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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Left Brain vs. Right: It's a Myth, Research Finds
Post Date: 2013-09-07 05:57:56 by Tatarewicz
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LiveScience... It's the foundation of myriad personality assessment tests, self-motivation books and team-building exercises – and it's all bunk. Popular culture would have you believe that logical, methodical and analytical people are left-brain dominant, while the creative and artistic types are right-brain dominant. Trouble is, science never really supported this notion. Now, scientists at the University of Utah have debunked the myth with an analysis of more than 1,000 brains. They found no evidence that people preferentially use their left or right brain. All of the study participants — and no doubt the scientists — were using their entire brain equally, ...
Report: NSA cracked most online encryption
Post Date: 2013-09-06 05:18:38 by Ada
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This photo provided by The Guardian Newspaper in London shows Edward Snowden, who worked as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, on Sunday, June 9, 2013, in Hong Kong. The National Security Agency, working with the British government, has secretly been unraveling encryption technology that billions of Internet users rely upon to keep their electronic messages and confidential data safe from prying eyes, according to published reports Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013, based on internal U.S. government documents. (AP Photo - The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras) WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Security Agency, working with the British government, has secretly been ...
New Groundbreaking Research May Expose New Aspects of the Universe
Post Date: 2013-09-06 03:52:55 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily Sep. 4, 2013 — No one knows for sure, but it is not at all unlikely that the universe is constructed in a very different way than the usual theories and models of today predict. The most widely used model today cannot explain everything in the universe, and therefore there is a need to explore the parts of nature which the model cannot explain. This research field is called new physics, and it turns our understanding of the universe upside down. New research now makes the search for new physics easier. Share This: "New physics is about searching for unknown physical phenomena not known from the current perception of the universe. Such phenomena are inherently very ...
Canine Remote Control, Using Your Smart Phone? Hands-Free Dog Walking for the Digital Age
Post Date: 2013-09-04 05:09:31 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily... Sep. 3, 2013 — That old "best friend" can get a bit tiresome, all that rolling over, shaking paws, long walks and eating every crumb of food off the floor. But, what if there were a way to command your dog with a remote control, or even via your smart phone...or even without hands? Share This: Jeff Miller and David Bevly of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, have devised just such a system and describe details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control. The device based on a control suite with a microprocessor, wireless radio, GPS receiver, and an attitude and ...
Remembering to Remember: Two Routes of Memory Retrieval
Post Date: 2013-09-04 04:51:28 by Tatarewicz
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When remembering to perform tasks in the future, 2 separate attentional brain processes appear equally successful in achieving the same outcome, a new study suggests. According to a popular theory, top-down attentional control is necessary in maintaining activation in prospective memory. For example, in trying to remember to take reusable bags to the grocery store, the top-down approach would involve constant reminders to oneself not to forget them. Another theory maintains that a bottom-up approach of spontaneous retrieval triggered by cues is effective. In the grocery bag scenario, such a cue might involve hanging the reusable bags from the front door knob as a reminder. In the ...
Spray-On Solar Cells? New Nanoparticles Make Solar Cells Cheaper to Manufacture
Post Date: 2013-08-31 01:00:50 by Tatarewicz
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ug. 30, 2013 — University of Alberta researchers have found that abundant materials in Earth's crust can be used to make inexpensive and easily manufactured nanoparticle-based solar cells. The discovery, several years in the making, is an important step forward in making solar power more accessible to parts of the world that are off the traditional electricity grid or face high power costs, such as the Canadian North, said researcher Jillian Buriak, a chemistry professor and senior research officer of the National Institute for Nanotechnology based on the U of A campus. Buriak and her team have designed nanoparticles that absorb light and conduct electricity from two very common ...
Miniature brain grown in lab
Post Date: 2013-08-29 04:20:39 by Tatarewicz
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BBC... Miniature "human brains" have been grown in a lab in a feat scientists hope will transform the understanding of neurological disorders. The pea-sized structures reached the same level of development as in a nine-week-old foetus, but are incapable of thought. The study, published in the journal Nature, has already been used to gain insight into rare diseases. Neuroscientists have described the findings as astounding and fascinating. The human brain is one of the most complicated structures in the universe. Scientists at Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences have now reproduced some of the earliest stages of the organ's development ...
Explainer: what is E.coli?
Post Date: 2013-08-27 04:06:31 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceAlert: Most strains of E.coli live quite happily in human and animal intestines, but some of these bacteria can cause diarrhoea as well as serious illnesses. There has been a small outbreak of E.coli infection in Brisbane. Three children and one adult who attended the Brisbane Royal Agricultural Show, also known as Ekka, tested positive for the bacterial infection last week. The children were apparently infected through direct contact with animals at the petting zoo. Another 13 cases have since come forward. The Queensland Health Department today confirmed eight cases of the Shiga toxin producing E.coli strain (STEC), with the age of those infected ranging from six to 42. Another ...
Cosmologist claims Universe may not be expanding
Post Date: 2013-08-26 02:28:47 by farmfriend
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Cosmologist claims Universe may not be expanding Particles' changing masses could explain why distant galaxies appear to be rushing away. Jon Cartwright It started with a bang, and has been expanding ever since. For nearly a century, this has been the standard view of the Universe. Now one cosmologist is proposing a radically different interpretation of events — in which the Universe is not expanding at all. In a paper posted on the arXiv preprint server1, Christof Wetterich, a theoretical physicist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, has devised a different cosmology in which the Universe is not expanding but the mass of everything has been increasing. Such an ...
Mending a Broken Heart? Scientists Transform Non-Beating Human Cells Into Heart-Muscle Cells
Post Date: 2013-08-24 03:51:49 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily... Aug. 22, 2013 — In the aftermath of a heart attack, cells within the region most affected shut down. They stop beating. And they become entombed in scar tissue. But now, scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have demonstrated that this damage need not be permanent -- by finding a way to transform the class of cells that form human scar tissue into those that closely resemble beating heart cells. Share This: ? Last year, these scientists transformed scar-forming heart cells, part of a class of cells known as fibroblasts, into beating heart-muscle cells in live mice. And in the latest issue of Stem Cell Reports, researchers in the laboratory of Gladstone Cardiovascular ...
PRUDEN: Up to our ears in Al Gore’s ‘climate change’ snake oil
Post Date: 2013-08-23 19:38:59 by Ada
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Al Gore and his traveling medicine show is back in town with his new, improved snake oil, guaranteed to grow hair, improve digestion, promote regularity and kill roaches, rats and bedbugs. Al and his wagon rumbled into town on the eve of “a major forthcoming report” from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is a panel of scientists affiliated with the United Nations. Their report is expected to buck up the spirits of the tycoons of the snake-oil industry. A snake-oil salesman’s lot, like a policeman’s, is not a happy one. There’s always a skeptic or two (or three) standing at the back of the wagon, eager to scoff and jeer. The global-warming scam ...
New Skylight Scoops Up Daylight, Save Energy
Post Date: 2013-08-22 03:29:49 by Tatarewicz
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Aug. 20, 2013 — The Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently released a guide for designing light scoops -- an innovative type of skylight designed by the LRC with funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Light scoops provide optimal levels of daylight throughout the changing seasons and daily fluctuations in weather by capturing and strategically redirecting daylight into buildings. Share This: ? Many conventional horizontal skylights provide too much sun on days that are warm and sunny, and too little sun on days that are cold and dark. The LRC's new light scoops design balances out these daily and ...
Tueday's solar superstorm - mild
Post Date: 2013-08-21 05:45:47 by Tatarewicz
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Earth was attacked by a solar super storm on Tuesday, August 20, sending giant clouds of extremely heated particles directly towards us. The storm, known as coronal mass ejection (CME) took place at 4:24 a.m. EDT (0824 GMT) on Tuesday and unleashed billions of tons of solar particles toward Earth at an unimaginable speed of two million miles per hour (mph). “Experimental NASA research models based on observations from NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, show that the CME left the sun at speeds of around 570 miles per second, which is a fairly typical speed for CMEs,” NASA officials wrote in an update on Tuesday. NASA’s twin Stereo spacecraft and the Solar ...
Information sector: new engine to boost China's economic growth
Post Date: 2013-08-21 02:43:08 by Tatarewicz
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The file photo taken on July 3, 2013 shows a staff member (R) of China Mobile shows to customers how to surf the Internet using the 4G technology in Guiyang, capital of southwest China's Guizhou Province. The State Council has recently elevated national broadband development as a national strategy and announced an implementation timetable for its development over the coming eight years. (Xinhua/Tao Liang) BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- China aims to boost the consumption of information products and services, making the sector a new engine for boosting domestic demand and a new driver of economic growth, according to a guideline released by the State Council, or China's cabinet. ...
Chinese shipbuilder reveals breakthrough technology
Post Date: 2013-08-21 02:30:02 by Tatarewicz
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BEIJING, Aug. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- One of China's major shipbuilders said it has developed cutting-edge propulsion technology that will bring the nation closer to its goal of modernizing its shipping and naval fleets. China Shipbuilding Industry Corp said its Wuhan Institute of Marine Electric Propulsion finalized its integrated electric propulsion technology in mid-July. It said the in-house development will help the nation wean itself off the longstanding dependence on imported parts in manufacturing ships. Most surface vessels in China use mechanical transmissions and are propelled by a motor or an engine spinning a propeller. Many Western countries have adopted integrated electric ...
Neil, Could You Shed Some Light On This, Please?
Post Date: 2013-08-21 01:08:31 by James Deffenbach
30 Comments
Earlier tonight JT posted an article from The Onion. When I clicked the link to go to the source I got it for just a couple of seconds and then it disappeared. Happened again when I just typed in theonion.com without the rest of the url that went to that specific article. It came up but just for a second or two and then vanished. I have no idea why that happened or how it is possible. That is why I am asking--thanks for clearing it up for me if you understand it (I sure don't).
Taco Bell serving ‘soylent gringo’? GMO corn causes concern
Post Date: 2013-08-20 15:53:39 by X-15
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(PNS reporting from WASHINGTON, DC) A new Food and Drug Administration study has detected a questionable strain of genetically-engineered corn in taco shells produced for Taco Bell. “It could cause digestive problems, cramping, spasms, allergic reactions and even night blindness,” Colonel Ben Enoso of the FDA’s Genetic Corn Division told a press conference Monday. “Unfortunately, this makes it pretty hard to distinguish from other Taco Bell food items.” The corn, which carries a gene designed to kill insect pests if eaten, has been approved as feed for animals but not humans. Scientists suspect the human body will not be able to digest a key protein in this killer ...
“One Device to End All Disease … And It Costs Less Than $50"
Post Date: 2013-08-16 02:48:53 by Tatarewicz
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What's the MEMS stock being teased by Michael Robinson's Radical Technology Profits? Radical Technology Profits, edited by Michael Robinson over at Money Map Press, is one of the newsletters that, like Breakthrough Technology Alert or the many other competitors, aims to get in early on technology and biotech stories — and also like most of these letters, they pitch their ideas by selling a big picture story that weaves some little company’s product into a larger and more easily identified trend that sounds entirely plausible. Which isn’t to say that they’re all bad ideas — far from it, I’m sure these kinds of “breakout technology” ...
Light-heat selectivity in windows
Post Date: 2013-08-15 00:08:41 by Tatarewicz
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— Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have designed a new material to make smart windows even smarter. The material is a thin coating of nanocrystals embedded in glass that can dynamically modify sunlight as it passes through a window. Unlike existing technologies, the coating provides selective control over visible light and heat-producing near-infrared (NIR) light, so windows can maximize both energy savings and occupant comfort in a wide range of climates. "In the US, we spend about a quarter of our total energy on lighting, heating and cooling our buildings," says Delia Milliron, a chemist at Berkeley ...
Smartphone pictures pose privacy risks
Post Date: 2013-08-13 19:49:26 by X-15
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Disruptions: As New Targets for Hackers, Your Car and Your House
Post Date: 2013-08-13 09:33:10 by Ada
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Imagine driving on the freeway at 60 miles per hour and your car suddenly screeches to a halt, causing a pileup that injures dozens of people. Now imagine you had absolutely nothing to do with the accident because your car was taken over by hackers. Charlie Miller, a security researcher at Twitter, and Chris Valasek, director of security intelligence at IOActive, a security research company, recently demonstrated car hacks at the DefCon computer security conferences in Las Vegas. The researchers completely disabled a driver’s ability to control a vehicle. No brakes. Distorted steering. All with a click of a button. While the demos were with hybrid cars, researchers warn that dozens of ...
High-speed Hyperloop transportation
Post Date: 2013-08-13 04:26:12 by Tatarewicz
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This image released by Tesla Motors shows a conceptual design sketch of the Hyperloop passenger transport capsule. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Monday, Aug. 12, 2013 unveiled the concept for a transport system he says would make the nearly 400-mile trip in half the time it takes an airplane. The "Hyperloop" system would use a large tube. Inside, capsules would float on air, traveling at over 700 miles per hour. (AP Photo/Tesla Motors)View Photo LOS ANGELES (AP) — Imagine strapping into a car-sized capsule and hurtling through a tube at more than 700 mph — not for the thrill of it, but to get where you need to go. On Monday, billionaire entrepreneur Elon ...
'Hyperloop': L.A. to San Francisco in 30 minutes?
Post Date: 2013-08-13 02:19:46 by scrapper2
10 Comments
Everything old is new again. Partially borrowing a technology concept used by banks, entrepreneur Elon Musk introduced a design for a new transportation system that he said could shuttle passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 30 minutes. For now, it's an early, conceptual design at best -- a proposal for an idea that may never be built and likely gone unnoticed had it not been for the attention Musk receives for his other projects, including Tesla Motors and PayPal. "The Hyperloop (or something similar) is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart," he wrote on his ...
New travel concept
Post Date: 2013-08-12 17:31:12 by Lod
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The founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors, and SpaceX has a new idea for rapid ground transportation. LA to SF in 30 minutes. Details at link.
Fighting Scientism Without Theism
Post Date: 2013-08-12 07:46:04 by Ada
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I feel like we go around this track every other month. A scientist or science- popularizer writes an unpersuasive essay arguing that science “proves” that religion is bad for children and other living things; a theist responds with an unpersuasive essay arguing that without some grounding in the divine, we’re doomed to become Nazis. Here’s the latest go-round with Ross Douthat critiquing Steven Pinker. It’s almost as if nobody in the debate wants to acknowledge that there are whole libraries of philosophical debate about these “how shall we live” questions that don’t start either with Thomas Aquinas or Jeremy Bentham. Heck, there are entire ...
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