollar, when your favorite team is playing next, or whether to leave home with an umbrella.

We’ve compiled our favorite Google search tricks. Got others to add? Let us know in the comments below, or add one to our list using the “Add a Slide” button.

Full Story: Handy Google Search Tips: 19 Simple Tricks You Need To Know.

IBM scientists create most comprehensive map of the brain’s network

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published Tuesday a landmark paper entitled “Network architecture of the long-distance pathways in the macaque brain” (an open-access paper) by Dharmendra S. Modha (IBM Almaden) and Raghavendra Singh (IBM Research-India) with major implications for reverse-engineering the brain and developing a network of cognitive-computing chips.

“We have successfully uncovered and mapped the most comprehensive long-distance network of the Macaque monkey brain, which is essential for understanding the brain’s behavior, complexity, dynamics and computation,” Dr. Modha says. “We can now gain unprecedented insight into how information travels and is processed across the brain.

“We have collated a comprehensive, consistent, concise, coherent, and colossal network spanning the entire brain and grounded in anatomical tracing studies that is a stepping stone to both fundamental and applied research in neuroscience and cognitive computing.”

Full Story: IBM scientists create most comprehensive map of the brain’s network | KurzweilAI.

High-Speed Laser Chips Move Data at 50 Gbps

A new research breakthrough from Intel combines silicon chips and lasers to transmit data at 50 gigabits per second — and someday, maybe as fast as a terabit per second.

The 50-Gbps speed is enough to download an HD movie from iTunes, or up to 100 hours of digital music, in less than a second.

The technology, known as silicon photonics, can be used as a replacement for copper wires to connect components within computers, or between computers in data centers.

“The fundamental issue is that electronic signaling relying on copper wires is reaching its physical limits,” says Justin Rattner, chief technology officer for Intel, which announced the breakthrough Tuesday. “Photonics gives us the ability to move vast quantities of data across the room or planet at extremely high speeds and in a cost-effective manner.”

Photonics refers to the generation, modulation, switching and transmission of light, and can be done using lasers or light-emitting diodes.

Full Story: High-Speed Laser Chips Move Data at 50 Gbps | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

BP Tries To Block Release Of Oil Spill Research

Faced with hundreds of lawsuits and a deep need for experts, BP has been offering some Gulf Coast scientists lucrative consulting contracts that bar them from releasing their findings on the company’s massive oil spill for three years.

Some scientists say the contracts constrain academic freedom. A few signed the agreements, then changed their minds.

And others argue BP’s contract is standard, and with little federal funding available to study the spill’s impact, Gulf Coast researchers have few other options.

“I personally wouldn’t care to have my research limited, but if I wanted to do work on the spill and this was the only way I could get out there and get working on it, I don’t think there’s a lot of alternatives,” said Chris D’Elia, dean of the Louisiana State University School of the Coast and Environment.

Full Story: Gulf Oil Spill: BP Tries To Block Release Of Oil Spill Research.

Unbridled Science for Profit Will Reap Catastrophe

Science took a serious wrong turn some years ago when academia/gov’t oversight defaulted and corporations triumphed. Since then many areas of development have ignored safety concerns and proceeded full throttle in search of profits damn what may. The chemical industry may have been the first to go completely haywire, flooding our bodies and environment with toxics. Now we have GMO, nanotech and geoengineering all racing to see who can cause global catastrophe first.

It’s not that hard to find credible sources of concern. But it is very hard to get anyone to take them seriously. In fact we’re over the cliff rushing headlong down a precipitous slope barely keeping our feet. It’s probably too much to expect people to be considered and rational in such a condition. –Claudia

Full Story: Unbridled Science for Profit Will Reap Catastrophe « Wake-up Call.

Medieval history in the making

Eleven years ago, John Lichfield witnessed the birth of Château de Guédelon, the 13th-century castle being built by hand in modern day France. This week he went back to see how work is progressing

It is the year 1241. Good King Louis XI is on the throne of France. The son of Bad King John, “average” King Henry III is on the throne of England and struggling, as ever, against his revolting barons. Medievally speaking, we are in a prosperous and peaceful period. There is a brief lull between two crusades. The Black Death is still a century away.

Down in the verdant forests of northern Burgundy, a castle is under construction: one of hundreds of similar castles to be built in France, and England, at this time. To reach it we could saddle our best charger or mule. Alternatively, we could drive down the A6 motorway from Paris, branch off on to the A77 and then head east into the rolling hills and fields of La Puisaye…

The “owner” of the castle, Seigneur Guilbert, a middling feudal lord, is not in the busy car park to greet us. He is absent, possibly paying homage to his seigneur, the Lord of Ratilly; or maybe straggling back from the Sixth Crusade, which was supposed to have ended 12 years ago in 1229. Instead, our guide, wearing a fetching 13th-century peasant skirt and rug, is Sarah Preston, originally from Bath. She may, we suspect, be an advance spy for the English invasion of France which will begin in 97 years’ time and last for a Hundred Years or more.

Full Story: Medieval history in the making – Europe, World – The Independent.

Stonehenge Discovery: Wooden Structure Found Near Famous Monument

Scientists scouring the area around Stonehenge said Thursday they have uncovered a circular structure only a few hundred meters (yards) from the world famous monument.

There’s some debate about what exactly has been found. The survey team which uncovered the structure said it could be the foundation for a circle of freestanding pieces of timber, a wooden version of Stonehenge.

But Tim Darvill, a professor of archaeology at Bournemouth University in southern England, expressed skepticism, saying he believed it was more likely a barrow, or prehistoric tomb.

Darvill did say that the circle was one of an expanding number of discoveries being made around Stonehenge which “really shows how much there is still to learn and how extensive the site really was.”

Full Story: Stonehenge Discovery: Wooden Structure Found Near Famous Monument.

New ‘walking’ Fishes Discovered In Gulf Oil-spill Zone

Pancake batfishes may be getting oiled before they get named

Two new fish species — with pancake-flat bodies, wiggling lures on their faces, and elbowed fins for “walking” on the seafloor — have been discovered in the path of spewing Gulf of Mexico oil.

One of these pancake batfishes lives in the northern Gulf where oil is already spreading from the Deepwater Horizon blowout, says ichthyologist Prosanta Chakrabarty of Louisiana State University’s Museum of Natural Sciences in Baton Rouge, a codiscoverer of the species.

Chakrabarty calls this narrowly distributed species the Louisiana pancake batfish. Its full scientific name, in the genus Halieutichthys, hasn’t even been published yet. The oil’s impact on the soon-to-be new species isn’t clear. ”All we can say is that its habitat is threatened,” Chakrabarty says.

Full Story: New ‘walking’ Fishes Discovered In Gulf Oil-spill Zone – Science News.

Censored Gulf news: Scientists call on Obama to stop chem-spray

Over 100 scientists and academic institution, research laboratory, conservation organization leaders plus human rights defenders from as far away as Norway and Greece signed the Scientists Consensus Statement on the Use of Chemical Dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico calling for the Obama Administration to immediately halt chemical aerial spraying in the Gulf region. A public petition to end dispersant use is also gaining momentum.

Non-consensual human experiementation

Scientists expressing grave concern about the unprecedented aerial spraying of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico region believe a large-scale, uncontrolled non-consensual human and environmental experiment is being conducted in the Gulf region according to reports sent to the writer including one from the “Ocean Doctor” David E. Guggenheim, Ph.D.

Full Story: Censored Gulf news: Scientists call on Obama to stop chem-spray.

12 mad science projects that could shake the world

From robots that eat and shrink to invincible soldiers and smart drones, advanced science projects will alter our universe

Some science projects once only conceivable by mad scientists are now becoming more mainstream as real money is being spent on everything from shape-shifting robots to artificial intelligence-based borgs. Here we take a look at 12 projects Dr. Frankenstein would have loved.

Full Story: 12 mad science projects that could shake the world.

China UFO Sightings, Back-To-Back, Alarm Residents

A second China UFO sighting has residents on edge, just seven days after an unidentified flying object shut down a Chinese airport.

The new UFO sighting took place in Chongqing in eastern China on July 15. Witnesses told Shanghai Daily they saw the same thing: “four lantern-like objects forming a diamond shape that hovered over the city’s Shaping Park for over an hour.”

Like the one before it, there has been no official explanation to date for this latest incident.

Last week, flights were diverted in Hangzhou — also in eastern China — after a mysterious object was seen hovering in the sky, People’s Daily reports.

Full Story: China UFO Sightings, Back-To-Back, Alarm Residents (VIDEO, POLL).

‘Star Trek’ Warp Speed? Physicists Have New Idea That Could Make It So

With the new movie ‘Star Trek’ opening in theaters across the nation, one thing movie goers will undoubtedly see is the Starship Enterprise racing across the galaxy at the speed of light. But can traveling at warp speed ever become a reality?

Two Baylor University physicists believe they have an idea that can turn traveling at the speed of light from science fiction to science, and their idea does not break any laws of physics.

Dr. Gerald Cleaver, associate professor of physics at Baylor, and Dr. Richard Obousy, a Baylor post-doctoral student, theorize that by manipulating the space-time dimensions around the spaceship with a massive amount of energy, it would create a “bubble” that could push the ship faster than the speed of light. To create this bubble, the Baylor physicists believe manipulating the 11-dimension would create dark energy. Cleaver said positive dark energy is responsible for speeding up the universe as time moves on, just like it did after the Big Bang, when the universe expanded faster than the speed of light.

Full Story: ‘Star Trek’ Warp Speed? Physicists Have New Idea That Could Make It So.

Scientists expected Obama administration to be friendlier

A culture of politics trumping science, many say, persists despite the president’s promises. The use of potentially toxic dispersants to fight the gulf oil spill is cited as just one example.

When he ran for president, Barack Obama attacked the George W. Bush administration for putting political concerns ahead of science on such issues as climate change and public health. And during his first weeks in the White House, President Obama ordered his advisors to develop rules to “guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch.”

Many government scientists hailed the president’s pronouncement. But a year and a half later, no such rules have been issued. Now scientists charge that the Obama administration is not doing enough to reverse a culture that they contend allowed officials to interfere with their work and limit their ability to speak out.

“We are getting complaints from government scientists now at the same rate we were during the Bush administration,” said Jeffrey Ruch, an activist lawyer who heads an organization representing scientific whistle-blowers.

Full Story: Scientists expected Obama administration to be friendlier – latimes.com.

Liquid armour ‘can stop bullets’

A liquid armour has been shown to stop bullets in tests carried out by UK scientists at BAE systems in Bristol.

The researchers have combined this “shear-thickening” liquid with Kevlar to create a new bullet-proof material.

The company is keeping the chemical formula of the liquid a secret, but it works by absorbing the force of the bullet strike and responding to it by becoming much thicker and more sticky.

The BAE scientists describe it as “bullet-proof custard”.

“It’s very similar to custard in the sense that the molecules lock together when it’s struck,” explained Stewart Penny, business development manager in charge of materials development at the company.

Full Story: BBC News – Liquid armour ‘can stop bullets’.

Despite Obama’s Lofty Words, Scientific Integrity Rules Are Lagging

Last March, President Obama promised he’d have a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to the federal government on hand by July 29. A full year later, federal agencies still have not received any new directives and some government scientists say that conditions have not improved noticeably since Obama took power.

Obama made scientific integrity an issue in his presidential campaign, and his March 9, 2009 memo outlined a series of high-minded principles — advocating, for instance, for “transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking.”

The memo also ordered John Holdren, the director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop guidelines “designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch.” Obama gave Holdren 120 days. That deadline came and went. And Friday is its one-year anniversary.

Full Story: Despite Obama’s Lofty Words, Scientific Integrity Rules Are Lagging.

Medical Science and Genomic Disappointments

A June 12 article in the New York Times entitled “A Decade Later, Genetic Map Yields Few New Cures” makes the case that 10 years of genomic research have been profoundly disappointing. Announced with fanfare by then-President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2000, the mapping of the human genome was expected to reveal the root genetic causes of diverse, serious diseases, and engender therapeutic insights, targeted treatments and elusive cures.

That the cures have not yet ensued is perhaps neither cause for surprise nor disappointment — as this was always expected to take some time. After all, the work on cures for genetic diseases cannot begin in earnest until the culpable genes have been indicted. The disappointment, rather, is that the ranks of such genetic culprits are surprisingly thin.

The problem is not with the map of the genome, which is largely all it was claimed to be. Rather, the notion that specific variants of specific genes can be identified as the “cause” of a cancer, or of Alzheimer’s disease, may simply be wrong. In many cases, the relevant genetic variants may be rare and difficult to find. In many more, there may be multiple genes involved rather than one.

Full Story: David Katz, M.D.: The Cup of Life: Medical Science and Genomic Disappointments.

Exploding H-Bombs In Outer Space

A Very Scary Light Show: Exploding H-Bombs In Space -Code Name: Starfish Prime

The Americans launched their first atomic nuclear tests above the Earth’s atmosphere in 1958. Atom bombs had little effect on the magnetosphere, but the hydrogen bomb of July 9, 1962, did. Code-named “Starfish Prime” by the military, it literally created an artificial extension of the Van Allen belts that could be seen across the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand.

In Honolulu, the explosions were front page news. “N-Blast Tonight May Be Dazzling: Good View Likely,” said the Honolulu Advertiser. Hotels held what they called “Rainbow Bomb Parties” on rooftops and verandas. When the bomb burst, people told of blackouts and strange electrical malfunctions, like garage doors opening and closing on their own. But the big show was in the sky.

Source: NPR

Scientists Make Immune Cells in Mice That Fight Off HIV

Research in mice suggests that scientists may have a new lead on using gene therapy against the virus that causes AIDS.

The researchers tinkered with human stem cells and then inserted them into mice where they multiplied into immune system cells that provided protection against infection with HIV, according to a study released online July 2 in Nature Biotechnology.

The results are unlike typical research in animals because the mice have been “humanized”: They have human immune systems and resisted a human disease. Still, until research is conducted on humans, there’s no way to know if the treatment will work in people. And it may be years until that happens.

But there are high hopes. “It’s a one-shot treatment if it works,” noted study co-author Paula Cannon, associate professor of molecular microbiology at the University of Southern California.

Full Story: Scientists Make Immune Cells in Mice That Fight Off HIV – Yahoo! News.

Facebook to recognize faces, help tag photos

Facebook has begun testing face detection technology for Facebook Photos.

This is the first of what seems like a series of new features for its popular photo product.

The tests, which some users will see starting today [Friday], focus on decreasing the tediousness of “tagging” friends in Facebook photos. In the current Photos feature, users upload photos, click on each face in a photo, tag that photo with the friend pictured therein and continue the process until the album is tagged.

If you’ve got a large album or a lot of friends in a si

Full Story: Facebook to recognize faces, help tag photos – CNN.com.

Self Proclaimed Spider Boy Scales Walls Using Recycled Vacuums

Hibiki Kono had a dream — he wanted to be like his hero, Spiderman. Most little kids would have their parents buy them a costume that they could wear to school. Not Kono — the 13 year-old set to work making his dream a reality. He’s used two 1,400-watt recycled vacuum cleaners and a little bit of elbow grease to make a machine that allows him to scale walls — just like his spindly hero!

Full Story: Self Proclaimed Spider Boy Scales Walls Using Recycled Vacuums | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World.

Military plans hummingbird-sized spies

Nano Aerial Vehicle will help soldiers fighting in crowded urban areas

Soldiers fighting future battles in crowded urban areas will be able to launch hummingbird-sized unmanned nano aerial vehicles — or NAVs — capable of carrying sophisticated sensors and flying through open windows in buildings to report back on enemy positions.

A new project partly funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ( DARPA) called the Nano Aerial Vehicle (NAV) program aims to develop an extremely small, ultra-lightweight aerial vehicle for urban military missions that can fly both indoors and outdoors and that is capable of climbing and descending vertically as well as flying sideways left and right.

DARPA says the NAV program pushes the limits of aerodynamic and power conversion efficiency, endurance and maneuverability for very small air vehicle systems.

Full Story: Military plans hummingbird-sized spies – Technology & science – Innovation – msnbc.com.

Stem Cells From Human Blood Can Be Reprogrammed

Blood drawn with a simple needle stick can be coaxed into producing stem cells that may have the ability to form any type of tissue in the body, three independent papers report in the July 2 Cell Stem Cell. The new technique will allow scientists to tap a large, readily available source of personalized stem cells.

Because taking blood is safe, fast and efficient compared to current stem cell harvesting methods, some of which include biopsies and pretreatments with drugs, researchers hope that blood-derived stem cells could one day be used to study and treat diseases — though major safety hurdles remain.

The findings “represent a huge and important progression in the field,” stem cell biologist Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan and the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco, writes in a commentary appearing in the same issue of the journal.

Three research groups used similar methods to prod certain immune cells in human blood to become induced pluripotent stem cells. Because they are reprogrammed adult cells, these stem cells share many of the same regenerative abilities as true embryonic stem cells but may not have as much versatility in the kinds of mature cells they can become. But induced pluripotent cells are harvested from adults and so don’t face the same ethical mires posed by embryo-derived stem cells. And as techniques for manipulating induced pluripotent cells improve, some researchers think they may be just as useful.

Full Story: Stem Cells From Human Blood Can Be Reprogrammed | Wired Science | Wired.com.

First-Ever Photo Of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed (PICUTRE)

An image taken in 2008 by the Gemini Observatory has finally been confirmed to be the first direct image taken by a ground-based telescope of an “alien planet” (a planet outside our solar system).

As Geekosystem notes, “While we have images of other alien planets — a.k.a. “exoplanets” — such images have been composed via indirect means of observation, such as gravitational fluctuations, rather than as true photographs.”

In 2008, astronomers snapped an image of the exoplanet, which is eight times the mass of Jupiter, “using visible light observations from telescopes on Earth,” according to Space.com.

Full Story: First-Ever Photo Of Alien Planet Finally Confirmed (PICUTRE).

Terrafugia Transition ‘Flying Car’ (PHOTOS, VIDEO): Extraordinary Vehicle Gets Authorities’ OK

The Transition’s creators have dubbed the two-seater vehicle a “roadable aircraft:” it can drive on any surface, and, thanks to its foldable wings, can transform into a personal airplane. It can fly at a speed of 115 MPH and has a 460-mile range. As the Telegraph notes, it “requires a 1,700-foot (one-third of a mile) runway to take off and can fit in a standard garage.” The “flying car” is expected to retail for $194,000.

As AutoBlog explains, the Transition has just received special approval from US air authorities:

The FAA has just awarded the Terrafugia Transition an exemption which will allow the 1,440-pound car/aircraft hybrid to fly under a “light sport” designation, even though it hits the scales at a hefty 120 lbs. more than the rules allow. A light sport pilot license only requires 20 hours of seat time – far less than what a full license would demand.

CNET likens the Terrafugia Transition to a “Volkswagen Beetle in the belly of a carp.” Think so? See for yourself in the pictures and video of the “flying car” below.

Full Story: Terrafugia Transition ‘Flying Car’ (PHOTOS, VIDEO): Extraordinary Vehicle Gets Authorities’ OK.

Windows 8 Features Revealed In Leaked Microsoft Documents

Several leaked Microsoft presentations, posted on MSFTKitchen, Microsoft Journal, and Business Insider, offer a look at some of the features we might expect to see in Windows 8, the next iteration of Microsoft’s operating system.

Some potential Windows 8 features detailed in the alleged Microsoft slides (see them here or here):

* Facial recognition technology that allows users to log in just by positioning their face in front of their PC’s webcam. “My PC could detect my presence and log me in automatically,” Microsoft’s explanation reads. As Gizmodo notes, Windows 8 could offer a range of “Kinect-like” features: “When you get up and leave, it can go to sleep automatically as well. Additionally, if someone else shows up, it can quickly switch between user accounts based on who it sees in front of the computer.”

* Streamlining the ability to switch between user accounts. The leaked document notes that among the things “we are considering for Windows 8″ is “making it fast and easy to switch between user accounts.” Microsoft says it aims to evolve the Windows identity “from machine centric to user centric.”

* A fast startup time for Windows 8: “Windows 8 PC’s turn on fast, nearly instantly in some cases, and are ready to work without any long or unexpected delays,” the document says.

* According to the leaked documents, one of the features under consideration for Windows 8 is connecting users’ accounts to the cloud. This feature would allow the computer to “log on to websites on the user’s behalf” and make it possible for a users’ settings and preferences to be consistent across multiple devices.

* Compatibility with 3D platforms, wireless TV sets, and slates. “Developers can build modern experiences around display devices by leveraging Windows 8 support for premium media experiences such as stereoscopic 3D and Wireless TVs,” Microsoft notes. The leaked presentation also specifically mentions slates as a “target form factor.”

Full Story: Windows 8 Features Revealed In Leaked Microsoft Documents.

Fish modified to glow in the dark

An aquarium fish — a convict cichlid, also known as the zebra cichlid — that has been transgenically modified to glow in the dark. A whole school of the glow-in-the-dark fish, which were modified using genes from a deep water jellyfish, were presented by Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture at a press conference on Friday in Taipei. Taiwan exports ornamental fish to more than 20 countries worldwide and in the past, scientists there have also bred glowing pigs.

Check out the Picture This archive here.

Full Story: Picture This: Fluoro Fish – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

Scientists: Monster BP Spill Proves Senate Must Boost Energy Efficiency Technology Spending

The Senate must increase federal research investments for future energy technologies that will strengthen energy security and reduce the likelihood of disastrous effects associated with fossil fuel exploration as evidenced by the massive BP oil spill, according to a leading organization of physicists.

It’s up to the Senate to include such a boost in spending in its energy and climate legislation because the cap-and-trade energy bill approved last year by the House shortchanged that kind of research, says a statement by the American Physical Society (APS).

Specifically, legislators should start by including in its bill the president’s Clean Energy Technology Fund, an investment of $15 billion per year over 10 years to develop affordable, low-emission energy technologies, the APS statement says.

Full Story: On The Hill: Scientists: Monster BP Spill Proves Senate Must Boost Energy Efficiency Technology Spending.

Human foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks, study says

Finding in major review of scientific evidence strikes blow to those seeking to reduce upper time limit for abortion

The human foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks, according to a major review of scientific evidence published today.

The connections in the foetal brain are not fully formed in that time, nor is the foetus conscious, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The findings of two reports commissioned by the Department of Health strike a blow to those seeking to reduce the upper time limit for having an abortion, currently at 24 weeks.

Full Story: Human foetus feels no pain before 24 weeks, study says | Life and style | guardian.co.uk.

Is the Universe Merely a Statistical Accident?

Where scientists such as Weinberg, Monod and Dennett see pointlessness and despair in science, as we have seen, other scientists see pattern, direction and meaning. For example, the eminent physicist John Archibald Wheeler said:

“Science … at first sight seems to have no special platform for man, mind or meaning. Man? Pure biochemistry! Mind? Memory modelable by electronic circuitry! Meaning? Why ask after that puzzling and intangible commodity? What is man that the universe should be mindful of him? … [I]s not man an unimportant bit of dust on an unimportant planet in an unimportant galaxy in an unimportant region somewhere in the vastness of space? No! The philosopher of old was right! Meaning is important, even central.” (1)

The British physicist Paul Davies is also astounded by the sheer unlikelihood of human life, and he suggests that something else might have been going on to tip things in our favor:

Full Story: Dr. Larry Dossey: Is the Universe Merely a Statistical Accident?.

Mysterious Martian Cave Discovered By 7th Graders (PICTURE)

A class of 16 seventh-graders has found a mysterious cave on Mars–a kind of “Martian skylight”–during the course of their research project analyzing images snapped by NASA’s Mars orbiter.

The Evergreen Middle School class pinpointed a “hole in the roof of a cave on Mars” that may have been formed by volcanic activity on Mars. The pit is believed to measure some 620 by 520 feet wide and 380 feet deep.

Space.com’s Clara Moskowitz explains the Mars Student Imaging Program in which the students were participating:

The intrepid students were participating in the Mars Student Imaging Program at the Mars Space Flight Facility at Arizona State University. The program allows students to frame a research question and then commission a Mars-orbiting camera to take an image to answer their question.

Full Story: Mysterious Martian Cave Discovered By 7th Graders (PICTURE).

Whales closer to us than thought, say scientists

As the future of whales once more comes under global debate, some scientists say the marine mammals are not only smarter than thought but also share several attributes once claimed as exclusively human.

Self-awareness, suffering and a social culture along with high mental abilities are a hallmark of cetaceans, an order grouping more than 80 whales, dolphins and porpoises, say marine biologists.

If so, the notion that whales are intelligent and sentient beings threatens to demolish, like an explosive harpoon, the assumption that they are simply an animal commodity to be harvested from the sea.

That belief lies at the heart of talks unfolding at the International Whaling Commission (IWC), meeting from Monday to Friday in Agadir, Morocco.

Full Story: Whales closer to us than thought, say scientists.

Global Seed Vault: National Geographic Explores The Arctic Facility (VIDEO)

Take a look inside the global seed vault in this clip from National Geographic’s upcoming 3-night special, “How The Earth Changed History”.

The seed vault, built to protect the world’s food supply in the event of a global crisis, is located on a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic Svalbard archipelago. It was built high enough to avoid rising sea levels, and deep enough into the mountain to be able to withstand a nuclear explosion. The vault is kept at a constant temperature of zero degrees to preserve its contents.

“How The Earth Changed History” premieres Sunday, June 20.

Full Story: Global Seed Vault: National Geographic Explores The Arctic Facility (VIDEO).

Ancient legends once walked among early humans?

Wild, hairy, folks who fought griffons and nomads — have paleontologists unearthed mythic figures of folklore?

Siberia’s Denisova cave held the pinky bone of an unknown early human species, a genetics team reported in March. The Naturejournal study, led by Johannes Krause of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, offered no answer for what happened to this “archaic” human species, more than one million years old and living near their human and Neanderthal cousins as recently as 30,000 years ago.

But at least one scholar has an intriguing answer: “The discovery of material evidence of a distinct hominin (human) lineage in Central Asia as recently as 30,000 years ago does not come as a surprise to those who have looked at the historical and anecdotal evidence of ‘wild people’ inhabiting the region,” wrote folklorist Michael Heaney of the United Kingdom’s Bodleian Library Oxford, in a letter to The Times of London.

Wild people?

Full Story: Ancient legends once walked among early humans? – USATODAY.com.

History Channel Mega Disasters – Methane Explosion

History Channel “Mega Disasters” series. This explores the controversial paper published by Northwestern University's Gregory Ryskin. His thesis: the oceans periodically produce massive eruptions of explosive methane gas… enough to cause global catastrophe on a regular basis!

Droid Incredible Snaps, Saves Pictures Of Your Browsing History

Droid Incredible users have found a truly incredible glitch on the HTC smartphone.

As Boy Genius Report writes, the Droid Incredible will snap screenshots of your browser–via the phone’s Sense UI bookmarking widget–then store the pictures in its internal memory. Erasing those files isn’t so easy. Those screengrabs of your online banking session or favorite porn site (for example) stick on the phone around even after a total factory reset.

Engadget explains, “Ending the browsing session, deleting your history, and even a full reset to factory settings failed to eviscerate the indiscreet imagery. You have to manually discover their location and delete them by hand.”

BGR offers instructions on where you can find the images in order to erase them: “The JPEG files are saved to a folder named .bookmark_thumb1 which is located within the emmc folder of the phones internal storage (so you would expect a full factory reset to delete them). ” (see picture below)

Full Story: Droid Incredible Snaps, Saves Pictures Of Your Browsing History.

New laser shoots beams of night

New technology actually designed to reduce light

A laser that doesn’t produce light would ordinarily be a failure. After all, the first two letters of laser stand for light amplification, not light reduction.

But a new laser created by scientists at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder, shoots beams of night instead of beams of light. The “dark pulses,” as the NIST scientists ominously call them, create areas absent of light.

The research could improve fiber optic communications. Pulses of light fade or degrade over long distances to cause noise and errors. Dark pulses don’t have the same drawbacks, which should improve the transmission and detection of light through fiber optic cables

Full Story: New laser shoots beams of night – Innovation- msnbc.com.

Electronic Armageddon: How An EMP Bomb Would Be A Deathblow To Life As We Know It (VIDEO)

Earlier this month, NASA warned that as the Sun wakes up from its “deep slumber,” a massive solar storm could wreak havoc on our electronics, from satellites to the electrical grid, causing damages up to 20 times the cost of Hurricane Katrina.

But the Sun isn’t the only threat to our electronic lifeline. National Geographic explorers the risk and consequences of the “electronic Armageddon” that could be caused by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) bomb.

An EMP bomb, National Geographic explains, is “a bomb that’s designed to go above the atmosphere and release huge amounts of energy,” some of which in the form of gamma rays. Such a weapon would cripple electronics, but not kill people.

Full Story: Electronic Armageddon: How An EMP Bomb Would Be A Deathblow To Life As We Know It (VIDEO).

Pan-Starrs telescope begins operations to hunt asteroids

A new telescope facility in Hawaii designed to search for asteroids and comets which could threaten Earth has been made operational.

The Pan-STARRS 1 telescope will map large portions of the sky each night to track not only close space objects, but also exploding stars (supernovae).

The telescope has been taking science data for six months but is now operating from dusk-dawn each night.

Pan-STARRS 1 (PS1) is expected to map one-sixth of the sky every month.

The facility boasts a huge digital camera: a 1,400 megapixel (1.4 gigapixel) device that can photograph an area of the sky as large as 36 full Moons in a single exposure.

Full Story: BBC News – Pan-Starrs telescope begins operations to hunt asteroids.

Boldly going nowhere: Nasa ends plan to put man back on Moon

NASA has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so.

Legislators have accused President Obama’s Administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill.

Constellation aimed to build upon what was arguably America’s greatest technological achievement, the first lunar landing of 1969, by launching new expeditions to the Moon and to Mars and worlds beyond. Mr Obama proposed in February that it should be scrapped because it was “over budget, behind schedule and lacking in innovation”, but he has met opposition in Congress, which has yet to approve his plan.The head of Nasa, Major-General Charlie Bolden — an Obama appointee — has now written to aerospace contractors telling them to cut back immediately on Constellation-related projects costing almost $1 billion (£690 million), to comply with regulations requiring them to budget for possible contract termination costs.

Full Story: Boldly going nowhere: Nasa ends plan to put man back on Moon – Times Online.

Nuclear Physicist Describes Vast UFO Cover-Up

“Some UFOs are intelligently controlled extraterrestrial spacecraft, and this is the biggest story of the millennium.” These words are not the rantings of a deranged individual looking for attention or a comfortable straitjacket. Stanton Friedman is a maverick of sorts. Employed for 14 years as a nuclear physicist for companies like General Electric, General Motors, Westinghouse and Aerojet General Nucleonics, he worked on highly classified programs involving nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets.

In 1958, UFOs caught his attention, and Friedman has since lectured about this subject at more than 700 colleges and professional groups in all 50 states and around the world. “After 53 years of investigation, I’m convinced we’re dealing here with a cosmic Watergate,” he told AOL News. “That means a few people within major governments have known since at least 1947 that some UFOs are alien spacecraft.” In Friedman’s new book, “Science Was Wrong,” co-authored with Kathleen Marden, he wrote, “There’s been no shortage of strong, negative proclamations from debunking groups and individuals who refuse to examine the evidence … to support the notion that some UFOs are of extraterrestrial origin.”

Full Story: Make A History.

Most comets may have extra-solar origin

Many famous comets may have formed in other Solar Systems, a new theory proposes.

Astronomers now believe that when our Sun was still a young star, it may have gravitationally captured the “dusty” Oort cloud comets formed elsewhere in the galaxy.

This contradicts the earlier theory that most comets were born in the Sun’s protoplanetary disk.

The scientists described their findings in the journal Science.

The formation of the Oort cloud has long been a mystery.

Full Story: BBC News – Most comets may have extra-solar origin.

‘Dark Pulse Laser’ produces bursts of … almost nothing

In an advance that sounds almost Zen, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and JILA, a joint institute of NIST and the University of Colorado at Boulder, have demonstrated a new type of pulsed laser that excels at not producing light. The new device generates sustained streams of “dark pulses” — repeated dips in light intensity — which is the opposite of the bright bursts in a typical pulsed laser.

Despite its ominous name, the dark pulse laser is envisioned as a tool for benign communications and measurements based on infrared light frequencies. The laser’s ultrashort pulses span just 90 picoseconds (trillionths of a second), making the device suitable for measurements on short timescales. Dark pulses might be useful in signal processing because, unlike bright pulses, they generally propagate without distortion. Dark pulses might be used like a camera shutter for a continuous light beam in optical networks.

Described in Optics Express, the new NIST/JILA technology is the first to generate dark pulses directly from a semiconductor laser cavity, without electrical or optical shaping of pulses after they are produced. The chip-sized infrared laser generates light from millions of quantum dots (qdots), nanostructured semiconductor materials grown at NIST. Quantum dot lasers are known for unusual behavior.

Full Story: ‘Dark Pulse Laser’ produces bursts of … almost nothing.

Do We Really Have a 5th Taste? What Is the Umami Fad All About?

Is the umami fad nothing more than a massive counterattack against a few decades of anti-MSG bad press?

You know a food fad has permeated the mainstream when it has been covered on NPR, when restaurants all over the country are named after it, and the American Idol runner-up loves it. Well, that’s where we are with umami, the Japanese-derived so-called “fifth taste” (after sweet, salty, bitter and sour) that’s somewhere between richness and savoriness and has generated so much buzz these last few years as to no longer merit italics. Asked to name her favorite Idol-season meal in Los Angeles, Joplinesque second-placer Crystal Bowersox praised Umami Burger, which now has four locations. And so it spreads like Marmite, which allegedly purveys it: the notion that umami is cool, that umami is real, and that umami has always been here.

Hailed as the wow factor in food and now even wine, umami is not an ancient Japanese word for an ancient Japanese concept — as is wabi, say, or sabi. Umami was coined in 1909 by Tokyo Imperial University chemistry professor Kikunae Ikeda after he performed experiments to see why he so enjoyed seaweed broth. Identifying the source of his pleasure as glutamic acid, an amino acid produced by the human body and present in many foods, where it results from the breaking down of proteins through cooking, aging, and ripening. Ikeda invented a revolutionary process for isolating crystalline monosodium glutamate — “the flavor in its purest form,” we read at the Japan Patent Office’s website. Ikeda patented this process and, with a partner, promptly began manufacturing MSG under the brand name Ajinomoto.

Full Story: Do We Really Have a 5th Taste? What Is the Umami Fad All About? | Food | AlterNet.

Heads Up, Citizen Scientists: The Moon Needs You!

We’re seeing the most detailed images of the moon’s surface ever captured from afar — thanks to NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. The space probe carries a super-powerful camera, which photographs every bit of the moon’s surface for scientists to examine.

Only one problem: The LRO is doing such a good job that the scientists can’t keep up.

Enter Oxford astrophysicist Chris Lintott. He’s asking amateur astronomers to help review, measure and classify tens of thousands of moon photos streaming to Earth. He has set up the website MoonZoo.org, where anyone can log on, get trained and become a space explorer.

“We need anybody and everybody,” Lintott tells NPR’s Guy Raz on Weekend All Things Considered.

Full Story: Heads Up, Citizen Scientists: The Moon Needs You! : NPR.

What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots

What happens when we die? Do we rot into the ground, or do we go to heaven (or hell, if we’ve been bad)? Experiments suggest the answer is simpler than anyone thought. Without the glue of consciousness, time essentially reboots.

The mystery of life and death can’t be examined by visiting the Galapagos or looking through a microscope. It lies deeper. It involves our very selves. We wake and find ourselves in the present. There are stairs below us, which we seem to have climbed; there are stairs above us, which go upward into the unknown future. But the mind stands at the door by which we entered and gives us the memories by which we go about our day. Everything is ordered and predictable. We’re like cuckoo birds who appear through a door each morning. We fancy there’s a clockwork set in motion at the beginning of time.

But if you remove everything from space, what’s left? Nothing. The same applies for time — you can’t put it in a jar. You can’t see through the bone surrounding your brain (everything you experience is information in your mind). Biocentrism tells us space and time aren’t objects — they’re the mind’s tools for putting everything together.

Full Story: Robert Lanza, M.D.: What Happens When You Die? Evidence Suggests Time Simply Reboots.

Gladiator graveyard discovered in northern England

Experts said new forensic evidence suggests the bones belong to the professional fighters, who were often killed while entertaining spectators.

Most of the skeletons were male and appeared stronger and taller than the average Roman, with signs of arm-muscle stress that suggest weapons training that began in the men’s teenage years.

The team investigating the remains said that one of the best clues was carnivore tooth marks found on the hip and shoulder of one of the skeletons.

Full Story: Gladiator graveyard discovered in northern England – Yahoo! News.

Doctors to be able to ‘print’ new organs for transplant patients | Mail Online

Doctors might one day be able to ‘print’ living body parts they need for surgery, including blood vessels and entire organs.

The astonishing technique is known as bio-printing and it could make the transplant list a thing of the past.

Currently patients on the transplant list have to wait months or even years before a suitable organ becomes available.

Full Story: Doctors to be able to ‘print’ new organs for transplant patients | Mail Online.

Scientists claim to have identified stem cells that spread cancer

Hong Kong scientists say they have identified the cancer stem cells responsible for the spread of colorectal cancer to other organs and believe the find will revolutionize treatment.

Current treatments regard all cancer cells as alike, but the Hong Kong University researchers discovered that cancers contain a small number of stem cells responsible for starting and maintaining tumors.

“It will revolutionise the approach to cancer treatment in future,” one researcher, Ronnie Poon, told the South China Morning Post.

Full Story: Scientists claim to have identified stem cells that spread cancer | Raw Story.

Source of Half Earth’s Oxygen Gets Little Credit

phytoplankton release oxygen into the water. Half of the world’s oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis.

Fish, whales, dolphins, crabs, seabirds, and just about everything else that makes a living in or off of the oceans owe their existence to phytoplankton, one-celled plants that live at the ocean surface.

Phytoplankton are at the base of what scientists refer to as oceanic biological productivity, the ability of a water body to support life such as plants, fish, and wildlife.

“A measure of productivity is the net amount of carbon dioxide taken up by phytoplankton,” said Jorge Sarmiento, a professor of atmospheric and ocean sciences at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Full Story: Source of Half Earth’s Oxygen Gets Little Credit.

OPS:  Just  some background information to keep in the back of your head as you watch the BP oil/dispersant slick and plume traveling around the World’s oceans

How much of our Planet’s oxygen generating capacity is being destroyed before our eyes….and what will be the effects?

Get ready, NASA is trying to, the next Solar Max is going to be deadly to Satellites Electric Grid

As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, explains what it’s all about:

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled “Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts.” It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Full Story: As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather – NASA Science.

Redesign Apple TV: Show Us What An Apple TV Set Would Look Like

At All Things Digital’s D conference this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs dismissed the TV industry, saying that Apple has no plans to develop a new television interface and reiterating that Apple TV was just a “hobby.”

“The TV industry has a subsidized model that gives everyone a set top box for free. So no one wants to buy a box. Ask TiVo, ask Roku, ask us… ask Google in a few months,” Jobs said, referencing Google’s new “Google TV” platform.

He went on to explain: “The only way this is going to change is if you start from scratch, tear up the box, redesign and get it to the consumer in a way that they want to buy it. But right now, there’s no way to do that.”

It’s hard to believe Jobs doesn’t have an iTV-something up his sleeve–and is content to let Google win this round with its new TV device–but since he won’t tell us what an Apple-designed television set would look like, we hope you will.

Full Story: Redesign Apple TV: Show Us What An Apple TV Set Would Look Like.

Fastest Mobile Networks In The US: PC Mag Ranks The Speediest Networks

With help from over a dozen people, PC Mag scoured the streets of cities nationwide to determine the fastest mobile networks in the country.

PC Mag, which explains its method here, notes the focus was on mobile data: “We didn't test voice quality, dropped calls or coverage areas; while those are very important measurements, these tests were all about mobile Internet.”

They ranked the fastest networks by region (Northeast, West, Southeast, Central) as well as nationwide. (See the regional results here)

Check out the top five fastest mobile networks nationwide in the slideshow below, then check out their scores

Full Story: Fastest Mobile Networks In The US: PC Mag Ranks The Speediest Networks.

Google phasing out use of Windows over security concerns

Web search group Google Inc is phasing out internal use of rival Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system because of security concerns following a Chinese hacking incident, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Citing several Google employees, the FT said the decision to move to other operating systems including Apple Inc’s Mac OS and open-source Linux began in earnest in January after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked.

Internet security firm McAfee Inc said at the time the cyber attacks on Google and other businesses had exploited a previously unknown flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, which was vulnerable on all recent versions of Windows.

Full Story: Google phasing out use of Windows over security concerns | Raw Story.

Researchers prove acupuncture’s effectiveness in pain therapy

Acupuncture eases pain in the limbs because it releases a natural molecule called adenosine, neuroscientists in the United States reported on Sunday.

The mechanism was discovered through experiments in lab mice, which were given an injection of an inflammation-inducing chemical in their right paw.

The researchers inserted fine needles below the midline of the mice’s knee, at a well-known acupuncture location called the Zusanli point.

They rotated the needle gently every five minutes for 30 minutes, mimicking a standard acupuncture treatment.

Full Story: Researchers prove acupuncture’s effectiveness in pain therapy | Raw Story.

Did aliens contact Earth in 1977?

When something truly startling happens, people say: “OMG!” or the dreaded, “Awesome!” But when Jerry Ehman sat at his kitchen table on Aug. 18, 1977, and saw six numbers and letters on the computer printout in front of him — six symbols that have become one of the grandest riddles in modern science — he chose the simplest expression of all. He took a red pen, circled the letters and then wrote:

When Jerry Ehman wrote that three-letter word, “wow,” he was a professor at Ohio State University volunteering with SETI, the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Every few days, a messenger would bike over from “The Big Ear,” Ohio State’s giant radio telescope in Delaware, Ohio, and hand Jerry computer records of sounds coming in from deep space. If something surprising popped up, he was to notify the other SETI folks.

What he saw that day was like an answered prayer.

Full Story: Aliens Found In Ohio? The Wow! Signal : NPR.

MIT’s Ridiculously Colorful Glove is the Latest Hand Tracking Interface (video)

Human computer interfaces just got a lot more colorful. Graduate student Robert Wang at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has developed a simple but effective system for tracking hand motion that only requires a webcam and a glove. That lycra glove is covered in colorful blotches designed to help the hand tracking software determine how the user is posed. The color based technique allows for cheap and speedy motion capture at an interactive rate, giving you the ability to move virtual objects on the screen. Wang has a great overview of the system in the video below – it’s the most powerful and awesome eye-sore I’ve ever seen.

There is a vast array of motion caption hardware systems in development. Gesture based control technology, which will be coming to your TV, video game console, and computer this year, relies on these systems to identify and understand hand positions and motion. Wang, and his advisor Jovan Popovic, have accomplished most of the feats I’ve seen in other hand-tracking systems, but with much simpler (and cheaper) hardware. The trick is in the colors, which gives the video sampling software reference points to determine hand orientation. Pranav Mistry (from MIT’s Media Lab) uses an even simpler version of the color enhanced tracking for his Sixth Sense personal augmented reality device – with just bits of colored tape or marker caps on his fingertips. Though both of these MIT solutions seem silly in appearance, you can’t argue with their accuracy and speed:

Full Story: MIT’s Ridiculously Colorful Glove is the Latest Hand Tracking Interface(video) | Singularity Hub.

Ancient mayor’s ‘lost tomb’ found south of Cairo

Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old tomb of the ancient Egyptian capital’s mayor, whose resting place had been lost under the desert sand since 19th century treasure hunters first carted off some of its decorative wall panels, officials announced Sunday.

Ptahmes, the mayor of Memphis, also served as army chief, overseer of the treasury and royal scribe under Seti I and his son and successor, Ramses II, in the 13th century B.C.

The discovery of his tomb earlier this year in a New Kingdom necropolis at Saqqara, south of Cairo, solves a riddle dating back to 1885, when foreign expeditions made off with pieces of the tomb, whose location was soon after forgotten.

Full Story: Ancient mayor’s ‘lost tomb’ found south of Cairo – Science- msnbc.com.

The Infuriating Cell Phone Racket

If you’re not angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — America’s four national wireless providers that reportedly control 90 percent of the market — then here’s some ridiculous news to raise your righteous ire.

Perhaps you’d be interested to know about one of the most outrageous cell phone scams? It’s simple: Charge customers for being forced to listen to 15 seconds of unnecessary voicemail instructions reminding them how to leave a message after the beep. According to New York Times technology writer David Pogue, if Verizon customers leave voicemails or check their messages twice a day, the mammoth New Jersey-based telco takes in around $620 million. In return, you lose wasted hours of your life and have to pay for it.

Speaking of Verizon, have you heard about the representative who refused to shut down a dead man’s service, even though his daughter produced a death certificate and needed the account closed so settlement of his estate could proceed? Or the rep who tried to collect an overdue $308 bill from customer Al Burrows by threatening to, and I quote, “blow your muthafucking house up”? Do we need to even talk about AT&T’s various controversies, from censoring Pearl Jam to allegedly helping the National Security Agency unlawfully monitor the American people’s communications?

Full Story: The Infuriating Cell Phone Racket | Media and Culture | AlterNet.

X51A Waverider Breaks Record For Hypersonic Flight, Travels 6 TIMES Speed Of Sound

An experimental aircraft has set a record for hypersonic flight, flying more than 3 minutes at Mach 6 – six times the speed of sound.

The X-51A Waverider was released from a B-52 Stratofortress off the southern California coast Wednesday morning, the Air Force reported on its website. Its scramjet engine accelerated the vehicle to Mach 6, and it flew autonomously for 200 seconds before losing acceleration. At that point the test was terminated.

The Air Force said the previous record for a hypersonic scramjet burn was 12 seconds.

Full Story: X51A Waverider Breaks Record For Hypersonic Flight, Travels 6 TIMES Speed Of Sound.

Fermilab scientists find evidence for significant matter-antimatter asymmetry

Scientists of the DZero collaboration at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory announced Friday, May 14, that they have found evidence for significant violation of matter-antimatter symmetry in the behavior of particles containing bottom quarks beyond what is expected in the current theory, the Standard Model of particle physics. The new result, submitted for publication in Physical Review D by the DZero collaboration, an international team of 500 physicists, indicates a one percent difference between the production of pairs of muons and pairs of antimuons in the decay of B mesons produced in high-energy collisions at Fermilab’s Tevatron particle collider.

he dominance of matter that we observe in the universe is possible only if there are differences in the behavior of particles and antiparticles. Although physicists have observed such differences (called “CP violation”) in particle behavior for decades, these known differences are much too small to explain the observed dominance of matter over antimatter in the universe and are fully consistent with the Standard Model.  If confirmed by further observations and analysis, the effect seen by DZero physicists could represent another step towards understanding the observed matter dominance by pointing to new physics phenomena beyond what we know today. Using unique features of their precision detector and newly developed analysis methods, the DZero scientists have shown that the probability that this measurement is consistent with any known effect is below 0.1 percent (3.2 standard deviations).

Full Story: Make A History.

57 Ancient Tombs With Mummies Unearthed in Egypt

Archeologists unearth 57 ancient tombs in Egypt, most boasting a painted sarcophagus and mummy

Archeologists have unearthed 57 ancient Egyptian tombs, most of which hold an ornately painted wooden sarcophagus with a mummy inside, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said Sunday.

The oldest tombs date back to around 2750 B.C. during the period of Egypt’s first and second dynasties, the council said in a statement. Twelve of the tombs belong the 18th dynasty which ruled Egypt during the second millennium B.C.

The discovery throws new light on Egypt’s ancient religions, the council said.

Egypt’s archaeology chief, Zahi Hawass, said the mummies dating to the 18th dynasty are covered in linen decorated with religious texts from the Book of the Dead and scenes featuring ancient Egyptian deities.

Abdel Rahman El-Aydi, head of the archaeological mission that made the discovery, said some of the tombs are decorated with religious texts that ancient Egyptians believed would help the deceased to cross through the underworld.

Full Story: 57 Ancient Tombs With Mummies Unearthed in Egypt – ABC News.

Egypt: Mummies Unearthed From 57 Ancient Tombs

Archeologists have unearthed 57 ancient Egyptian tombs, most of which hold an ornately painted wooden sarcophagus with a mummy inside, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said Sunday.

The oldest tombs date back to around 2750 B.C. during the period of Egypt’s first and second dynasties, the council said in a statement. Twelve of the tombs belong the 18th dynasty which ruled Egypt during the second millennium B.C.

The discovery throws new light on Egypt’s ancient religions, the council said.

Egypt’s archaeology chief, Zahi Hawass, said the mummies dating to the 18th dynasty are covered in linen decorated with religious texts from the Book of the Dead and scenes featuring ancient Egyptian deities.

Full Story: Egypt: Mummies Unearthed From 57 Ancient Tombs.

Scientists: Timor Sea metorite altered Earth’s climate

Australian scientists have discovered a crater deep beneath the Timor Sea made during a heavy meteor storm which may have altered the Earth’s climate, the lead researcher said Thursday.

Australian National University archaeologist Andrew Glikson said seismic activity led experts to the Mount Ashmore 1B site, and a study of fragments showed a large meteorite hit just before the Earth’s temperatures plunged.

“The identification of microstructural and chemical features in drill fragments taken from the Mount Ashmore drill hole revealed evidence of a significant impact,” Glikson said, adding it was at least 50 kilometres (31 miles) wide and about 35 million years old.

Full Story: Scientists: Timor Sea metorite altered Earth’s climate | Raw Story.

US team creates first ‘synthetic life’

US researchers have developed the first self-replicating bacteria cell controlled by a synthetic genome, in a breakthrough which raises new issues about recreating life in a test-tube.

“This is the first synthetic cell that’s been made,” said lead researcher Craig Venter, unveiling the culmination of 15 years of research.

“We call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer.”

The team said it now hopes to use the method it has developed “to probe the basic machinery of life and to engineer bacteria specially designed to solve environmental or energy problems.”

Full Story: US team creates first ‘synthetic life’ – Yahoo! News.

Scientists forecast decades of ash clouds

Iceland could be at the start of a surge in volcanic activity that may produce more eruptions

Many more of Iceland’s volcanoes seem to be stirring

THE Icelandic eruption that has caused misery for air travellers could be part of a surge in volcanic activity that will affect the whole of Europe for decades, scientists have warned.

They have reconstructed a timeline of 205 eruptions in Iceland, spanning the past 1,100 years, and found that they occur in regular cycles — with the relatively quiet phase that dominated the past five decades now coming to an end.

At least three other big Icelandic volcanoes are building towards an eruption, according to Thor Thordarson, a volcanologist at Edinburgh University.

“The frequency of Icelandic eruptions seems to rise and fall in a cycle lasting around 140 years,” he said. “In the latter part of the 20th century we were in a low period, but now there is evidence that we could be approaching a peak.”

Full Story: Scientists forecast decades of ash clouds – Times Online.

Delete Your Facebook Account: ‘Quit Facebook Day’ Wants Users To Leave

As controversy swells around Facebook’s latest changes to its privacy policy–which is now longer than the Constitution and offers some 50 settings and over 170 options–users’ interest in deleting their Facebook accounts has soared.

A group of dissatisfied Facebook users have teamed up in an effort to organize a mass, coordinated exodus from Facebook–and they’re using social networks to do it.

Their site, QuitFacebookDay.com, asks users to “commit to quit” Facebook on May 31 by signing their name or Twitter handle to the list of pledges.

The cause has attracted several hundred pledges–about 780 at the time of writing.

There’s also a Facebook Page devoted to the planned exit.

Full Story: Delete Your Facebook Account: ‘Quit Facebook Day’ Wants Users To Leave.

Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu signaled his lack of confidence in the industry experts trying to control BP Plc’s leaking oil well by hand-picking a team of scientists with reputations for creative problem solving.

Dispatched to Houston by President Barack Obama to deal with the crisis, Chu said Wednesday that five “extraordinarily intelligent” scientists from around the country will help BP and industry experts think of back-up plans to cut off oil from the well, leaking 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) below sea-level.

Members of the Chu team are credited with accomplishments including designing the first hydrogen bomb, inventing techniques for mining on Mars and finding a way to precisely position biomedical needles.

Full Story: Bomb Designer, Mars Expert Sent by Obama to Fix Oil Spill – Bloomberg.

‘Star Wars’ meets reality? Military testing laser weapons

Are we finally witnessing the dawn of the “death ray”?

Five decades after the creation of the laser, the ubiquitous technology of the modern era may be ready to serve up that Star Wars science-fiction staple: the laser blaster.

Advances in the technology have made it possible for military testers to shoot down incoming mortar rounds with land-based lasers, and military commanders are on the verge of being able to fire laser blasts from the air that could be aimed at tanks or mines.

“We literally are the invisible death ray, let me tell you,” says Mike Rinn of Boeing’s Airborne Laser Program in Seattle, a missile- defense effort, one among dozens of Defense Department-supported “directed energy” programs run by military contractors such as Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.

“This beam is invisible to the naked eye; you can’t see it.”

Full Story: ‘Star Wars’ meets reality? Military testing laser weapons – USATODAY.com.

Asphalt volcanoes discovered off California: 40,000 years ago

Seven small undersea “volcanoes” that once spewed asphalt into the Pacific Ocean have been mapped off the coast of California. They could be the cause of a prehistoric marine dead zone thought to exist in the area.

David Valentine and colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, surveyed the sea floor and discovered the mounds, the largest of which rises 20 metres above the seabed, made from tar. Some were still releasing methane. It is the first time that asphalt volcanoes have been identified in the area. Valentine says they formed as sticky hydrocarbons seeped from the seabed around 40,000 years ago.

Methane would also have been released at a rate that greatly exceeds today’s output, with devastating consequences for the local ecosystem. The gas would have attracted bacteria that metabolise methane and deplete oxygen. That fits with analysis of sea-floor sediments, which suggests that a dead zone of around 600 square kilometres formed here about 40,000 years ago.

Full Story: Asphalt volcanoes discovered off California – environment – 27 April 2010 – New Scientist.

A World of Benefits from Biotechnology? For Whom?

When the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) met in Chicago last week they were, no doubt, elated to hear that the U.S. State Department would be aggressively confronting critics of agricultural biotechnology.

Wouldn’t you think the State Department might have more pressing issues than carrying water for Monsanto and the rest of the biotechnology industry?

Jose Fernandez, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Economic, Energy and Business Affairs noted that the State Department was ready to take on the naysayers. In addition to confronting the critics, Fernandez stated they would be building alliances (presumably with the biotech industry and foreign governments), anticipating roadblocks to acceptance and highlighting the science.

Highlighting the science, that’s rich, to this point the only “science” they can highlight is the fact that nearly 100% of the commercially available genetically modified (GM) crops worldwide are engineered to be insecticidal, resistant to herbicide application, or both.

Full Story: A World of Benefits from Biotechnology? For Whom? | CommonDreams.org.

Octopus Kills Shark

Think you know the outcome when its shark versus octopus? Think again!

China scientists find use for cigarette butts

Chemical extracts from cigarette butts — so toxic they kill fish — can be used to protect steel pipes from rusting, a study in China has found.

In a paper published in the American Chemical Society’s bi-weekly journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, the scientists in China said they identified nine chemicals after immersing cigarette butts in water.

They applied the extracts to N80, a type of steel used in oil pipes, and found that they protected the steel from rusting.

“The metal surface can be protected and the iron atom’s further dissolution can be prevented,” they wrote.

Full Story: China scientists find use for cigarette butts – Yahoo! News.

Will Machines Take Over the World? The Scientific Turning Point

Imagine watching TV without a screen or communicating with friends without a phone or facebook. Would you have an implant to have virtual sex with anyone you wanted — or to be stronger or smarter? What’s the status of the science? When do humans become obsolete?

It’s not a matter of if, but rather when it’s going to happen. We already know how to clone entire organisms — for instance, our team has cloned herds of cows and even the first human embryos and endangered species (Science 294, 1893, 2001), we’ve reversed aging at the cellular level (Science 288, 665, 2000), and we’ve made progress growing replacement tissues for every organ system of the body, including the heart and kidney (Nature Biotechnology 20, 689, 2002). However, there’s one organ that’s a far greater challenge: the brain.

I remember a journey I took with my dog Shepp. I’d wandered miles, when from the trees came the sound of a train. Clatter-clatter-rap-rap! To Shepp, still a puppy and a few days out of the pound, it’s possible an extraterrestrial would look not unlike the steel caterpillar that rounded the corner, thunder billowing out of its nostrils. It seemed so alive. Shepp let out a yelp. You can scarce imagine his expression as it rushed toward us rattling the earth. “It’s not alive,” I said, more to myself than to Shepp. How could I convey that it was only a lump of metal and quite unconscious — that it was only a machine with sliding bars and wheels hauling TV sets into the city? A loud whoosh and it vanished into the trees.

Full Story: Robert Lanza, M.D.: Will Machines Take Over the World? The Scientific Turning Point.

Off-the-shelf genetics tests to hit US pharmacies

Want to find out what diseases await you in the future, your chances of developing Alzheimer’s? Or whether you will pass something on to your child? Then a trip to the pharmacy may reveal all.

Biotech firm Pathway Genomics announced Tuesday that personalized DNA tests to detect the risks of developing certain diseases will soon be available at Walgreens, a large chain of pharmacies.

It would be the first time that such tests would be commercially available for consumers, even though the company has offered them online for some time.

The Pathway Genomics kit, dubbed the “Insight Saliva Collection,” enables the user to take saliva swabs following simple instructions and send them off to a California laboratory for analysis.

Full Story: AFP: Off-the-shelf genetics tests to hit US pharmacies.

Team Harnessing Power of Photosynthesis To Make ‘Green’ Fuel

When people at cocktail parties used to ask Charles Schmuttenmaer what he did, he would say he was a chemistry professor who worked on transient-photo conductivity in gallium arsenide. “At that point they would generally ask me to pass the chips,” the Yale chemist says with a laugh.

Now Schmuttenmaer tells them he’s working on a way to harness the power of the sun to produce carbon-neutral fuel. “And then the response is, ‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Way to go!’” he says.

A few years ago, Schmuttenmaer never imagined he’d be working to solve the world’s energy problem. But that’s exactly what he now does as one of the four founding members of the Yale Solar Group — a team of chemists trying to use sunlight to split water into its elementary components: hydrogen (a green fuel) and oxygen. In doing so, they hope to pave the way for the development of photoelectrochemical cells that could be used to generate an environmentally benign transportation fuel.

It’s a challenge two of the team members — Yale chemists Gary Brudvig and Robert Crabtree — have been working on for the past 25 years, studying the process of photosynthesis and how to replicate it in artificial, “biomimetic” systems.

Full Story: Team Harnessing Power of Photosynthesis To Make ‘Green’ Fuel.

U.S. should prepare for a cyber attack that will ruin the country in just 15 MINUTES, expert warns

The U.S. should prepare for a cyber attack that could cause destruction on the scale of 9/11 in less than 15 minutes, a leading anti-terrorism expert has warned.

Richard Clarke, a former adviser to both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, suggests that the lack of security in place against such an attack could lead to an ‘electronic Pearl Harbor’.

Writing in his new book Cyber War: The Next National Security Threat, penned with Robert Knake, Mr Clarke says: ‘The biggest secret about cyber war may be that at the very same time the U.S. prepares for offensive cyber war, it is continuing policies that make it impossible to defend effectively from cyber attack.’

In the book, Mr Clarke suggests that a cyber attack would first target the Pentagon’s computer network, before affecting the rest of the country’s electrical grids.

Full Story: U.S. should prepare for a cyber attack that will ruin the country in just 15 MINUTES, expert warns | Mail Online.

Timothy Karr: Net Neutrality’s Weird Week

On Thursday, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski blinked. He balked. He backed away from phone and cable companies and moved toward broadband policies that will preserve the open Internet and promote universal access.

For a moment, the chairman had a lot of people worried. A Washington Post story from earlier in the week indicated that Genachowski was going to cave to pressure from AT&T and Comcast lobbyists and abandon his pledge to protect Net Neutrality.

Several sources within the agency painted a picture of a chairman with no appetite to do battle with entrenched special interests. And these companies would have kept their stranglehold on policymaking at the FCC were it not for the massive public response in the wake of the Post’s story.

Full Story: Timothy Karr: Net Neutrality’s Weird Week.

Nasa Seeks ‘Warp Drive’, Anti-Gravity Space Craft

Len Hart,

The state of Texas and NASA hope to take an early lead in interstellar space travel with technologies that sound like dialogue from Star Trek or Star Wars peppered with terms like 'Warp Drive' and, prominently, 'anti-gravity'. Simplistically, a new generation of space-craft may be capable of producing 'tuned' gravity waves by which it may literally surf a veritable 'grid' of gravity waves that form a cosmic, universal 'net'.

The term breakthrough propulsion refers to concepts like space drives and faster-than-light travel, the kind of breakthroughs that would make interstellar travel practical.

For a general explanation of the challenges and approaches of interstellar flight, please visit the companion web site:Warp Drive: When? The Warp-When site is written for the general public and uses icons of science fiction to help convey such notions. This web site, on the other hand, is intended for scientists and engineers.

Full Story: The Existentialist Cowboy: Nasa Seeks ‘Warp Drive’, Anti-Gravity Space Craft.

Japan’s Brainwave Initiative: Mind-Reading Bots by 2020

On April 22nd 2010, the U.S. press was fussing over the Tea Party, illegal aliens (not the outer space kind), and Earth Day. But in Japan, a short cryptic statement in the Nikkei, Japan’s largest business newspaper, made a startling announcement about a somewhat different vision of the future — a goal to make available commercial mind-reading devices and personal assistant bots within the next 10 years.

It’s not surprising that the Japanese government and private sector would collaborate on a new initiative to develop bots with AI capable of detecting when you’re hungry, cold, or in need of assistance, and electronics that can be controlled by thought alone. BMI (Brain-Machine Interface) technology typically involves an EEG sensor connected to a computer that can be controlled purely by thought (or, more accurately, brainwaves). Research and early prototypes include full helmets, headbands, and direct brain implants to capture and interpret brainwaves.

While the U.S. Army actively pursues “thought helmets” that might someday lead to secure mind-to-mind communication between soldiers, the Japanese are going after the consumer market. The aim is to produce BMI technology to change TV channels or to use mobile phones to send text messages composed by thought alone. Several years ago, Hitachi, a major Japanese TV manufacturer, announced the goal of a commercial BMI by 2011 — and they are actively pursuing thought-controlled TV. If you’ve experienced the new immersive 3D TV technology, it’s not hard to imagine a near out-of-body-experience with a thought-controlled game controller as you navigate through 3D virtual space and visit your Second Life and World of Warcraft (WoW) friends at remote locations.

Full Story: Japan’s Brainwave Initiative: Mind-Reading Bots by 2020 | h+ Magazine.

FCC will seek to regulate Internet providers

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission plans to seek clear-cut powers to regulate Internet service providers, redefining the government’s role over at least parts of the fast-growing industry.

The proposal, to be announced Thursday, is expected to be opposed by broadband network operators such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, whose Internet access businesses are becoming their main source of revenue as consumers rely on the Web as a primary communication tool.

Internet companies such as Google and Skype and public interest groups are applauding the move because it would allow the FCC to carry out policies to expand broadband access nationwide. The groups also support the commission’s efforts to create a regulation that would force broadband service providers to treat all applications equally over high-speed Internet networks, a concept known as net neutrality.

Full Story: FCC will seek to regulate Internet providers.

U3-X Personal Mobility Prototype

With U3-X Honda rethinks the concept of personal mobility, providing the rider with freedom of movement in any direction forward, backward, sideways and diagonally by simply leaning slightly in the desired direction. The lightweight and compact one-wheeled device also features a foldable seat and retractable footrests. A lithium-ion battery pack provides power for up to one-hour of use and can be recharged by plugging in to a conventional household or office 120-volt power outlet.

Weighing roughly 22 pounds, U3-X uses an advanced Honda proprietary balance-control system which derives from its research into human walking dynamics for the development of the ASIMO bi-pedal humanoid robot. To realize full freedom of movement in all directions, the U3-X also employs the worlds first omni-directional driving wheel system (Honda Omni Traction Drive System) which utilizes a series of concentrically mounted wheels a larger, forward and backward moving inner wheel and a series of smaller sideways moving outer wheels. Diagonal motion is achieved when both forward and sideways moving wheels operate in tandem.

In addition, the compact size and one-wheel-drive design of U3-X was intended to provide user-friendly and pedestrian-friendly operation with low-mounted foot pedals that make it easy for the rider to reach the ground, and a seat height that places the rider at approximately the same eye-level as other people.

Category:

Full Story: YouTube – U3-X Personal Mobility Prototype.

FCC to Restore Authority Over Net Neutrality, Broadband Service: Netroots Backlash Cited

In response to widespread netroots backlash, the chairman of the FCC has decided to choose a path toward a broadband policy framework that will protect Net Neutrality and promote universal access.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Chairman plans to restore the status quo as it existed prior to the court decision in order to fulfill the agency’s goals to bring broadband to all Americans and preserve a free and open Internet. The recent court decision determined that changed made by the Bush-era FCC had stripped the agency from authority to regulate Internet broadband providers like Comcast and ATT.

Assuming that the Chairman’s proposal is reasonable, it is a clear signal that the FCC is backing away from the cliff, and charting a path toward a sensible broadband policy framework that will protect consumers and promote universal access.

Full Story: Josh Silver: FCC to Restore Authority Over Net Neutrality, Broadband Service: Netroots Backlash Cited.

Brain shuts off in response to healer’s prayer

WHEN we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for scepticism and vigilance become less active. That’s the finding of a study which looked at people’s response to prayers spoken by someone purportedly possessing divine healing powers.

To identify the brain processes underlying the influence of charismatic individuals, Uffe Schjødt of Aarhus University in Denmark and colleagues turned to Pentecostal Christians, who believe that some people have divinely inspired powers of healing, wisdom and prophecy.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Schjødt and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers while playing them recorded prayers. The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians.

Full Story: Brain shuts off in response to healer’s prayer – life – 27 April 2010 – New Scientist.

Blizzard On Saturn Is So Massive It’s Visible From Earth

Thanks to NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which is currently orbiting Saturn, scientists have a front row seat to the massive blizzard raging on the planet. The storm is so large that it’s visible from Earth, much to the delight of amateur stargazers.

“We were so excited to get a heads-up from the amateurs,” said Cassini scientist Gordon Bjoraker, a composite infrared spectrometer team member based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The data showed a large, turbulent storm, dredging up a lot of material from the deep atmosphere and covering an area at least five times larger than the biggest blizzard that hit Earth so far this year — the “Snowmageddon” storm that blanketed the Washington, D.C. area in snow in February.

Full Story: Blizzard On Saturn Is So Massive It’s Visible From Earth.

Steve Jobs Slams Adobe Flash As Unfit For iPhone

For iPhone users who’ve been wondering whether their devices will support Flash technology for Web video and games anytime soon, the answer is finally here, straight from Steve Jobs: No.

In a detailed offensive against the technology owned by Adobe Systems Inc., Apple’s CEO wrote Thursday that Flash has too many bugs, drains batteries too quickly and is too oriented to personal computers to work on the iPhone and iPad.

This is not the first time Jobs has publicly criticized Flash, but the statement was his clearest, most definitive – and longest – on the subject.

Full Story: Steve Jobs Slams Adobe Flash As Unfit For iPhone.

NASA mulls 28 potential ’search for life’ missions

US space agency NASA is pondering 28 potential missions focusing on finding life beyond Earth inside our solar system, a US researcher said Wednesday.

“Astrobiology and the search for life is really central to what we should be doing next in the exploration of the solar system,” Steve Squyres, a researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said in a telephone press briefing.

“We are looking for a total of 28 different missions…. They cover everything from Mercury landers to fly-by of objects in deep outer space of the solar system — and they are particularly relevant to looking for life,” he explained.

Full Story: NASA mulls 28 potential ’search for life’ missions | Raw Story.

Ice On Asteroid Suggests Earth’s Water Came From Space

Scientists have found lots of life-essential water – frozen as ice – in an unexpected place in our solar system: an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.

The discovery of significant asteroid ice has several consequences. It could help explain where early Earth first got its water. It makes asteroids more attractive to explore, dovetailing with President Barack Obama’s announcement earlier this month that astronauts should visit an asteroid. And it even muddies the definition between comets and asteroids, potentially triggering a Pluto-like scientific spat over what to call these solar system bodies.

This asteroid has an extensive but thin frosty coating. It is likely replenished by an extensive reservoir of frozen water deep inside rock once thought to be dry and desolate, scientists report in two studies in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.

Full Story: Ice On Asteroid Suggests Earth’s Water Came From Space.

Loch Ness Monster Files Show Scottish Cops Were Worried

What lurks beneath the dark waters of Scotland’s Loch Ness? Newly released documents on display Tuesday in Scotland show that during the 1930s, police in Scotland were convinced some sort of creature inhabited the Highlands lake – so sure, in fact, that they worried about how to protect it from big-game hunters.

The files from the National Archive of Scotland show that local officials asked Britain’s Parliament to investigate the issue and confirm the monster’s existence – in the interests of science.

“That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness now seems beyond doubt,” wrote William Fraser, a senior police officer, “but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful.”

Full Story: Loch Ness Monster Files Show Scottish Cops Were Worried.

Magnetic refuge found on moon

A mini magnetic field has been detected on the surface of the moon

A miniature magnetic field has been imaged on the surface of the moon, making it a rare, minimally protective lunar refuge from some aspects of the harsh solar wind.

The magnetic region could be a great place to site a lunar base, since tomorrow’s lunar colonists will not only need water (check!), but some protection from the heavy radiation in the solar wind.

“You can think of it as kind of a mini umbrella,” said Martin Wieser of the Swedish Institute of Space Physics in Kiruna, Sweden. “It will be effective for certain kinds of (space) weather.

Full Story: Magnetic refuge found on moon – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Science at ‘the end of the beginning of the renaissance’ of psychedelic research

The big white pill was brought to her in an earthenware chalice. She’d already held hands with her two therapists and expressed her wishes for what it would help her do.

She swallowed it, lay on the couch with her eyes covered, and waited. And then it came.

“The world was made up of jewels and I was in a dome,” she recalled. Surrounded by brilliant, kaleidoscopic colors, she saw the dome open up to admit “this most incredible luminescence that made everything even more beautiful.”

Tears trickled down her face as she saw “how beautiful the world could actually be.”

Full Story: Science at ‘the end of the beginning of the renaissance’ of psychedelic research | Raw Story.

Research into stem cells of adults stirs hopes

Many researchers are coming to believe they can achieve as much using adult stem cells as using controversial human embryonic stem cells.

A year after President Barack Obama eased restrictions on research into embryonic stem cells and pledged billions in new stimulus money for it, researchers are almost giddy with enthusiasm about progress in the field. They’re confident stem cells will treat — maybe someday cure — heart disease, diabetes, spinal cord injury and other disorders.

But the excitement is not generated by stem cells harvested from human embryos.

Instead, researchers are coming to believe they can get results almost as good from adult stem cells taken from the patient’s own bone marrow or belly fat, and even full-fledged adult cells from muscle tissue or skin.

Full Story: Research into stem cells of adults stirs hopes – Medical Research – MiamiHerald.com.

Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Fear Aliens

World renowned scientist Stephen Hawking believes extraterrestrial life almost certainly exists — and humans should be extremely cautious about interacting with it.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” Hawking says in a new Discovery Channel series called Stephen Hawking’s Universe. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

Full Story: Stephen Hawking: Humans Should Fear Aliens.

Earth Day: 10 Incredible Hubble Telescope Images Of Our Universe (PHOTOS)

My place in Hubble’s story began after completing my Ph.D. work at Northwestern University and then going to Princeton to work as a young researcher. I could never have imagined that after being hired by NASA in 1978, I would become Hubble’s chief scientist in 1979, a job I would hold for 20 years.

The Hubble story is a teachable moment in perseverance and unparalleled teamwork. Hubble launched aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in April 1990. Astronomers’ dreams were finally fulfilled with a large, optically superb telescope orbiting above the Earth’s distorting atmosphere to provide uniquely clear and deep views of the cosmos.

During Hubble’s initial check out, scientists discovered it was near-sighted. The supposedly perfect primary mirror had been ground into the wrong shape. This imperfection was one-fiftieth the width of a human hair, but it prevented light from the outer regions of the mirror coming into focus at the same point as light from the inner regions. In science terminology, this is called a spherical aberration.
Full Story: Edward J. Weiler: Earth Day: 10 Incredible Hubble Telescope Images Of Our Universe (PHOTOS).

FCC Commissioner Michael Copps Explains Public Interest In Regulating Internet (VIDEO)

Net netrality won’t be achieved “without a fight,” according to FCC Commissioner Michael Copps.

Copps discusses open internet with Bill Moyers in an interview for “Bill Moyers Journal” that’s set to air Friday, April 23.

Copps argues that because of the media shift online, it is in the public interest to regulate the administration of internet service.

Copps: This is a tough question for America right now. Here you’ve got this dynamic technology that thrives on openness,that thrives on innovation… and you don’t want to regulate or artificially limit it. But at the end of the day, if that’s where everything is moving, if that’s where our national dialogue, if that’s where our civic dialogue is moving, there is a public interest component to that….

I think at the end of the day, you have to come to that conclusion: we have a public interest in how this is used to inform and serve the American people.

The interview comes at a difficult time for the Federal Communications Commission.

Full Story: FCC Commissioner Michael Copps Explains Public Interest In Regulating Internet (VIDEO).

Call Grows Louder for FCC to Reclassify Broadband | CommonDreams.org

In the last few days, both the New York Times and noted digital activist Lawrence Lessig have joined the call for the FCC to reclassify broadband, which would once again allow the government to regulate the Internet in the face of hostile money-grubbing from big phone and cable companies after a federal court denied them that right a few weeks ago. It would also allow the FCC to protect net neutrality and ensure the Internet is open for all, not just for the rich.

By way of background, all the FCC needs to do to regulate the Internet – the most important communications medium of our time and well within the FCC's mission – is reverse a Bush-era mistake:

Under intense pressure from phone and cable companies, the Bush FCC chose to reclassify broadband as an “information service” instead of a “communications service” that provides strong regulatory oversight of traditional telephone services. Problem is, the “information service” classification so lacks the required regulatory authority, that the court just decided the FCC can't do anything. University of Michigan's Susan Crawford explains it in detail here.

Full Story: Call Grows Louder for FCC to Reclassify Broadband | CommonDreams.org.

Four of the Most Dangerous Fraudulent Scientific Theories That Must Be Confronted

Climate-induced earthquakes, bottomless pits of oil, pet dinosaurs and a miraculous energy source: For the sake of public policy, it’s important to debunk the lies.

With threats of climatic disruption, food and energy shortages, epidemics, waves of extinctions, and other calamities looming larger every day, reports from the world of scientific research are getting plenty of attention in the media. But at times, scientific conclusions become garbled in translation, leading to widespread adoption of some bizarre beliefs.

Weird science can be entertaining, and we can often learn something by debating even the wackiest claims. But in the end, for the sake of sound public policy, it’s important to know what’s true and what’s not.

Five years ago, I made an attempt to separate fact from fiction (and found mostly fiction) in seven scientific beliefs widely held by America’s religious right, from the myth that condoms are full of holes to the “discovery” that prayers uttered on one continent can improve the outcomes of medical procedures on another.

Full Story: Four of the Most Dangerous Fraudulent Scientific Theories That Must Be Confronted | Environment | AlterNet.

iPhone HD Pictures Leaked?

Possible iPhone 4G Photos Found -

Speculation has been growing that Apple plans to unveil the next generation of iPhones, which have been called the ‘iPhone HD’ or ‘iPhone 4G.’

In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal, citing ‘people briefed on the matter,’ suggested that Apple could be introducing two new iPhone models sometime later this year.

BoyGeniusReport added fuel to the fire with reports that AT&T had blocked employees from taking vacations in June–a restriction that reportedly occurs only for iPhone launches.

Full Story: iPhone HD Pictures Leaked? Possible iPhone 4G Photos Found.

Obama’s Asteroid Goal: Tougher, Riskier Than Moon

Landing a man on the moon was a towering achievement. Now the president has given NASA an even harder job, one with a certain Hollywood quality: sending astronauts to an asteroid, a giant speeding rock, just 15 years from now.

Space experts say such a voyage could take several months longer than a journey to the moon and entail far greater dangers.

“It is really the hardest thing we can do,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said.

Going to an asteroid could provide vital training for an eventual mission to Mars. It might help unlock the secrets of how our solar system formed. And it could give mankind the know-how to do something that has been accomplished only in the movies by a few square-jawed, squinty-eyed heroes: saving the Earth from a collision with a killer asteroid.

Full Story: Obama’s Asteroid Goal: Tougher, Riskier Than Moon.

Solar ERUPTION: Powerful Sun Activity Captured By NASA Spacecraft (VIDEO)

NASA’s STEREO spacecraft has captured spectacular images of a solar eruption, the largest solar prominence in 15 years.

The activity was caught on camera in extreme UV light as the prominence blasted away from the sun on April 12 and April 13.

Prominences are cool clouds of plasma that hover above the Sun’s surface, notoriously unstable and on occasion they erupt like this one. However, this one was much more dramatic than most, NASA says.

NASA pieced together images to create this amazing video clip, showing about 19 hours of activity.

WATCH THE SOLAR ERUPTION:

Full Story: Solar ERUPTION: Powerful Sun Activity Captured By NASA Spacecraft (VIDEO).

Saturn Video Captures Extraterrestrial Lightning For First Time EVER (VIDEO)

Using images of Saturn’s night side taken by the Cassini spacecraft, NASA has created the first-ever video showing powerful extraterrestrial lightning strikes.

The footage comes from Saturn, where electrical storms can rage for months.

This particular video, shot in November 2009, shows a storm cloud nearly 2,000 miles long and lightning flashes almost 200 miles in diameter.

NASA reports on the landmark data:

After waiting years for Saturn to dim enough for the spacecraft’s cameras to detect bursts of light, scientists were able to create the movie, complete with a soundtrack that features the crackle of radio waves emitted when lightning bolts struck.

Full Story: Saturn Video Captures Extraterrestrial Lightning For First Time EVER (VIDEO).