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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Love is blind for fish in murky waters
Post Date: 2008-10-02 11:20:21 by Tauzero
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Love is blind for fish in murky waters 18:03 01 October 2008 NewScientist.com news service Ewen Callaway Some female fish have eyes for their man only. Colourful African cichlids have evolved into new species because females are partially blind to others. But even as that discovery is made, the species are under threat because the polluted waters they live in are causing them to interbreed. Among several closely related species of cichlids living in Lake Victoria, males come in either red or blue. Brighter males tend to get the girls, but new research suggests that both sexes have evolved to preferentially see only one colour, creating new species of fish in the process. "Reds ...
Heroic ants pay the ultimate price to safeguard nest
Post Date: 2008-09-30 13:36:38 by Tauzero
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Heroic ants pay the ultimate price to safeguard nest 11:15 29 September 2008 NewScientist.com news service Andy Coghlan Ants in Brazil have provided the first example of insects sacrificing themselves to pre-empt a threat. At sunset, the ants seal up the entrance to their nest, but in doing so a few remain outside to kick sand over the entrance hole until it becomes invisible. These ants then die due to the cold, or get blown away in the wind. There are many examples in nature of insects sacrificing themselves when a colony or nest is under attack, such as when bees use their stings to defend the hive and die in the process. But the door-sealing activities of these 2-millimetre ants ...
Invisibility cloaks could take sting out of tsunamis
Post Date: 2008-09-30 13:15:38 by Tauzero
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Invisibility cloaks could take sting out of tsunamis 12:31 29 September 2008 NewScientist.com news service Colin Barras Invisibility cloaks that are able to steer light around two dimensional objects have become reality in the last few years. But the first real-world application of the theories that made them possible could be in hiding vulnerable coastlines and offshore platforms from destructive tsunamis. The first working invisibility cloak, built in 2006, guided microwaves around a small, flat copper ring as if it wasn't there. By October 2007, a device repeated the trick for harder-to-handle visible light, and some progress is reported on the yet more complex task of making ...
Lucky for some: Science of superstition
Post Date: 2008-09-29 12:20:25 by Tauzero
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Lucky for some: Science of superstition Black cats, broken mirrors; superstitions may seem silly, but, asks Sanjida O'Connell, could they be the secret of our survival? Barack Obama played basketball the morning of his victory in the Iowa primary, and continued the tradition in every subsequent primary. The athlete Kelly Holmes laid her kit out in an exact order the night before a race. Superstitious habits are common; who doesn't cross their fingers, start at the sight of a black cat, touch wood and avoid walking under ladders? Superstitions seem irrational, but they pervade human life. The evolutionary biologist Dr Kevin Foster, from Harvard University, and Dr Hanna Kokko, ...
Genetics of Coat Colour in Dogs May Help Explain Human Stress and Weight
Post Date: 2008-09-29 12:13:51 by Tauzero
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Genetics of Coat Colour in Dogs May Help Explain Human Stress and Weight A discovery about the genetics of coat colour in dogs could help explain why humans come in different weights and vary in our abilities to cope with stress, a team led by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine reports. The study, published in the Nov. 2 issue of Science, answers a longtime mystery: What determines coat color in dogs? While researchers have known since the 1900s that most mammals share the same genetic mechanism to determine coat color, by the 1950s they began to suspect that dogs were different. Now after swabbing the inner cheeks of hundreds of dogs and analyzing the DNA in the ...
ISPs: We Swear, We Won't Watch Your Every Move
Post Date: 2008-09-26 15:59:32 by a vast rightwing conspirator
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ISPs: We Swear, We Won't Watch Your Every Move By Michele Masterson, ChannelWeb 12:41 PM EDT Fri. Sep. 26, 2008 Responding to increasing Internet privacy concerns, AT&T (NYSE:T), Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), the country's largest ISPs, told a Senate committee during a hearing Thursday that they don't engage in online consumer tracking and want to self-regulate such practices in the future. The hearing focused on whether ISPs are tracking their customers' Internet usage and selling that information to advertisers, an industry practice known as behavioral targeting. To be sure, controversy regarding consumer privacy on the Internet and Web ad tracking ...
New clickjacking affects all browsers; cause remains unknown
Post Date: 2008-09-26 15:43:22 by a vast rightwing conspirator
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New clickjacking affects all browsers; cause remains unknown By Joel Hruska | Published: September 26, 2008 - 01:41PM CT Jeremiah Grossman and Robert "Rsnake" Hansen initially planned to reveal details on a new browser-agnostic clickjacking exploit at the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) in New York City this week, but voluntarily pulled the presentation after discovering that the 0-day flaw affected an Adobe product. The term "clickjacking" refers to a process by which a user is forced to click on a link without his or her knowledge—the link itself may be nearly invisible or visible for only a fraction of a second. Clickjacking isn't a new attack ...
NMap 4.75 now maps the network graphically
Post Date: 2008-09-25 22:11:44 by Split
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Zenmap lays out your network Nmap, the popular network scanner and mapper, has been updated to version 4.75 and gained the ability to graphically display the network topology it scans and maps. The update also includes hundreds of new OS signatures and new scripting engine modules. The mapping facility is incorporated in the Zenmap GUI for nmap. It lays out the detected nodes in concentric circles based on how many hops away from the scanning system that node is. Details, screenshots and a guide to reading the maps have been added to the nmap documentation. After Fyodor spent the summer scanning tens of millions of IP addresses, the results of his work have provided empirical data which ...
Perfectly Personalized Internet Radio with Pandora and the Music Genome Project
Post Date: 2008-09-25 16:21:48 by Tauzero
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Perfectly Personalized Internet Radio with Pandora and the Music Genome Project Kev Kitchens - 2008.09.25 The other day, I was busily helping the newspaper editor at school put together the headlines and layouts for the latest issue. He was listening to an internet radio station that I had never heard of, Pandora Radio. He explained the basics of the concept behind the Musical Genome Project, the technology which powers the service, and encouraged me to try it. When I logged on, I was simply amazed at this wonderful service. Plus, it's free! Music Has Genes? The Musical Genome Project (MGP) was started in early 200 by a group of people who were attempting to decode the ...
Top 5 right-click extensions
Post Date: 2008-09-25 15:08:32 by Split
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One thing that most Windows users can’t do without is their right mouse button. As one user who switched to Mac once said, “Losing the right mouse button is like losing a limb”. No amount of shortcuts or launchers in the world can make up for that sweet right-click that facilitates everything from downloading to quick cutting and pasting. However, if you’re only using the default options that Windows offers when you right click then you’re not getting the most out of your mouse’s right click button. Here’s 5 top ways to quite literally, add more power to your elbow. DownThemAll! - Add downloads instantly to your download manager in Firefox Rightload - ...
Barracuda opens up spam blocking list
Post Date: 2008-09-25 11:40:19 by Split
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Filtering software offered to businesses for free Barracuda Networks is to open its spam blocking list for companies to use free of charge. The Barracuda Reputation Block List (BRBL) is a dynamically updated list of known spam servers that can be used to block spam at the gateway. This means that companies do not have to run all incoming email though antivirus scanners and other filtering technologies, according to the firm. "Most IP addresses are listed as a result of directly sending spam or viruses to the Barracuda Reputation System detectors," said the company in a statement. "The system detects spam by using 'honey-pots', special addresses created to receive ...
Mysterious 'Dark Flow' Found in Space
Post Date: 2008-09-24 18:29:12 by freepatriot32
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(Sept. 23) -- As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered. Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon "dark flow." The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude. When scientists talk about the observable universe, they don't just mean as far out as the eye, or even the most powerful telescope, can see. In fact there's a fundamental limit to ...
Swiss man to fly channel without plane
Post Date: 2008-09-24 17:19:04 by Split
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'Solo' flight on jet-powered wing and prayerIs it a bird? No, clearly a nutterZoom 1 2 Yves Rossy plans to fly the channel on a jet-powered wing, tomorrow. Weather permitting, the 49-year-old former airline pilot will drop out of an aeroplane at 2,500m over Calais around midday. From there he hopes to reach Dover around ten minutes later depending on how quickly he can decelerate from speeds of up to 300kph. The 3m wing has no moving parts so presumably pointing in the right direction is a priority at such speeds. The event will be streamed live on the National Geographic channel. Although not formally trained in this discipline, the Swiss man, self-styled quite reasonably as ...
Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low
Post Date: 2008-09-24 10:33:28 by farmfriend
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Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low Sept. 23, 2008: In a briefing today at NASA headquarters, solar physicists announced that the solar wind is losing power. "The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s," says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. "This is the weakest it's been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago." McComas is principal investigator for the SWOOPS solar wind sensor onboard the Ulysses spacecraft, which measured the decrease. Ulysses, launched in 1990, circles the sun in a unique orbit that carries it over both the sun's poles and equator, giving ...
50 tools to speed up your PC
Post Date: 2008-09-23 20:55:20 by Split
4 Comments
Is your PC tired and sluggish? Has its get up and go got up and went? If you want a faster system, you could certainly break the bank and buy a new machine. Or you could read this article instead. We've found 50 downloads that will make your PC run more quickly and smoothly, help you use the Internet more effectively, and push Windows to work at optimum speed with the interface you want, not what Microsoft gave you. Most of these downloads are free to use forever; some are free to try, but require that you pay for them after a trial period (we've labeled each download accordingly). You won't have to search high and low on the Internet to find them; they're all available ...
How much is that neurotic in the window?
Post Date: 2008-09-23 14:46:32 by Tauzero
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How much is that neurotic in the window? Steve Jones September 19, 2008 Of all the revolting pets I know, the Xoloitzcuintli takes the dog biscuit. Also known as the Mexican hairless dog, it was sacred to the Aztecs, who used it as a bedwarmer and a convenient snack. It lives up to its name, for it is entirely bald, with black skin. Although several of its teeth are missing, its owners love the breed, and resent it being a frequent winner of ugly dog contests. Ancient statues show it has been around for 3000 years, unusual for dog breeds, many of which are less than a century old. The gene responsible for its appearance has just been found, and it has an almost exact equivalent in our ...
Hacker tool can watch you through webcam
Post Date: 2008-09-23 14:40:53 by Split
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Prevx reveals how Big Hacker is watching you Cover your webcams and unplug your microphones, because the latest freely-available hacker tools could use your own hardware against you without your knowledge. Security specialist Prevx showed us some of the latest scary techniques being used to take unsuspecting web users' credit card details, passwords and personal information, as well as turn on your webcam and watch you. Worryingly, something as simple as a failure to update Adobe Acrobat reader and then clicking on the wrong PDF file could put your PC at risk, and the real concern is the increase in 'zero day exploits' – unpublicised or previously unknown exploits that ...
Vista Annoyances Resolved
Post Date: 2008-09-23 12:56:10 by Split
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Introduction "Oh lord, not another Vista article!" Like me, I'm sure many of you might be thinking something along those lines whenever you see an article with the word 'Vista' in the title these days. We've had what can only be described as a plethora of articles on Windows Vista, almost all of them repetitive, one-sided and of little practical use. Some of them have bordered on the absurd, such as Infoworld declaring Windows Vista to be the second biggest tech blunder in history, giving as its reason a one paragraph description that serves more to highlight the author's ignorance than provide any actual logic for their decision. We've been suffering under ...
The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have
Post Date: 2008-09-22 16:01:55 by richard9151
15 Comments
by David Kiley Friday, September 19, 2008 If ever there was a car made for the times, this would seem to be it: a sporty subcompact that seats five, offers a navigation system, and gets a whopping 65 miles to the gallon. Oh yes, and the car is made by Ford Motor, known widely for lumbering gas hogs. Ford's 2009 Fiesta ECOnetic goes on sale in November. But here's the catch: Despite the car's potential to transform Ford's image and help it compete with Toyota Motor and Honda Motor in its home market, the company will sell the little fuel sipper only in Europe. "We know it's an awesome vehicle," says Ford America President Mark Fields. "But there are ...
Antarctic fossils paint a picture of a much warmer continent
Post Date: 2008-09-21 21:12:01 by farmfriend
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Contact: Peter West pwest@nsf.gov 703-292-7761 National Science Foundation Antarctic fossils paint a picture of a much warmer continent Insects, ferns flourished, then flickered out millions of years ago as the tundra retreated National Science Foundation-funded scientists working in an ice-free region of Antarctica have discovered the last traces of tundra--in the form of fossilized plants and insects--on the interior of the southernmost continent before temperatures began a relentless drop millions of years ago. An abrupt and dramatic climate cooling of 8 degrees Celsius, over a relatively brief period of geological time roughly 14 million years ago, forced the extinction of tundra ...
Most Massive Star in Class By Itself
Post Date: 2008-09-21 17:04:10 by richard9151
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20080919/sc_space/mostmassivestarinclassbyitself;_ylt=AtrIOTeoGHM5aOcPh86FP7UiANEA Clara Moskowitz Staff Writer SPACE.com Fri Sep 19, 3:01 PM ET Astronomers have confirmed the weight of the most massive star in the galaxy. This behemoth, estimated to be roughly 116 times the mass of the sun, dwarfs most other stars in the galaxy. In fact, the next most massive star is about 89 solar masses, and it is a gravitationally bound sister to the record setter. The next most massive ever weighed is 83 solar masses. Theory holds that stars can be up to about 150 solar masses. Discovery of the record-setting stars were first announced last year. The new ...
CERN: Damage to new collider forces 2-month halt
Post Date: 2008-09-20 16:17:14 by richard9151
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By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 7 minutes ago GENEVA - The world's largest atom smasher — which was launched with great fanfare earlier this month — has been damaged worse than previously thought and will be out of commission for at least two months, its operators said Saturday. Experts have gone into 17-mile (27-kilometer) circular tunnel housing the Large Hadron Collider under the Swiss-French border to examine the damage that halted operations about 36 hours after its Sept. 10 startup, said James Gillies, spokesman for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. "It's too early to say precisely what happened, but it seems ...
Beaverton 12 yr old INVENTS 3D SOLAR CELL *VID*
Post Date: 2008-09-20 09:22:38 by nikki
13 Comments
Poster Comment:WOW!
Some Political Views May be Related to Physiology
Post Date: 2008-09-19 23:38:39 by farmfriend
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Some Political Views May be Related to Physiology New study reports physiological responses to disturbing images and sounds consistent with strong political beliefs People who react more strongly to bumps in the night, spiders on a human body or the sight of a shell-shocked victim are more likely to support public policies that emphasize protecting society over preserving individual privacy. That's the conclusion of a recent study by researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). Their research results appear in the Sept. 19 issue of Science magazine. The study, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), tested 46 people who identified themselves as having strong ...
Software spots the spin in political speeches
Post Date: 2008-09-18 17:03:44 by Split
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Enlarge imageEnlarge imageComparing the spin BLINK and you would have missed it. The expression of disgust on former US president Bill Clinton's face during his speech to the Democratic National Convention as he says "Obama" lasts for just a fraction of a second. But to Paul Ekman it was glaringly obvious. "Given that he probably feels jilted that his wife Hillary didn't get the nomination, I would have to say that the entire speech was actually given very gracefully," says Ekman, who has studied people's facial expressions and how they relate to what they are thinking for over 40 years. It seems that Clinton's micro-expression gave away more about his ...
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