It’s not just a pipe dream. The Seasteading Institute, a think-tank out of California, is working on developing sustainable cities on the world’s oceans.

The nonprofit company believe these “seasteads,” or independent, floating cities, are the key to creating havens of societal happiness — a way to experiment with innovative governments and promote free thinking.

The idea is especially appealing among libertarians, including PayPal Founder Peter Thiel, who has donated millions to the project.

Full Story Here: Floating Cities Could Be A Reality Within Decades (VIDEO).

Volcanoes.

“The new study suggests that the onset of the little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions,” According to a statement from the American Geophysical Union. These “erupting volcanoes…cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space.”

Normally, the effects would persist for only a few years. But study co-author Bette Otto-Bliesner, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told the Daily Mail that “The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries.”

Full Story Here: Volcanoes Caused Little Ice Age, Baffin Island Study Suggests.

A team of shipwreck hunters that found a strange circular object on the floor of the Baltic Sea in 2011 now says they have discovered visual evidence of a second “disc-like shape” some 200 meters from the original find, CNN reports.

Peter Lindberg, who leads the group, previously joked to CNN that the first object they found 300 feet below the surface might be an unidentified flying object.

When the object, which has a diameter of 195 feet, was first discovered in June of last year, many believers thought it was a wrecked UFO that had crashed onto the seafloor and left behind a path of destruction measuring some 900 feet, according to News.com.au.

CNN explains how the team discovered the objects:

The imaging technique involves pulling a sonar “towfish” — that essentially looks sideways underwater — behind a boat, where it creates sound echoes to map the sea floor below.

The team is waiting until the spring to further investigate their intriguing discovery.

Full Story Here: UFO Found In Baltic Sea? (VIDEO).

NASA on Wednesday added four spectacular images to its 20,500-photo database of high-resolution images of Mars.

These new images were taken in November and December of 2011 by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Launched in 2005, the MRO’s mission is to look for signs that water existed on the red planet for an extended length of time, explore the planet’s climate and study its geology.

In addition to the HiRISE camera, the orbiter is also equipped with instruments that analyze minerals and monitor the weather on the planet, among others.

Full Story Here: Mars Pictures: NASA Releases New Images From Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (PHOTOS).

How did life originate from lifeless matter? It’s a question that has long puzzled scientists – and fueled the doubts of those who question the overwhelming scientific evidence that evolutionary processes explain the origins of life. But chemists at England’s University of York and University of Nottingham are reporting what they call a significant advance toward our understanding of the chemistry of a pair of sugar molecules that are essential for life.

Their research, published in Organic & Biomolecular Chemistry, essentially recreates the process that may have led to the formation of two sugars, threose and erythrose.

“There are a lot of fundamental questions about the origins of life and many people think they are questions about biology,” University of York researcher Dr. Paul Clarke said in a written statement. “But for life to have evolved, you have to have a moment when non-living things become living – everything up to that point is chemistry.”

Full Story Here: Origins Of Life Clues Revealed By Sugar Study.

Without research into risks, “the future of safe and sustainable nanotechnology-based materials, products, and processes is uncertain”

Not enough is known about the potential hazards of nanotechnology, and millions of dollars more a year are needed to study the potential health and environmental effects of it, said the National Research Council yesterday.

The panel’s findings come from a study sponsored by the EPA.

Full Story Here: Study: Potential Hazards of Nanotechnology Not Known | Common Dreams.

Vinegar is more than something you use while cooking and baking. From cleaning to laundry, the sour stuff has a host of other uses. Here are my favorite five ways you can use vinegar inside (and outside) your home.

Household Disinfectant. During the days of the Black Plague, it was believed that vinegar would ward off disease. Technically they were right. Vinegar is effective bacteria killer, and you can use it for household cleaning purposes, ranging from scrubbing the tub to even cleaning mirrors or stainless steel. You can use the vinegar straight-up.

Windshield De-Icer. If the forecast calls for frost, ensure a morning free of scraping with a coat of this preventative solution: 3 parts vinegar to 1 part water. Simply spritz over your windshield for a few weeks’ worth of protection.

Drain Unclogger. Remember the science experiments you would do as a kid with the volcano made of vinegar and baking soda? Try putting a little bit of baking soda into a clogged drain and then pour vinegar into it. Your volcano, I mean drain, will erupt and the reaction helps break down down. The best part about this method is that is much safer than industrial chemical drain cleaners, which are toxic to your pets and children.

Full Story Here: How To Be Organized: 5 Uses For Vinegar.

Stem cells sure are versatile. They’re being eyed as the key to treating medical conditions ranging from heart disease to neurological problems and blindness.

Can stem cells make a better mousetrap? Maybe not, but a provocative new study shows they’re capable of making something even more impressive:

A better rat penis.

And while rats might not care, urologists say the feat could be very good news for men suffering from Peyronie’s disease and other deformities of the penis.

For the study, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers led by Tulane University urologic surgeon Dr. Wayne Hellstrom tested tissue grafts on rats whose penises had been surgically scarred.

Full Story Here: Stem Cells Shown To Help Penis Problems In Rats.

A recently discovered mysterious “winged” structure in England, which in the Roman period may have been used as a temple, presents a puzzle for archaeologists, who say the building has no known parallels.

Built around 1,800 years ago, the structure was discovered in Norfolk, in eastern England, just to the south of the ancient town of Venta Icenorum. The structure has two wings radiating out from a rectangular room that in turn leads to a central room.

“Generally speaking, [during] the Roman Empire people built within a fixed repertoire of architectural forms,” said William Bowden, a professor at the University of Nottingham, who reported the find in the most recent edition of the Journal of Roman Archaeology. The investigation was carried out in conjunction with the Norfolk Archaeological and Historical Research Group.

Full Story Here: Roman Ruins In England Found To Have Mysterious ‘Winged’ Structure.

Trekkies, take heart. A scientific breakthrough involving a form of infrared radiation known as terahertz (THz) waves could lead to handheld medical scanners reminiscent of the “tricorder” featured on the original Star Trek television series.

What’s the breakthrough? Using nanotechnology, physicists in London and Singapore found a way to make a beam of the”T-rays”–which are now used in full-body airport security scanners–stronger and more directional. The advance, which was described in a recent issue of the journal Nature Photonics, could lead to T-ray scanning devices that are smaller and more portable than existing devices.

“T-rays promise to revolutionize medical scanning to make it faster and more convenient, potentially relieving patients from the inconvenience of complicated diagnostic procedures and the stress of waiting for accurate results, one of the scientists behind the breakthrough, Stefan Maier, a professor of physics at Imperial College London, said in a written statement.

Like a tricorder, the T-ray scanners envisioned by the researchers would sense, compute, and transmit diagnostic data. For example, the scanners would be able to check DNA and detect tumors noninvasively and on the spot.

Full Story Here: Star Trek’s Tricorder Medical Scanner May Become Reality, Thanks To Nanotechnology Breakthrough.

At the center of our galaxy, an enormous black hole has worked invisibly for billions of years, and now scientists are gearing up to snap its picture.

A conference will be held to discuss the never-before-attempted photographic gambit on January 18 at the University of Arizona (UA). There scientists will map out an interstellar imaging project that astronomers of previous decades never could have imagined.

Why unimaginable? According to the statement,

Even though the black hole suspected to sit at the center of our galaxy is a supermassive one at 4 million times the mass of the sun, it is tiny to the eyes of astronomers. Smaller than Mercury’s orbit around the sun, yet almost 26,000 light years away, it appears about the same size as a grapefruit on the moon.

Getting the picture will be a herculean task. The team will connect 50 telescopes of all sizes, from Hawaii to the South Pole, and use them as components of a single, enormous virtual telescope. The Event Horizon Telescope, as the project is called, will bring scientists “as close to the edge of black hole as we will ever come,” according to the telescope’s website. “In essence,” said Sheperd Doeleman, principal investigator of the project, “we are making a virtual telescope with a mirror that is as big as the Earth.”

Full Story Here: Black Hole Picture, Never Before Possible, To Be Planned At University Of Arizona Conference.

Roku is thinking outside its set-top box in an attempt to bring more Internet video to flat-panel televisions.

The new approach will rely on a finger-sized device that won’t require extra cords or separate remote controls to stream video over high-speed Internet connections. The product, called the Roku Streaming Stick, will plug directly into a high-definition port available on a growing number of new-breed TVs, just as a flash drive fits into a computer’s USB outlet.

The streaming stick won’t be available until the second half of this year, but Roku announced it Wednesday to get a jump on the onslaught of consumer gadgets that will be unveiled next week at an annual electronics show in Las Vegas.

Roku’s streaming stick will only work on televisions that have mobile high-definition links. The technology, known as MHL, is being backed by a group that includes Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp.

Full Story Here: Roku Streaming Stick Expands Company’s Horizons Beyond Set-Top Boxes.

As we flip the calendar to 2012, we get the first blast of space news, and the resurgent relevance of human space exploration. China just announced plans to lead humanity in to the moon and beyond, the tail of their comet a strong defense mindset. The Chinese challenge comes at a time of a dangerous convergence, the international debt crisis and a contentious, highly consequential presidential election. In short, 2012 is an inflection year — the year we will and must decide whether the U.S. has the will and ability to lead the world in human space exploration. For me, I am betting we do — and here is how I suggest we begin.

In 1969, Neil Armstrong and I walked on the moon. Shortly thereafter, I participated in work on the “next generation of space transportation systems.” Without getting too technical, my strong tendency was to support a two-stage reusable launch system, with crew only in the second stage, allowing a first stage to return to Earth unmanned. This seemed both efficient and safer than the alternatives. I found myself on the minority side of the discussion, and relented. Over the past forty years, I have had multiple of occasions to regret that decision. We are now at another turning point — and this time, we must resolve to do it right.

Full Story Here: Buzz Aldrin: American Space Exploration Leadership — Why and How.

Seeing images of Earth from space can be quite mesmerizing, but what about time lapse videos of trips around the planet? Below, we’ve compiled some of our favorite time lapse videos of outer space and the night sky from 2011.

From International Space Station flyovers to time lapses of the night sky, these videos bring the beauties of space to life.

If you can’t get enough of the best of the natural world in 2011, check out these photos of auroras and these fascinating pictures of meteor showers and eclipses.

Check out some of the best space and sky time lapse videos of 2011 and vote for your favorites.

Full Story Here: Space And Sky Time Lapses Of 2011 (VIDEOS).

Elon Musk, the man who helped make Internet commerce possible for the everyman by creating PayPal, wants to bring space travel to the masses as well. And not that just putting a proverbial foot in space and then returning right away to Earth. Musk hopes his private space company SpaceX will bring millions to Mars. Says the New Scientist’s Greg Klerkx:

In his Heinlein prize acceptance speech, he said he wants to put 10,000 people on Mars. Musk rarely makes public statements merely for effect but a call for 10,000 would-be Martians is extraordinary, even by his standards. When I query him on this point, he pauses. Is he reconsidering? Yes… but, as with so much else about Musk, not in a predictable way. “Ultimately we don’t really want 10,000 people on Mars,” he says, after letting the pause linger a few seconds more. “We want millions.”

Musk estimates that SpaceX’s first mission to Mars will come in as soon as 10 years—and his more conservative estimate is just 20. And to carry out his plans, Musk tells Klerkx that he will require a positively frugal $2 billion to $5 billion.

A few weeks ago, Musk took his space case to the National Press Club, where he told an audience that he wants life to become interplanetary. Bringing life to new planets, Musk argues, is just a further step in human evolution.

Full Story Here: Elon Musk: SpaceX will bring man to Mars in less than 20 years. [VIDEO].

A few days ago, we brought you a report on the most popular mobile apps of 2011, in terms of downloads. (Quick version: You all really love Angry Birds). Now, new research from mobile analytics firm Mobilewalla lays out a different app landscape: The apps with the highest user ratings across iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone.

Before we reveal the list, let’s talk methodology: Mobilewalla didn’t simply look at the scores users gave to the apps in the Android Market, or the App Store, etc.; rather, it devised its own Mobilewalla score. Sarah Perez of Techcrunch defines it nicely and succinctly:

Instead of looking at raw user ratings, this scoring system is an algorithm that analyzes a variety of factors in addition to ratings, including an app’s position within its own category, volume, social media sentiment and more.

Full Story Here: Best-Rated Apps 2011: Mobilewalla Ranks Users’ Favorites For Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows Phone.

Full Story Here: Verizon Wireless Recants, Won’t Charge $2 Fee (Phone Scoop).

Times are tough on planet Earth right now, but at least we don’t have a supermassive black hole lurking just over the horizon.

A new study suggests that stars near the Milky Way’s central black hole may well form planets. The researchers based their analysis on a very recent discovery of a gas cloud making its way toward the galactic center.

On December 14 an international team of astronomers led by Stefan Gillessen of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, announced that they had spotted something heading toward a close encounter with the central black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), which has as much mass as four million suns. Gillessen and his colleagues interpreted the object to be a dusty gas cloud about three times as massive as Earth, possibly belched out as stellar winds (plasma streaming outward from stars) from the young stars that orbit the black hole.

Full Story Here: Newfound Gas Cloud Points to Possible Planets Near the Milky Way’s Black Hole | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network.

Apple is planning to make devices powered by hydrogen fuel cells, according to patent applications published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

The plans could create computers and phones with weeks-long battery power. It would also make the devices lighter and less bulky.

According to the Telegraph, hydrogen fuel cells work by converting hydrogen and oxygen into water and electrical energy. This technology is already being explored for cars and the military.

Full Story Here: Apple Hydrogen Fuel Cell Battery Plans Revealed.

Here’s a Christmas present from 1,000 light years away.

Just in time for the holidays, NASA has released a new image from its WISE space telescope of a nebula that, with a little bit of imagination, could resemble a holiday wreath.

PHOTOS BELOW.

While the nebula’s official name is Barnard 3, or IRAS Ring G159.6-18.5, the folks at NASA have dubbed it the “Wreath Nebula” because, in the words of the space agency, “one might picture a wreath in these bright green and red dust clouds — a ring of evergreens donned with a festive red bow, a jaunty sprig of holly, and silver bells throughout.”

But that would have to be a big bow. After all, according to the WISE mission’s office, the diameter of the ring measures 22 light years.

From NASA:

Full Story Here: ‘Wreath Nebula:’ Barnard 3 Image From NASA Telescope Brings Holiday Cheer (PHOTOS).

AT&T Inc. said a year ago that it planned to buy the spectrum to add capacity to its fourth-generation, or “4G” network, which it has been rolling out across the country. The network’s higher speeds make it faster to load video and websites on phones.

Mobile technology company Qualcomm Inc. had used the spectrum for its FLO TV mobile television service, which it shut down because of weak customer interest.

On Thursday, the FCC said the purchase brings up some competitive concerns but they could be eased by conditions the commission outlined in its approval, including offering data roaming to competitors.

AT&T spokesman Fletcher Cook could not immediately comment on the approval.

Full Story Here: AT&T’s Qualcomm Spectrum Purchase Approved By FCC.

A federal jury on Friday failed to reach a verdict in a Utah company’s $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. in a case so important to the computer giant that it put Bill Gates on the stand for two days last month.

Novell Inc. sued the software giant in 2004, claiming Microsoft duped it into developing the once-popular WordPerfect writing program for Windows 95 only to pull the plug so Microsoft could gain market share with its own product.

Novell says it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2 billion loss.

The trial began two months ago with jurors getting the case on Wednesday. After much confusion, and some perplexing questions from the panel, they told U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz they were deadlocked by early Friday evening.

Full Story Here: Microsoft-Novell Lawsuit: Jurors Deadlocked In $1 Billion Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft.

Physicists are closing in on an elusive subatomic particle that, if found, would confirm a long-held understanding about why matter has mass and how the universe’s fundamental building blocks behave.

Few people outside physics can fully comprehend the search for the Higgs boson, which was first hypothesized 40 years ago. But proving that the “God particle” actually exists would be “a vindication of the equations we’ve been using all these years,” said one Nobel laureate.

Scientists announced Tuesday that they had found hints but no definitive proof of the particle that is believed to be a basic component of the universe. They hope to determine whether it exists by next year.

It’s hard to find, not because it is especially tiny, but because it is hard to create, said physicist Howard Gordon of the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. He works with the ATLAS experiment, one of two independent teams looking for the Higgs boson at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva.

Full Story Here: Higgs Boson Search: CERN Releases New Data Said To Narrow Hunt For ‘God Particle’.

A frank discussion of Imperial Capitalism.

Fossilized skull fragments of Spinops sternbergorum, a new dinosaur species announced this week, collected dust in a British museum for nearly a century before scientists were able to analyze and describe them.

Now, paleontologists are hypothesizing that Spinops, which lived between 74 and 76 million years ago, could be the missing link between two previously known species of Ceratopsians, the same dinosaur group Triceratops came from.

ILLUSTRATION BELOW

“It’s like you took two dinosaurs and put them in a blender to come up with a new one,” Dr. Michael Ryan, head of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and second author of the research paper told HuffPost. “So the blender is actually evolution, so what we’re looking at is the evolution of one form of dinosaur into another.”

Scientists knew that Centrosaurus, known for large, curled hooks, evolved into Styracosaurus, a dinosaur with spikes on its face. But they didn’t how exactly it evolved.

Full Story Here: Spinops Sternbergorum: New Dinosaur Species Discovered, Could Be ‘Missing Link’ (IMAGE).

The most Earth-like planet ever discovered is circling a star 600 light years away, a key finding in an ongoing quest to learn if life exists beyond Earth, scientists said on Monday.

The planet, called Kepler-22b, joins a list of more than 500 planets found to orbit stars beyond our solar system. It is the smallest and the best positioned to have liquid water on its surface — among the ingredients necessary for life on Earth.

“We are homing in on the true Earth-sized, habitable planets,” said San Jose State University astronomer Natalie Batalha, deputy science team lead for NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope that discovered the star.

The telescope, which was launched three years ago, is staring at about 150,000 stars in the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, looking for faint and periodic dimming as any circling planets pass by, relative to Kepler’s line of sight.

Full Story Here: Planet Found Orbiting Habitable Zone of Sun-like Star | Common Dreams.

The X-37B space plane, a secretive shuttle-like vehicle currently orbiting the earth at 17,000 miles per hour, will be staying in space longer than originally planned, the Associated Press reports.

The 29-foot solar-powered craft had an original mission of 270 days and, according to RedOrbit, the X-37B should have landed on Wednesday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

PHOTOS BELOW

“We initially planned for a nine-month mission, which we are roughly at now, but we will continue to extend the mission as circumstances allow,” Lt. Col Tom McIntyre, the vehicle’s systems program director, told the Los Angeles Times. “Keeping the X-37 in orbit will provide us with additional experimentation opportunities and allow us to extract the maximum value out of the mission.”

The Air Force has said that the objective of the X-37B is to test unmanned, reusable space technology and conduct orbital experiments, but many skeptics think that the vehicle’s mission is somehow defense or spy-related.

Full Story Here: X-37B: Mission Of Mysterious Boeing Space Plane Extended (PHOTOS).

This is the world’s largest insect.

The giant weta is a cricket-like creature with a wingspan of close to seven inches. The one in the picture (full image below), isn’t just the largest weta, it’s the world’s largest insect ever photographed.

Renowned entomologist Mark Moffett found the amazing bug after two days of searching New Zealand’s Little Barrier Island. The species was previously found on the New Zealand mainland, but had been virtually annihilated by rats introduced by Europeans.

Moffett, 53, located the weta in a tree and proceeded to feed her a carrot.

Full Story Here: Giant Weta, World’s Largest Insect, Photographed In New Zealand (PHOTO).

You might have heard about Carrier IQ, software that comes pre-installed on millions of smartphones that has the capability to record and store your keystrokes, the text messages you send and receive, the Internet websites you visit and more. If you own a smartphone — a BlackBerry, an iPhone, an Android, a Windows Phone, whatever — you are probably wondering whether or not Carrier IQ is on your smartphone, and if it is, how you can remove it.

Here is a rundown of everything we know about Carrier IQ, OS by OS. For a full background on Carrier IQ, what it does and why it has so many people nervous, read my colleague Gerry Smith’s thorough piece from earlier.

ANDROID

The furor over Carrier IQ started with the discovery of the nosy software on Android smartphones and is only getting noisier (Senator Al Franken recently asked Carrier IQ for an explanation of its practices).

Unless you have a rooted Android device, you won’t be able to see if your phone is running Carrier IQ. But here’s what we know:

Full Story Here: Carrier IQ On iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone: Which Devices Have Controversial ‘Tracking’ Software?.

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is calling on a developer to provide details of hidden software installed on smartphones that logs numerous details about users’ activities.

In a letter sent Thursday to Carrier IQ president Larry Lenhart, Franken asked for an explanation of what the company’s software records, whether it transmits data to a third party and whether the data presents any security or privacy risks. Franken said the software’s capabilities may violate federal laws.

Earlier this week, security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted a video detailing how Carrier IQ’s software — which has the same name — logs every text message, web search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smartphones and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

Full Story Here: Al Franken Calls On Carrier IQ To Explain Mobile Tracking Software.

A security researcher has posted a video detailing hidden software installed on smart phones that logs numerous details about users’ activities.

In a 17-minute video posted Monday on YouTube, Trevor Eckhart shows how the software – known as Carrier IQ – logs every text message, Google search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smart phones – including HTC, Blackberry, Nokia and others – and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

The application, which is labeled on Eckhart’s HTC smartphone as “HTC IQ Agent,” also logs the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with “HTTPS,” Eckhart said.

The software always runs when Android operating system is running and users are unable to stop it, Eckhart said in the video.

Full Story Here: Carrier IQ: Researcher Trevor Eckhart Outs Creepy, Hidden App Installed On Smartphones (VIDEO).

Newly discovered evidence of two large pits on the east and west sides of Stonehenge suggest that the area may have been recognized as a sacred site at a much earlier date than previously thought.

Archaeologists with the University of Birmingham believe the holes could have held stones, wooden posts or fires to mark the sunrise and sunset for a “processional route” used to celebrate the summer solstice before the well-known larger stones were erected.

The pits were found along the Cursus pathway, “two parallel linear ditches with banks either side closed off at the end,” according to the BBC. Researchers also found a gap in the middle of the northern side of the Cursus, indicating a possible entry point for processions.

Full Story Here: Stonehenge Pits Discovery Suggests Site Was Sacred For Sun Worship Earlier Than Previously Thought.

A new study finds women can be downright nasty when they don’t approve of members of their sex.

The harsh reactions of 43 women to a provocatively dressed peer, caught on tape by Canadian researchers, reveal just how sassy women get when they think someone else is sexier.

“I was convinced, having lived a life as a woman, that we’re not as pleasant as some people make us out to be,” said Tracy Vaillancourt, professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the study published in Aggressive Behavior.

Full Story Here: Women Aggressive Toward ‘Sexy’ Peers – ABC News.

New video has been released that shows the formation of a brinicle on the ocean floor. Essentially an underwater icicle, the brinicle, or “finger of death,” freezes everything in its path.

Hugh Miller and Doug Anderson filmed the stunning time-lapse clip below, which is apparently the first of its kind. Shot for the BBC’s “Frozen Planet,” the clip was recorded using a special time-lapse camera that caught the brinicle’s entire formation process.

What’s really going on here is the freezing of warmer waters as sub-zero brine slowly sinks to the ocean floor.

Full Story Here: Brinicle, Underwater Icicle, Captured Forming By Time-Lapse Camera (VIDEO).

AT&T said today that it withdrew from the Federal Communications Commission its application to acquire T-Mobile, and will incur a $4 billion “break-up fee.”

The wireless carrier insisted, however, that the deal is not dead, and said it will instead focus on winning an antitrust lawsuit brought forth by the Department of Justice, which seeks to block the merger over competition concerns.

“AT&T Inc. and [T-Mobile parent company] Deutsche Telekom AG are continuing to pursue the sale of Deutsche Telekom’s U.S. wireless assets to AT&T and are taking this step to facilitate the consideration of all options at the FCC and to focus their continuing efforts on obtaining antitrust clearance for the transaction from the Department of Justice either through the litigation pending before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia … or alternate means,” AT&T said in a statement. “As soon as practical, AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG intend to seek the necessary FCC approval.”

Full Story Here: AT&T Pulls T-Mobile Merger Application From FCC, Will Take $4B Charge | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.

The chairman, Julius Genachowski, made the move after the commission’s staff concluded that the deal would harm consumers, kill jobs and result in an overly concentrated wireless phone industry, F.C.C. officials said.

The decision puts another large roadblock in front of AT&T, the nation’s second-largest wireless phone company, in its effort to buy T-Mobile, the fourth-largest carrier. In August, the Justice Department filed a federal antitrust lawsuit to block the merger, saying it would stifle competition.

Full Story Here: F.C.C. Seeks Review of AT&T Merger With T-Mobile – NYTimes.com.

The video, made from time-lapse photographs taken from the ISS’s Cupola observatory module, takes us around the world from Africa to the Mediterranean Sea, North America to South America and Europe to the Middle East, among more than a dozen other journeys. It passes over Hurricanes Katia and Irene and catches a number of lightning bolts in its lens as well.

The ISS orbits the Earth every 90 minutes, and the footage in the video was taken during some of Garan’s final “laps” around the planet before returning home.

Full Story Here: Space Time-Lapse Video: ISS Travels Around The World In ‘The Journey Home’ (VIDEO).

How Long Until Humans Go Extinct?

Judging by the run of successful natural disaster films in the past few years, people are fascinated by the idea of the end of the world. In Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later, a virus ravaged the UK and beyond; an asteroid was the world-ending threat in Deep Impact and Armageddon; and climate change got a starring role in The Day After Tomorrow.

In the real world, we don’t know how the Earth (or humanity) might meet its end or when that will happen. Pondering and predicting the event has usually been a job for the world’s great religions: all of them have some idea about how humans will meet their maker. Indeed, “the end” (or judgement day) is usually a deity’s way of cleansing our planet, to allow a fresh race of people who are morally purer to repopulate the resulting clean slate. Usually, there is too much sin or debauchery and the time has come to start again.

Stories of brimstone, fire and gods make good tales and do a decent job of stirring up the requisite fear and jeopardy. But made-up doomsday tales pale into nothing, creatively speaking, when contrasted with what is actually possible. Look through the lens of science and “the end” becomes much more interesting.

Full Story Here: Is the end of the world really nigh? | Science | The Observer.

Stephen Hawking says the colonization of outer space is key to the survival of humankind, predicting it will be difficult for the world’s inhabitants “to avoid disaster in the next hundred years.”

WHERE TO GO? SEE OPTIONS BELOW

The renowned astrophysicist explores some of the most remarkable advancements in technology and health with the new U.K.-Canadian series “Brave New World With Stephen Hawking,” debuting Saturday on Discovery World HD.

Before its premiere, he discussed the earth’s most pressing concerns in an email interview with The Canadian Press from Cambridge, England, declaring space exploration to be humankind’s most urgent mission.

Full Story Here: Stephen Hawking: Space Exploration Crucial To Human Survival.

New research that suggests Jupiter’s moon Europa has a body of water the size of the Great Lakes just two miles below its icy surface has brought scientists one step closer to determining whether or not the freezing satellite is suitable for the development of extraterrestrial life.

According to NASA, scientists have long thought that a huge ocean — more voluminous than all of earth’s oceans combined — existed below Europa’s surface. But since the moon is so far from the sun, the surface ice is thought to be tens of miles thick.

Now, scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Galileo spacecraft have found ice blocks on Europa’s surface that suggest an interaction between the moon’s icy shell and a lake-like body of water under the surface, Discovery reports.

Full Story Here: Europa Water: Scientists Find Evidence Of Lakes On Jupiter’s Moon (PHOTOS, VIDEO).

Geron Corp., a pioneer in stem cell research that has been testing a spinal cord injury treatment, said late Monday that it’s halting development of its stem cell programs to conserve funds. It is seeking partners to take on the programs’ assets and is laying off much of its staff.

The news sent Geron shares down sharply in after-hours trading. They fell 38 cents, or 17.3 percent, to $1.82.

The company is eliminating 66 full-time jobs, or 38 percent of its staff, a process that will bring about $8 million in costs — about $5 million in the current quarter and about $3 million in the first half of 2012. Geron said it expects to end this year with more than $150 million in cash and investments.

Full Story Here: The Associated Press: Geron halting stem cell research, laying off staff.

This video might be the coolest part of your weekend.

Made with NASA photos taken 240 miles above Earth at the International Space Station, the gorgeous time-lapse documents some of the world’s most stunning views. Pay close attention to the Aurora Borealis, featured in the first two shots.

Artist Michael König edited the piece. Check out raw footage of Earth courtesy of NASA.

A similar video also made the rounds in September.

Full Story Here: Flying Over Earth Video Captures Gorgeous Time-Lapse (VIDEO).

An asteroid as big as an aircraft carrier zipped by Earth on Tuesday in the closest encounter by such a massive space rock in more than three decades. Scientists ruled out any chance of a collision but turned their telescopes skyward to learn more about the object known as 2005 YU55.

Its closest approach to Earth was pegged at a distance of 202,000 miles at 6:28 p.m. EST. That’s just inside the moon’s orbit; the average distance between Earth and the moon is 239,000 miles.

The last time a large cosmic interloper came that close to Earth was in 1976, and experts say it won’t happen again until 2028.

Scientists at NASA’s Deep Space Network in the California desert have tracked the quarter-mile-wide asteroid since last week as it approached from the direction of the sun at 29,000 mph.

Full Story Here: Asteroid Passes By Earth.

Alien lifeforms have not contacted Earth yet, the White House claimed over the weekend in response to petitions asking for information on supposed human interactions with extraterrestrials.

“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy wrote in a blog post responding to the inquiries. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

While Larson maintained that there was no irrefutable proof of supposed alien life, he continued to tick off programs that were being used to further our “understanding if life can or does exist off Earth.”

Two separate petitions submitted to the White House’s “We the People” program received the requisite 5,000 signatures, ensuring a response from the Obama administration.

Full Story Here: White House: Aliens, Extraterrestrials Haven’t Contacted Or Visited Earth.

A new study from NASA postulates that if life ever existed on Mars, it was probably underground.

Ever since clay minerals were discovered on Mars in 2005, scientists have thought warm and wet conditions that could have supported life may have existed, according to NASA. That’s because clay is formed when water and rock interact with one another.

SEE SLIDESHOW BELOW FOR INFRARED IMAGES

But researchers analyzing orbiter data from over 350 areas of the planet’s surface have found that the type of clay that’s formed underground is abundant on Mars, while the type of clay that’s formed above the surface is rare.

And conditions on Mars aren’t especially conducive to water above the planet’s surface.

Full Story Here: NASA: If Life Existed On Mars, It Was Probably Underground (PHOTOS).

As ThinkProgress reported yesterday, Republican members of Congress have been waging a war to open 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon to uranium mining. Last week Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar took one of the last steps in withdrawing the area from new mining claims. But in response, Republicans have introduced H.R. 3155, the Northern Arizona Mining Continuity Act of 2011, to keep the decision from moving forward. The issue has become “one of the top legislative priorities of Republicans in Congress” as Energy and Environment Daily reported this morning.

At a hearing yesterday on the bill in the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands, Republicans called a witness to the stand who is a retired United States Geological Survey scientist. Dr. Karen Wenrich noted in her testimony supporting the bill that the Bureau of Land Management has “vastly overstated the environmental harm caused by past and potential uranium development.”

However, under questioning from Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), it became clear through public Securities and Exchange Commission filings that Wenrich stands to make $225,000 by selling 61 uranium claims that she owns only if the Interior Department’s withdrawal does not go forward.

Full Story Here: Scientist Who Testified In Support Of Mining Around The Grand Canyon Stands To Make $225,000 From It | ThinkProgress.

Somewhere along the way, the very idea of intelligence became politicized. An IQ blackout descended.

Scholars used to avidly study human intelligence. They measured cranial capacity. They administered IQ tests. They sought to define what intelligence was and who had more or less of it and why.

These days, not so much. Somewhere along the way, the very idea of intelligence became politicized. Its legitimacy as a field of study, as a measurable quality — on par with height, eyesight and hand-and-eye coordination — and as a concept came under fire. Talk of “brainpower” and “smarts” ebbed as scholars proposed “multiple intelligences” — such as musical, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal — rather than whatever had hitherto been called IQ. An IQ blackout has descended. When researchers talk about IQ at all, the big question is whether it’s inherited, and if so, how much. IQ now faces fierce competition from SQ and EQ, social and emotional intelligence, two burgeoning theories.

Why are our minds and their capabilities among the most taboo topics in 21st-century academia?

Full Story Here: IQ Blackout: Why Did Studying Intelligence Become Taboo? | Education | AlterNet.

Microsoft Corp said hackers exploited a previously unknown bug in its Windows operating system to infect computers with the Duqu virus, which some security experts say could be the next big cyber threat.

“We are working diligently to address this issue and will release a security update for customers,” Microsoft said on Tuesday in a short statement.

News of Duqu surfaced in October when security software maker Symantec Corp said it had found a mysterious computer virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet, a piece of malicious software believed to have wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program.

Government and private investigators around the world are racing to unlock the secret of Duqu, with early analysis suggesting that it was developed by sophisticated hackers to help lay the groundwork for attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants, oil refineries and pipelines.

Full Story Here: Duqu Virus Exploits Microsoft Windows Software Flaw.

China’s technological capabilities took a major surge forward with the successful docking in space today for the first time ever of two Chinese built and launched spaceships orbiting some 343 kilometers in the heavens above at 1:37 a.m. Beijing time Nov. 3(1:37 p.m. EDT, Nov. 2). China’s goal is to build a fully operational space station in Earth orbit by 2020 – about the time when the ISS may be retired.

Today’s space spectacular joining together the Shenzhou-8 unmanned spacecraft and the Tiangong-1 prototype space station was an historic feat for China, which now becomes only the 3rd country to accomplish a rendezvous and docking of spacecraft in Earth orbit.

Full Story Here: China Technology Surges Forward with Spectacular First Docking in Space.

The unmanned Progress M-13M blasted off as scheduled at 2:11 p.m. Moscow time (1011 GMT; 6:11 a.m. EDT) from the Russian-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.

“It was a perfect launch,” Lyndin told The Associated Press, adding the ship successfully reached a designated orbit and will dock at the station Wednesday. A new crew will be launched to the space outpost on Nov. 14, he said.

Full Story Here: Russia’s Progress M-13M Cargo Ship Launched To International Space Station.

Akamai, a company that collects data about Internet use, says it gets over 1 trillion requests per day to its global server network. It has organized this data into its quarterly “State Of The Internet” report, which examines, among other things, the world’s fastest and slowest Internet connections by country.

In order to be included in the report, a country must have made more than 25,000 requests from unique IP addresses in the last quarter. Akamai sets this bar in order to avoid making unfair comparisons between countries with large disparities in population or infrastructure.

Overall, global Internet speed is improving, accoring to Akamai. Between the first and second quarters of 2011, average global connection speed increased 21 percent and is now 2.6 Megabits per second. By comparison, Internet speeds in the United States (the world’s 12th-ranked country) look fairly speedy at an average of 5.8 Mbps. However, residents in the country with the fastest Internet (see slideshow) enjoy an average connection speed of 13.8 Mbps, more than twice as fast as the U.S.

Full Story Here: The World’s Top 9 Countries With The Fastest Internet Speeds: Akamai.

Astronomers finally know why the first documented supernova was super-sized.

The exploded star was observed by the ancient Chinese in the year 185, and visible for eight months. It was later found to be a bigger-than-expected supernova remnant, 8,000 light years away.

New observations in the infrared show the explosion took place in a cavity in space. Researchers said that this “hollowed-out cavity” of space was relatively free of gas and dust, thus allowing the stellar shrapnel to shoot faster and farther out into the universe.

The star – similar to our sun – died peacefully and turned into a dense white dwarf. It sucked up material from another star, and then exploded in a supernova.

Full Story Here: 2,000-year-old stellar mystery solved – CBS News.

While America struggles to figure out what vehicle will replace the space shuttle, China is racing ahead to build its first space station: a potential jumping off point for deeper space missions and a center for scientific research. Meanwhile Americans are dependent on other countries for access to the international space station.

Fear is growing among some Americans that China may take ownership of the moon. The notion may sound ridiculous, but with America’s space program in shambles while other nations build their programs up, America may lag behind in the race to dominate space and technology.

Up until recent years, America had been at the forefront of space exploration. After leapfrogging Russia in the space race, we were the first to put a man on the moon, and had a consistent presence in space through the shuttle program. But with the space shuttles now retired, America seems to have lost its edge in space.

Full Story Here: America Falling Behind in Space Race and Innovation | Economy In Crisis.

Lytro has released its first camera, which supposedly captures more rays of light than any other camera on the market. According to Lytro’s press release, the camera can capture an astounding 11 million rays of light.

But just what makes it “4D”? Using a the light field sensor, the camera not only captures the color and intensity of every ray, but the direction as well.

Still don’t get it? Check out the Lytra gallery, and be sure to click on some images to get the full effect. You can also scroll down to see it for yourself.

Simply stated, the Lytro captures as much data as possible in each photograph and producing “interactive” images. The effect is somewhat magical, allowing users to refocus images directly in the camera, meaning almost no shot can be a bad one.

Full Story Here: Light Field Camera: Lytro The World’s First 4D Consumer Camera (INTERACTIVE IMAGES).

The military deleted a passage about unidentified flying objects from a 2008 Air Force personnel manual just days after The Huffington Post asked Pentagon officials about the purpose of the UFO section.

Before the recent revisions, the document — Air Force Instruction 10-206 — advised pilots, radar operators and other Air Force personnel on what to do when they encountered any unknown airborne objects. Now in the 2011 version, the reference to UFOs — which simply means “unidentified flying objects,” not necessarily spaceships with little green men — has been eliminated.

What makes this so intriguing is that the U.S. government officially stopped investigating UFOs in 1969 with the termination of the Air Force’s Project Blue Book.

HERE’S THE 2008 VERSION OF AFI 10-206 THAT REFERENCED UFOS ON P. 37:

Full Story Here: Air Force UFO Rules Vanish After Huffington Post Inquiry.

Over the past few decades, linguists have shown that, when it comes to speech, many gender stereotypes hold remarkably true: Men tend to speak loudly, while women whisper; men talk over each other, while women conspire behind each other’s backs; men hold back their feelings, while women lay them out to strangers they meet on the subway. According to some critics, these differences are merely a reflection of our cultural presuppositions about gender. But, according to a new book, there’s a far simpler reason for these linguistic differences: biology.

In “Duels and Duets,” John L. Locke, a professor of linguistics at Lehman College and the author of “Eavesdropping: An Intimate History,” argues that men and women have radically different ways of speaking not because of their upbringing, but because they have radically different evolutionary needs. Men, he argues, use antagonistic speech, or “duels,” to show off their strength and prove themselves to women. Women, meanwhile, use quieter speech patterns to bond with each other — and help protect themselves against aggressive men. And, according to Locke, this is a pattern that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years.

Salon spoke with Locke over the phone about sexual stereotypes, the “Real Housewives” franchise and the future of speech in the digital age.

Full Story Here: Why do men and women talk differently? – Love and Sex – Salon.com.

Not only that, but these collective decisions appear to influence how much carbon is taken out of the planet’s atmosphere by ocean bacteria and thereby affect the global climate.

According to a study reported by Science Daily, “In the ocean, bacteria coalesce on tiny particles of carbon-rich detritus sinking through the depths.” These bacteria send out chemical signals that, in effect, say, “Hey! Is there anybody else out there?” — and if enough responses come back, the entire group starts secreting enzymes that break up the carbon-containing molecules into handy snack-sized chunks.

Full Story Here: Group planning by bacteria may affect Earth’s climate | The Raw Story.

Has it finally happened? Did scientists find real evidence of the existence of a hairy bipedal creature known as the Siberian Snowman or Siberian Yeti?

Researchers are claiming they are 95 percent sure that the fabled Russian version of the Abominable Snowman or Bigfoot lives in the Kemerovo region of Siberia.

Last week, a group of international scientists met in Moscow and then set out to the remote mountainous area in search of the elusive creature (depicted below).

Full Story Here: Scientists ’95 Percent’ Certain They’ve Found Elusive Siberian Yeti.

I spend hours a day researching what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman calls “global weirding”: the destabilization of our weather system fueled by the three million tonnes of fossil fuel pollution we inject into it each hour. So it is a rare day when something shocks me as much as a recent U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) report on last year’s extreme rainfall.

As most locals know from soggy personal experience, our corner of planet Earth since last spring has been a bit wetter and greyer than normal. And next door, our Washington neighbours donned their gum boots and slogged through their fourth wettest year since 1895.

Still, we got off lucky. Very lucky it turns out.

According to this jaw-dropping NASA report, worldwide rainfall and snowfall were so extreme, in so many places last year, that sea levels fell dramatically.

Full Story Here: NASA: It Rained So Hard the Oceans Fell | ThinkProgress.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been providing some stunning images of the sun since early 2010, but recently it began releasing daily images of the sun that will blow your mind.

The $865 million project equipped the semi-autonomous SDO craft to orbit the sun for five years, sending back advanced data about the life-giving star. Among the data retrieved are these photos images, which picture the light thrown off by the star at wavelengths not typically visible to the human eye.

These x-ray and ultraviolet images give a unique perspective and help scientists understand the internal motion of the giant ball of burning gas.

NASA has begun releasing daily images of the sun, which you can check out in the slideshow below, or here on NASA’s website.

Full Story Here: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory Provides X-Ray And Ultraviolet Images Of the Sun (PHOTOS).

So as the seasons change and the days grow shorter, it’s a good time not only to look back at some of our favorite images of this natural phenomenon, but check out some new pictures, too.

NASA says that more geomagnetic storms occur in the fall and spring, and this is a great time for viewing the aurora borealis or australis (if you’re lucky enough to be in an area where it’s visible!)

According to the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, an aurora is caused by the collision of electrons from space with atoms and molecules of gases (like oxygen and nitrogen) from the Earth’s atmosphere. This collision results in a transfer of energy to the oxygen’s electrons, and, as a result, quick bursts of light are emitted. A great number of these collisions create the light that’s visible to the naked eye.

The aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights, is seen in the northern hemisphere, whereas the aurora australias, or southern lights, is visible in the southern latitudes.

Full Story Here: Aurora Photos: The Best Pictures Of The Northern And Southern Lights.

Research results published last week in the medical journal Blood indicated the treatment method could lead to a vaccine against the virus, which affected about 33.3 million people worldwide at the end of 2009.

Scientists said their new method works by eliminating a membrane of cholesterol used by HIV to disguise itself and disarm the immune system. It steals the cholesterol from the first immune response to its intrusion, then uses it to communicate with the rest of the immune system.

Full Story Here: Johns Hopkins scientists figure out how to ‘disarm’ AIDS virus | The Raw Story.

A very special car will cross the autcioneers block next month – it’s the world’s oldest running motor car, a historic 1884 de Dion Bouton et Trepardoux Dos-a-Dos Steam Runabout. The second prototype built by Count de Dion, the car participated in the world’s first automobile race.

The world’s first race is generally regarded as being the Paris-Rouen trial of 1895, but there was indeed an earlier race in 1887 – billed as “Europe’s first motoring competition”, run by the editor of France’s top selling bicycle magazine, Le Velocipede – only one car turned up to race – this car. It completed the course, and although it’s arguably not possible to have a race without two competitors, this is the car that “won” that race, achieving a claimed top speed of 37 mph on the straights.

Commissioned by French entrepreneur, Count de Dion, and built by Georges Bouton and Charles-Armand Trepardoux, the 1884 De Dion steamer was nicknamed “La Marquise” after the Count de Dion’s mother. Measuring just nine feet in length, La Marquise features twin compound steam engines, “spade handle” steering and seats four people “dos-a-dos” (back-to-back). The seats are located on top of the steel tank, which holds 40 gallons of water, good for about 20 miles; its sophisticated boiler, fed by coal or coke, can be steamed in 45 minutes.

Full Story Here: The world’s oldest running car up for sale.

The power of invisibility may soon be more than just a sci-fi fantasy. Researchers in Spain have developed an ‘antimagnet’ cloak that could hide objects from magnetic fields, reports ScienceNOW.

The new device would make it possible “to ‘switch off’ the magnetic interaction of a magnetic material with existing magnetic fields without modifying them,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in the New Journal of Physics.

The cloak is only conceptual, but if developed, it could open up a host of new medical possibilities. For one, patients with pacemakers or other magnetic implants would be able to undergo MRIs without harm.

The concept could also be applied by the military: Ships using the technology could avoid mines designed to detonate when a magnetic field is detected, according to physorg.com.

Full Story Here: Magnetic Invisibility Cloak Proposed By Scientists.

The virus, known as adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV2), is naturally occurring and carried by up to 80 percent of humans, but it does not cause any disease.

Researchers learned of its cancer-killing properties in 2005, after Penn State scientists observed it killing cervical cancer cells. They also found that women who carried the AAV2 virus and human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer, had a lower propensity to develop cervical cancer.

When combined in a lab recently, AAV2 eradicated all the breast cancer cells “within seven days,” according to researchers. Better still, it proved capable of wiping out cancer cells at multiple stages, negating the need for differing treatments used today.

Full Story Here: Scientists discover virus that kills all types of breast cancer ‘within seven days’ | The Raw Story.

Full Story Here: OPERA neutrino experiment on breaking speed of light — webcast – YouTube.

Original Video at the CERN website here: http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1384486

U.S. space officials say they expect a dead satellite to fall to Earth in about a week.

NASA has been watching the 6-ton satellite closely. On Friday officials moved up their prediction for its arrival to Sept. 23, give or take a day.

Full Story Here: NASA: Satellite Pieces To Hit Earth In A Week.

On Sunday, the phone company will start marketing the network in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. It won’t be selling a new data plan – use of the new “4G LTE” network will be a perk thrown in with existing plans, AT&T Inc. network architecture and planning executive Kris Rinne said Friday.

Rinne said the network will provide downloads speeds of 5 megabits to 12 megabits per second. That’s enough to download a DVD-quality two-hour movie in 15 minutes. It’s in line with the speeds on Verizon’s LTE network, which launched late last year with separate data plans. AT&T’s older “4G” network provides top download speeds around 6 megabits per second.

Full Story Here: AT&T 4G LTE Network Rolled Out In 5 U.S. Cities.

Windows 8, the recently unveiled operating system from Microsoft, is a huge gamble for the software giant. The followup OS to Windows 7 is split into two different views that exist on the same machine; the user can switch between either at will: First, the mouse-and-keyboard-friendly ‘desktop view,’ which features that classic Start-bar-and-icons look from Windows past; and second, the touch-friendly ‘metro view,’ which will run on all future Microsoft tablets and which Microsoft is pushing as the future of Windows and computing.

While Microsoft’s software businesses still makes more money than I can count, the fate of its position in the consumer market just might depend on whether or not Windows 8 and its dueling views are a futuristic hit or a junky, clunky flop. With the spectre of America’s forceful rejection of Vista (Microsoft’s flop of an OS that preceded Windows 7) looming over this latest Windows redesign, Microsoft cannot afford many missteps. In order for Microsoft to avoid a Vistacular repeat failure, it needs to give satisfactory answers to the following make-or-break questions:

1. When is this thing coming out?

Full Story Here: Windows 8 Beta: 8 Questions That Will Make Or Break Microsoft’s New OS.

But a new study comparing 54 nations found that flattening the tax risks flattening social wellbeing as well. “The more progressive the tax policy is, the happier the citizens are,” says University of Virginia psychologist Shigehiro Oishi, summarizing the findings, which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Oishi conducted the study with Ulrich Schimmack of the University of Toronto at Mississauga and Ed Diener, also at University of Illinois and the Gallup Organization.

The researchers analyzed the relationship between tax progressivity and personal well-being in 54 nations surveyed by the Gallup Organization in 2007 — a total of 59,634 respondents. Well-being was expressed in people’s assessments of their overall life quality, from “worst” to “best possible life,” on a scale of 1 to 10; and in whether they enjoyed positive daily experiences (such as smiling, being treated with respect, and eating good food) or suffered negative ones, including sadness, worry, and shame. Finally, the analysis looked at the participants’ satisfaction with their nation’s public goods, from schools to clean air.

Full Story Here: A more progressive tax system makes people happier, 54-nation study finds.

Giddiness and excitement swept over NASA scientists Thursday after a small rover discovered a rock on Mars that could suggest life on the red planet, reports The New York Times.

Opportunity, NASA’s small exploratory rover treaded over Mars’ 13.6 mile wide crater called Endeavor in early August, reports the Telegraph.

Mission scientists have described the rock as “full of zinc and bromine, elements that, at least for rocks on Earth, would be suggestive of geology formed with heat and water,” reports The Age. Zinc is often found in rocks that have been exposed to water.

Though the rover has roamed Mars’ terrain on and off since 2004, never has it come across such samples of this kind.

Full Story Here: Mars Rover Discovers Rock With Zinc, NASA Overjoyed.

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and ambassador to China, isn’t a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination. And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunstman has been willing to say the unsayable about the G.O.P. — namely, that it is becoming the “anti-science party.” This is an enormously important development. And it should terrify us.

To see what Mr. Huntsman means, consider recent statements by the two men who actually are serious contenders for the G.O.P. nomination: Rick Perry and Mitt Romney.

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

Full Story Here: Republicans Against Science – NYTimes.com.

Detailed images taken by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites over the last several days enabled weather forecasters to provide a fairly precise picture of just when and where Hurricane Irene was headed and how strong she would be. The satellites also relayed this critical information early enough so that people along the storm’s path had days to stock up on food and water and, if necessary, move to higher ground.

“A difference of five or 10 miles per hour in a hurricane can make a difference in as much as a foot of flooding,” said Dan Satterfield, a weatherman in Huntsville, Ala. “And every mile of accuracy you can get makes the forecast that much more accurate, allowing you to tell people where to evacuate.”

But with the recent decision by Congress to allocate less than half of the billion dollars of funding needed to maintain and upgrade the fleet, officials warn of an upcoming gap in the service relied upon by weather forecasters, as well as the armed forces, search-and-rescue teams, energy companies and climate modelers.

Full Story Here: Weather Satellites And Storm Warnings Threatened By Federal Budget Cuts.

Unemployment, gas prices, and fear over global warming aren’t the only things skyrocketing — so are mysterious objects rocketing through the sky.

The Mutual UFO Network — the largest privately funded UFO research organization in the world — tells The Huffington Post that more people than ever are reporting unidentified flying objects, mostly in the United States and Canada.

“Over the past year, we’ve been averaging 500 sighting reports a month, compared to about 300 three years ago [67 percent],” MUFON international director Clifford Clift said.

“And I get one or two production companies contacting me every week, wanting to do stories on UFOs.”

Full Story Here: UFO Sightings Increase 67 Percent In 3 Years, History Channel Investigates Unexplained Aerial Phenomena.

Cable and phone companies are able to bundle TV signals with Internet access services. Satellite companies cannot do so as well because satellites can’t provide Internet services to many households, and speeds are slower.

In a filing late Monday, Dish asked the Federal Communications Commission to let it use the wireless spectrum of satellite company TerreStar Corp., which it bought last year out of bankruptcy, for ground-based broadband service.

Dish didn’t say when it would build the network or how many people it would cover. It plans to use a network technology for which devices could show up in 2014. It said tablet computers would be one possible category of device to use the network, but it also mentions home terminals that combine satellite TV and wireless broadband access.

Full Story Here: Excite News – Dish asks FCC to let it build wireless network.

Thirteen years after federal regulators last approved a new drug to treat advanced melanoma, the Food & Drug Administration has given the green light to two revolutionary drugs in the past five months to treat the deadliest form of skin cancer.

Researchers say the developments make this an exciting time for those who see the possibility for controlling a disease that today is diagnosed in about 68,000 Americans annually and kills more than 8,700 people in this country each year.

“A year or two ago, melanoma treatment wasn’t like it is in this moment,” said Dr. Adil Daud, director of UCSF’s Melanoma Program.

Full Story Here: Melanoma treatment called revolutionary.

On a bleak winter hiking trip to the Catskill Mountains, the 7th-grader from New York noticed a pattern among tree branches, and determined (as naturalist Charles Bonnet did in 1754) that the pattern represented the Fibonacci sequence of numbers. Aidan wondered why, and figured it had something to do with photosynthesis.

In a pretty innovative experiment, this intrepid young scientist set about duplicating an oak tree, comparing its sunlight-capturing abilities to a traditional rooftop solar panel array. Guess what he found?

Full Story Here: 13-Year-Old Designs Super-Efficient Solar Array Based on the Fibonacci Sequence | Popular Science.

Stanford physicists probing the sun’s deep interior have predicted the emergence of sunspots on the surface a full two days before they appear, providing the first early warning of the violent solar storms that can endanger astronauts in space, disrupt electric power grids on Earth, and plunge cities into darkness.

Erupting sunspot regions release immensely powerful blasts of x-rays and clouds of ionized gases in two forms that speed toward Earth at millions of miles an hour.

Solar flares, moving at the speed of light, can intensify high-frequency radio communications and generate the shimmering northern lights – the aurora borealis.

Full Story Here: Scientists find way to predict sunspots.

To most people, predictions about machines soon becoming more intelligent than humans might seem like a far off possibility, but an announcement Thursday from IBM about its development of cognitive computing chips seems to bring us one very significant step forward in that direction.

IBM unveiled a working prototype of silicon computer chips Thursday that emulate the processes of the human mind rather than relying on the traditional architecture of computer chips, which have remained basically unchanged since the 1940s.

The research team’s design uses fewer transistors than traditional chips, and it features 256 digital processors that act as “neurons,” that do the computation, and synapses that learn and remember things. One of the chips has 262,144 programmable “synapses” and the other has 65,536 “learning synapses,” according to IBM.

Full Story Here: IBM Produces Working Prototypes Of A Brain On A Chip — And Gets It To Play Pong | TPM Idea Lab.

Viral pathogens pose serious health threats worldwide. For clinical viruses such as HIV or hepatitis, emerging viruses such as avian or swine influenza, and highly lethal viruses such as Ebola or smallpox that might be used in bioterrorist attacks, relatively few therapeutics or prophylactics (preventatives) exist. Most therapeutics that do exist are highly specific for one virus, are ineffective against virus strains that become resistant to them, or have adverse effects on patients.

As part of the PANACEA (for Pharmacological Augmentation of Nonspecific Anti-pathogen Cellular Enzymes and Activities) project, researchers from MIT Lincoln Laboratory have developed and demonstrated a novel broad-spectrum antiviral approach, called DRACO (for Double-stranded RNA [dsRNA] Activated Caspase

Oligomerizer). DRACO selectively induces apoptosis, or cell suicide, in cells containing any viral dsRNA, rapidly killing infected cells without harming uninfected cells. As a result, DRACO should be effective against virtually all viruses, rapidly terminating a viral infection while minimizing the impact on the patient.

Dr. Todd Rider, senior staff scientist in MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Chemical, Biological, and Nanoscale Technologies Group, invented PANACEA and the DRACO therapeutics, and led the team that developed them: Scott Wick, in charge of DRACO production; Christina Zook, in charge of cell testing; Tara Boettcher, in charge of mouse trials; and Jennifer Pancoast and Benjamin Zusman, who performed additional experiments.

Full Story Here: MIT Lincoln Laboratory: News: DRACO.

From the United States Time Magazine article about this new planet we can further read:

“Tyche is suspected to be four times the mass of Jupiter with an orbit around 15,000 times further from the Sun than Earth’s, and 375 times further than Pluto’s. It will probably be composed mainly of hydrogen and helium, with an atmosphere just like Jupiter’s. Professor Whitmire added that the planet-in-waiting will have its own moons, like other outer planets, and its surface will be covered in colorful spots, bands and clouds.”

More interesting to note, however, about the name Tyche given to this new planet is that it is also the name of the ancient Greek god governing over the destiny of mankind, and who were all long familiar with this nemesis to our Earth as best exampled by the Russian-born American independent scholar Immanuel Velikovsky in his 1945 seminal work titled “Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient History” wherein he postulated:

Full Story Here: Makeahistory.

The NOAA predicted four extreme solar emissions which could threaten the planet this decade. Similarly, NASA warned that a peak in the sun’s magnetic energy cycle and the number of sun spots or flares around 2013 could enable extremely high radiation levels.

Government studies revealed that extreme solar flare emissions could cause blackouts, possibly for years, in large portions of the U.S.

Full Story Here: Solar Storms Could Debilitate Earth this Decade: NOAA – International Business Times.

The impact of a series of eruptions on the sun began arriving at Earth on Friday and could affect some communications for a day or so.

Operators of electrical grids are working to avoid outages, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says some satellite communications and Global Positioning Systems could face problems.

Three solar flares erupted on the sun starting Tuesday, and the strongest electromagnetic shocks were being felt Friday by the ACE spacecraft, a satellite that measures radiation bursts a few minutes before they strike Earth, said Joseph Kunches, a scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo.

Full Story Here: Massive Solar Flares’ Effects Arriving On Earth.

In a TEDTalk, Haas explained technology that would make it possible to send data through LED light bulbs instead of via radio waves. He calls it D-Light, or “data through illumination.”

Watch Haas’ TEDTalk below.

Video at link:

Full Story Here: Connect to the Internet through a lightbulb | Raw Replay.

Scientists are saying that for the first time, they’ve found proof of the oxygen molecule in space.

This new find, some 230 years since the discovery of oxygen gas, marks the first time the life-giving molecule has ever been found in deep space, according to NASA. For decades, researchers have used balloons, as well as grounded and space-based telescopes, to try and spot the elusive molecule in space.

From NASA:

Individual atoms of oxygen are common in space, particularly around massive stars. But molecular oxygen, which makes up about 20 percent of the air we breathe, has eluded astronomers until now.

Full Story Here: Oxygen In Space? ‘Breathable’ Oxygen Molecules Found By Herschel Telescope.

In a spectacle that might have beguiled poets, lovers and songwriters if only they had been around to see it, Earth once had two moons, astronomers now think. But the smaller one smashed into the other in what is being called the “big splat.”

The result: Our planet was left with a single bulked-up and ever-so-slightly lopsided moon.

The astronomers came up with the scenario to explain why the moon’s far side is so much more hilly than the one that is always facing Earth.

The theory, outlined Wednesday in the journal Nature, comes complete with computer model runs showing how it might have happened and an illustration that looks like the bigger moon getting a pie in the face.

Outside experts said the idea makes sense, but they aren’t completely sold yet.

Full Story Here: Earth’s 2 Moons? It’s Not Lunacy, But New Theory.

While searching for shipwrecks in the waters between Finland and Sweden on June 19, a Swedish team of nautical salvagers say they uncovered a “very strange anomaly” — a round object about 60 feet across resting about 300 feet below sea level.

“You see a lot of weird stuff in this job, but during my 18 years as a professional I have never seen anything like this. The shape is completely round,” Peter Lindberg, leader of The Ocean Explorer team, told the local press, according to MSNBC.

The circular object — described by Gizmodo as resembling Star Wars’ Millenium Falcon — is also trailed on one side by what appears to be a lengthy patch of displaced seabed.

That has lead some UFO believer to surmise the strange circle is a wrecked UFO, which crashed onto the seafloor and left behind a path of destruction measuring some 900 feet, according to News.com.

Full Story Here: Underwater Discovery Sparks Rumors Of Crashed UFO In Baltic Sea Between Finland And Sweden.

The measure will take effect Oct. 1, AT&T said, and is intended to alleviate congestion on the network.

T-Mobile USA already throttles users who go over certain limits for data consumption.

AT&T stopped signing up new customers for “unlimited” plans last year. Instead, it now lets heavy users pay extra when they go over a certain data allotment.

Full Story Here: AT&T To Throttle Data Speeds For ‘Unlimited’ Hogs.

On June 9, a 36-year-old man suffering from late stage tracheal cancer, received a new trachea, or windpipe, made from a synthetic scaffold and covered with his own stem cells, the Karolinska University Hospital in the Stockholm suburb of Huddinge said in a statement.

The so-called regenerative medical procedure could, according to the hospital, revolutionise the field of trachea transplants, making them far more accessible.

Full Story Here: Landmark transplant uses stemcell-coated artificial windpipe | The Raw Story.

Full Text (PDF)

Full Story Here: Resveratrol prevents the wasting disorders of mechanical unloading by acting as a physical exercise mimetic in the rat.

“The deposits have a heavy concentration of rare earths. Just one square kilometer (0.4 square mile) of deposits will be able to provide one-fifth of the current global annual consumption,” said Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo.

The discovery was made by a team led by Kato and including researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

They found the minerals in sea mud extracted from depths of 3,500 to 6,000 meters (11,500-20,000 ft) below the ocean surface at 78 locations. One-third of the sites yielded rich contents of rare earths and the metal yttrium, Kato said in a telephone interview.

Full Story Here: Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific: Japan experts – Yahoo! News.

OPS: Are they radioactive yet?  Now the destruction of the Pacific Ocean Floor can begin full speed ahead.

Their relatively small roofs don’t offer much space for solar panels. A solar array crammed onto the top of a typical office tower could produce, at best, a tiny fraction of the electricity the building and its tenants need.

But what if the building’s windows could serve as solar panels?

Pythagoras Solar in San Mateo has developed a window laced with solar cells, a window that generates and saves electricity at the same time.

Full Story Here: Pythagoras Solar windows and energy breakthrough.

UPDATE for 5:35 p.m. ET: NASA has recalculated the time of closest approach for this event to be about 3 1/2 hours later than initially reported. The change is reflected below.

Here’s something to dwell on as you head to work next week: A small asteroid the size of a tour bus will make an extremely close pass by the Earth on Monday, but it poses no threat to the planet

The asteroid will make its closest approach at 1:14 p.m. EDT (1714 GMT) on June 27 and will pass just over 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface, NASA officials say. At that particular moment, the asteroid — which scientists have named 2011 MD — will be sailing high off the coast of Antarctica, almost 2,000 miles (3,218 km) south-southwest of South Africa.

Full Story Here: Asteroid to Pass Extremely Close By Earth on Monday | Near-Earth Asteroids & Potentially Dangerous Asteroids | Asteroid Photos & Comets | Space.com.

“It poses the question, ‘maybe we should rethink about this sixth sense,’” Steven Reppert, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, told LiveScience. “It is thought to be very important for how animals migrate. Perhaps this protein is also fulfilling an important function for sensing magnetic fields in humans.”

The research, published in Nature Communications this week, found that fruit flies could sense and respond to an electric-coil-generated magnetic field when their native retina protein was replaced with a human retina protein called “human cryptochrome 2 protein (hCRY2).”

Full Story Here: Human retina protein can function as a magnetic sensor | The Raw Story.

A star shooting water is almost an oxymoron.

But a young sun-like star seems to have been spotted 750 light-years from Earth doing just that, as researchers have apparently discovered, according to PopSci. Their findings indicate that the proto-star is shoot water from its poles at about 124,000 miles per hour.

Essentially, it’s creating water bullets that it shoots deep into interstellar space, according to National Geographic. This star is no more than 100,000 years old, and is located in the northern constellation Perseus.

The star was found by ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory, which was able to see through a dense layer of gas that surrounded it. According to PopSci, the telescope picked up the light signature of both hydrogen and oxygen which are coming together as liquid water before vaporizing near the massive jets of gas that spew from the the star’s poles.

Full Story Here: Star Shooting Intense Water Jets Into Space Spotted By Herschel Telescope.

Two enormous black holes may exist at the heart of a nearby galaxy, according to a new study set to be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

While many large systems contain supermassive black holes at their centers, it’s apparently considered rare that two could exist so close to each other. Even the Milky Way has a supermassive black hole at its center, according to NASA.

From NASA:

A study using NASA’s Swift satellite and the Chandra X-ray Observatory has found a second supersized black hole at the heart of an unusual nearby galaxy already known to be sporting one.

The galaxy, which is known as Markarian 739 or NGC 3758, lies 425 million light-years away toward the constellation Leo. Only about 11,000 light-years separate the two cores, each of which contains a black hole gorging on infalling gas.

Full Story Here: Dual Black Holes Inhabit Nearby Galaxy Markarian 739, Both Active (VIDEO).

Particles and anti-particles annihilate each other in a small flash of energy when they collide.

At the moment of the big bang, nearly 14 billion years ago, matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal quantities. If that balance had persisted, the observable Universe we inhabit would never have come into being.

For unknown reasons — and fortunately for us — N

Full Story Here: Scientists ‘trap’ anti-matter for record 16 minutes | The Raw Story.

Whatever Kevin McCracken actually videotapes in the night skies above Oakland, Calif., by the true definition of the term, he’s certainly capturing UFOs streaking overhead in formations.

Whether these unidentified objects in the sky are space aliens — or, perhaps, a flock of birds — remains to be proven.

(SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO)

Nevertheless, what this man has captured with his lens is extraordinary.

Using a Sony Handy Cam connected to an infrared scope, McCracken has successfully videotaped objects in triangular formations several times in the past year.

Full Story Here: Infrared Videotaper Kevin McCracken Captures UFO Squadrons Over Oakland, California (VIDEO).

Martin Jetpack makes the first true flight test by soaring 5000 feet into the air then parachuting back to Earth reported Stuff.co.nz.

According to Martin Aircraft Company’s Glenn Martin, “no other jetpack has flown higher than 150 feet” and “no one has ever fired a parachute from a jetpack.”

The jetpack was fitted with a test dummy for the flight and luckily so as it had a bit of a rough landing. Even with the heavy landing, Martin says a pilot would have walked away from it.

Full Story Here: Martin Jetpack Test Flight Video: Jetpack Travel Becoming Closer to Reality? – AOL Travel News.