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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Magnetic Sense: Why Powerlines Confuse the Internal Compass of Migrating Birds
Post Date: 2012-07-12 05:11:53 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (July 10, 2012) — Migratory birds and fish use Earth's magnetic field to find their way. LMU researchers have now identified cells with internal compass needles for the perception of the field -- and can explain why high-tension cables perturb the magnetic orientation. Although many animal species can sense the geomagnetic field and exploit it for spatial orientation, efforts to pinpoint the cells that detect the field and convert the information into nerve impulses have so far failed. "The field penetrates the whole organism, so such cells could be located almost anywhere, making them hard to identify," says LMU geophysicist Michael Winklhofer. Together ...
'Exploding iPhone' leaves Swedish man in shock
Post Date: 2012-07-12 04:03:48 by Tatarewicz
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An ex-Volvo engineer in Sweden who recently tried to change the battery on his iPhone got a shock and lost a tooth after the popular Apple smartphone exploded and caught fire. Hans Wellgren, a retired Volvo engineering analyst from Gothenburg, was gobsmacked when a recent attempt to fix his phone failed spectacularly. “It exploded, just like a flare, and filled the car with toxic smoke," the 74-year-old told The Local. "I couldn’t see anything and knocked my tooth out while throwing the damn thing out the window!” Wallgren has spent his life trying to make products safer and was shocked that the iPhone did not have a warning explaining the danger of removing ...
New Homeland Security Laser Scanner Reads People At Molecular Level
Post Date: 2012-07-11 21:07:00 by Buzzard
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The Department of Homeland Security will soon be using a laser at airports that can detect everything about you from over 160-feet away. Gizmodo reports a scanner that could read people at the molecular level has been invented. This laser-based scanner – which can be used 164-feet away — could read everything from a person’s adrenaline levels, to traces of gun powder on a person’s clothes, to illegal substances — and it can all be done without a physical search. It also could be used on multiple people at a time, eliminating random searches at airports. The laser-based scanner is expected to be used in airports as soon as 2013, Gizmodo reports. The scanner is ...
DNA Research: - C2C recap
Post Date: 2012-07-11 04:22:12 by Tatarewicz
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On Monday's show, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford since 1997, Bryan Sykes, discussed some of his fascinating DNA research findings, including his study of American genetics. The United States' population contains a convergence of DNA from a number of continents, with interesting crossovers such as some African Americans having European genes. According to earlier research (not done by Skyes), Native Americans actually originated from Siberia, China, and even Europe, but the DNA blood testing that yielded these results was done without their consent, and thus raised controversy and ire, he detailed. Interestingly, some people from Britain have been found to ...
Metformin May Help Renew Neurons
Post Date: 2012-07-11 03:01:08 by Tatarewicz
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— New research suggests that the widely used type 2 diabetes drug metformin may be useful in stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and other conditions involving injured or degenerating brain cells. Animal studies showed that metformin activates a key pathway (aPKC-CBP) that promotes neurogenesis and enhanced hippocampus-dependent spatial memory formation in study animals. Results also showed that the drug has similar activity on human neural precursors, increasing the likelihood that it might enhance neurogenesis in the human brain as well. These findings could provide the basis for a therapeutic strategy for human nervous system disorders, according to the study authors from the ...
Tim Ball: Climate is changing ... it's cooling!
Post Date: 2012-07-10 11:47:49 by Ada
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Scientist says 'foolish' government focusing on isolated heat waves In the midst of recent wildfires, deadly storms and a record-setting heatwave, many climate change proponents claimed these extreme events were further proof of man’s impact on our environment. They claim part of the human impact is greater volatility in our climate. Dr. Tim Ball says that’s nonsense. Ball is a former professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg and is one of the leading scientific voices challenging the climate-change movement. Ball says the events we’re seeing are cyclical and are actually the start of a cooling trend for our climate. He explains how winds from the ...
Windows 8 computers to go on sale in October
Post Date: 2012-07-10 05:46:23 by Tatarewicz
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SAN FRANCISCO — Computers running on the next version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system will go on sale in October. Microsoft Corp. announced the time frame for Windows 8’s mass-market release Monday in Toronto. A specific sales date in October wasn’t provided. Most industry analysts expected Windows 8 would go on sale in the fall to ensure that the machines running on the operating system would be available for the holiday shopping season. Consumers and businesses who don’t want to buy new computers will be able to buy Windows 8 and upgrade their systems. New versions of Windows typically come out every three years, but this update is the most widely ...
Super microalgae full of biofuel potential
Post Date: 2012-07-10 03:56:53 by Tatarewicz
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MISA researchers from SARDI have isolated and evaluated a ‘super strain’ of a native microalgae species that could form the basis of a local biofuels industry. This breakthrough in biodiscovery comes after six years of ‘bioprospecting’ across thousands of kilometres of the State and into the waters of the Great Australian Bight by SARDI researchers followed by laboratory and small-scale outdoor raceway trials. The success in finding this particular strain of microalgae among the hundreds of microalgal species and strains evaluated has given South Australia a head start as research into third generation biofuels advances to the next level. Dr Nayar and SARDI ...
Five reasons DNSChanger victims deserve to lose the internet
Post Date: 2012-07-06 03:38:25 by Tatarewicz
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Summary: The FBI's shut-down of temporary DNS servers will rid the internet of those infected by DNSChanger, and it will be a better place because of it. commentary Six thousand Australians infected with DNSChanger malware are set to be cut off from the internet on Monday, when the FBI shuts down the temporary servers that are keeping them online. In my opinion, they deserve to lose the privilege to connect to the internet. DNSChanger tricks computers into connecting to rogue DNS servers, which point certain domain names to IP addresses of their choosing. For instance, these rogue DNS servers could point Google.com to a malicious site without the user knowing. Those infected with ...
Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday; how to check whether you
Post Date: 2012-07-05 04:20:29 by Tatarewicz
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WASHINGTON - The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website. Monday deadline. Click for Full Text!
Higgs boson found!
Post Date: 2012-07-04 13:26:36 by Armadillo
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GENEVA (Reuters) - Scientists at Europe's CERN research centre have found a new subatomic particle, a basic building block of the universe, which appears to be the boson imagined and named half a century ago by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs. "We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature," CERN director general Rolf Heuer told a gathering of scientists and the world's media near Geneva on Wednesday. Click for Full Text!Poster Comment:I was hoping they would not find it. Would cause chaos in physics. Alas, the Standard Model still lives.
Google shuts down five products
Post Date: 2012-07-04 00:34:11 by Tatarewicz
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SAN FRANCISCO, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Google on Tuesday announced to shut down five products which are not core to its business. Among the five products to be axed, the most notable are iGoogle, the search giant's personalized homepage service and Google Video. iGoogle will be axed on Nov. 1, 2013, giving users 16 months to adjust or export their data, said Google in its official blog. It said that with today's web and mobile apps, the need for iGoogle has eroded over time. For Google Video, which stopped taking uploads in May 2009, its remaining hosted content will be moved to YouTube this summer and users need to migrate, delete or downloaded their content before Aug.20. The ...
Animal intelligence: What do they know? A lot. Non-human primates, for example, are limited only by the complexity of their prefrontal cortex.
Post Date: 2012-07-03 10:19:53 by christine
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WASHINGTON — The more we study animals, the less special we may seem. Baboons can distinguish between written words and gibberish. Monkeys seem to be able to do multiplication. Apes can delay instant gratification longer than a human child can. They plan ahead. They make war and peace. They show empathy. They share. "It's not a question of whether they think -- it's how they think," said Duke University scientist Brian Hare. Now scientists wonder if apes are capable of thinking about what other apes are thinking. The evidence that animals are more intelligent and more social than we thought seems to grow each year, especially when it comes to primates. It's an ...
Stumbling upon biological breakthroughs
Post Date: 2012-07-02 06:54:04 by Tatarewicz
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“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny’,” author and chemistry professor, Isaac Asimov, once observed.? Many important scientific concepts owe their discovery to pure chance...or even dumb luck. The award for the most famous accidental finding goes to Sir Alexander Fleming. Fleming, as part of his on-going research, would grow bacteria cultures in Petri dishes. But in the summer of 1928, Fleming got a little careless. He left a few of his Petri dishes exposed to the air, and then went on vacation. When he returned from vacation, he happened to notice that one of the Petri ...
Fungus stopped coal formation
Post Date: 2012-06-29 06:53:05 by Tatarewicz
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Study On Fungi Helps Explain Coal Formation and May Advance Future Biofuels Production ScienceDaily (June 28, 2012) — A new study--which includes the first large-scale comparison of fungi that cause rot decay--suggests that the evolution of a type of fungi known as white rot may have brought an end to a 60-million-year-long period of coal deposition known as the Carboniferous period. Coal deposits that accumulated during the Carboniferous, which ended about 300 million years ago, have historically fueled about 50 percent of U.S. electric power generation. In addition, the study provides insights about diverse fungal enzymes that might be used in the future to help generate biofuels, ...
Viewing atoms in terms of their internal fields
Post Date: 2012-06-29 05:00:58 by Tatarewicz
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A new high-tech method for imaging the electric fields of atoms could lead to advances in areas as diverse as data storage, solar cells and batteries. Research published today in the prestigious journal Nature Physics detailed how physicists from Monash University and Japanese institutions including the University of Tokyo and the Japan Science and Technology Agency viewed the electric fields of atoms using a new advanced scanning transmission electron microscopy technique. Electric fields are produced by the electrically-charged particles within atoms known as protons and electrons. The electrical forces between the positively and negatively charged particles play an important structural ...
Report: Solar Panel Supply Will Far Exceed Demand Beyond 2012
Post Date: 2012-06-28 23:20:57 by farmfriend
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Report: Solar Panel Supply Will Far Exceed Demand Beyond 2012 Ucilia Wang, Contributor hen solar equipment manufactures began posting big losses during 2011, forcing some to close factories or even file for bankruptcies, many of them wondered: when will the market recover? End of 2011? Mid-2012? Not this year. Or even next year. Solar panel makers are on track to deliver 59 gigawatts of their products worldwide this year when demand will likely hit 30 gigawatts, according to a report released by GTM Research Wednesday. To re-establish a healthy balance of supply and demand, an estimated 21 gigawatts of existing factories will close by 2015, said Shyam Mehta, author of the report. The ...
Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away
Post Date: 2012-06-28 23:18:50 by farmfriend
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Antarctic ice is growing, not melting away Ice expanding in much of Antarctica Eastern coast getting colder Western section remains a concern ICE is expanding in much of Antarctica, contrary to the widespread public belief that global warming is melting the continental ice cap. The results of ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring indicate there is no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica, although experts are concerned at ice losses on the continent's western coast. Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth's ice and 80 per cent of its fresh water, The Australian reports. Extensive melting of Antarctic ice sheets would be required to raise sea levels ...
Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show
Post Date: 2012-06-28 23:12:59 by farmfriend
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Antarctic ice shelves not melting at all, new field data show Crafty boffins got elephant seals to survey for them By Lewis Page • Get more from this author Posted in Science, 25th June 2012 07:19 GMT Twenty-year-old models which have suggested serious ice loss in the eastern Antarctic have been compared with reality for the first time - and found to be wrong, so much so that it now appears that no ice is being lost at all. "Previous ocean models ... have predicted temperatures and melt rates that are too high, suggesting a significant mass loss in this region that is actually not taking place," says Tore Hattermann of the Norwegian Polar Institute, member of a team ...
World's first GM babies born
Post Date: 2012-06-28 13:03:05 by Jethro Tull
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The world's first geneticallymodified humans have been created, it was revealed last night. The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics. So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three 'parents'. Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey. The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt ...
Delusion is a big problem with the green crowd
Post Date: 2012-06-26 01:41:17 by farmfriend
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Delusion is a big problem with the green crowd By Stephen Murgatroyd, Troy Media The draft text for discussion at Rio +20 - the UN conference on sustainable development - makes clear that the summit itself is a waste of energy and time. Even the environmental non-government organizations attending it think so. Jim Leape, international director-general of World Wildlife Fund, hoped that the document would be renegotiated: "It's pathetic. It's appalling. If this becomes the final text the last year has been a colossal waste of time." Friends of the Earth are even stronger in their disapproval, calling the plans "an epic failure." None of this surprises anyone. ...
Arctic once had extreme warm periods
Post Date: 2012-06-23 15:41:36 by farmfriend
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Arctic once had extreme warm periods The Arctic went through ice-free periods of extreme warmth over the past 2.8 million years, based on a new analysis of deep sediment in Russia. The team led by Martin Melles of the University of Cologne, Germany, drilled into an iced-over lake formed by a meteorite impact on the Chukchi Peninsula in Siberia for the longest sediment core ever collected in the terrestrial Arctic. Since the meteorite struck an area of Lake El'gygytgyn that was not eroded by glaciers, the sediment record reaches back nearly 30 times further in time than ice cores from Greenland that cover the past 110,000 years. The sediment reveals periods of extreme warmth that ...
Green ‘drivel’ exposed - The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria
Post Date: 2012-06-23 15:40:06 by farmfriend
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Green ‘drivel’ exposed The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria By Lorrie Goldstein ,Toronto Sun Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change. The implications were extraordinary. Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory. Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his ...
Placing weather modification mirors in space would reduce rainfall
Post Date: 2012-06-21 05:00:26 by Tatarewicz
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Space mirrors will dry out US and Eurasia INSTALLING huge mirrors in space would help reverse global warming, but they would come at a price: less rain for the Americas and northern Eurasia. Previous studies have shown that geoengineering cannot restore both temperature and rain to previous levels, but they could not specify what a geoengineered climate would look like. Hauke Schmidt of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, and his colleagues played out the same simple scenario in four different climate models. In each one, he quadrupled carbon dioxide levels from pre-industrial levels. Then, to mimic the effect of space-borne mirrors, he reduced the amount of ...
Turtles fossilised in sex embrace
Post Date: 2012-06-20 12:38:25 by farmfriend
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Turtles fossilised in sex embrace By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Turtles killed as they were having sex and then fossilised in position have been described by scientists. The remains of the 47-million-year old animals were unearthed in the famous Messel Pit near Darmstadt, Germany. They were found as male-female pairs. In two cases, the males even had their tails tucked under their partners' as would be expected from the coital position. Details are carried in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Researchers think the turtles had initiated sex in the surface waters of the lake that once existed on the site, and were then overcome as they sank through ...
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