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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Electric Eel vs Caiman: High-Voltage Showdown in Brazil
Post Date: 2011-12-31 14:36:33 by HOUNDDAWG
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Electric Eel vs Alligator: High-Voltage Showdown in Brazil A fisherman in Brazil was reeling in a surprise catch... an electric eel. However, another hunter also had (sic) an eye on the eel: an alligator (Actually, it looks more like a caiman, but moving right along). The alligator (or caiman) bites the electric eel, and the electric eel demonstrates why it's called an "electric eel". (The video is correctly titled, "Peixe Elétrico Mata Jacaré -Electric Eel Kills Jacare-HD) Poster Comment:The Yacare caiman (Caiman yacare, Jacaré in Portuguese) is a species of caiman found in central South America, including northeastern Argentina, Uruguay eastern ...
Spintronics - the next paradigm shift in computing?
Post Date: 2011-12-31 07:08:53 by Tatarewicz
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Forbes called this next breakthrough one of the "Ten Things That Will Change the Way We Live." They compared it to the plow, the printing press, cars, planes, and the telephone. Toshiba says that within the next five years, the market for this one discovery could be as big as the entire multi-billion dollar market for computer chips is today. And the experts at London’s Institute of Physics even put a number on it, saying this could be worth as much as $100-billion a year. Other insiders whisper about this technology that I'm about to reveal to you right now as the "holy grail" of computing. No, I'm not talking about the iPads or "smart" ...
Wealth potential of new fuel-making technologies
Post Date: 2011-12-31 06:58:49 by Tatarewicz
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We may never have to worry about running out of oil. I know that sounds crazy. It's the opposite of everything you've ever seen or heard. But I'm telling you now, it's true. And the reason why could make a few investors extremely wealthy. Yes, worldwide, we're thirsty for crude. And yes, it's all running out. What's more, what's left is either trapped in a war zone or in a dying well. At least that's the message you get from the news. But can I tell you what nobody else is talking about these days? See, there's an upside to every crisis. And the crisis over desperate oil demand and high oil prices is no different. How so? For one thing, the most ...
Hackers could hijack mobile phones
Post Date: 2011-12-31 05:19:51 by Tatarewicz
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A tech expert has figured out a way that hackers could take control of mobile phones and make calls or send out unlimited numbers of text messages. Karsten Nohl, who runs Security Research Labs in Germany, told the Reuters news agency that while hackers have been able to stage such attacks on a small scale, he believes multiple phones powered by GSM technology could be compromised at the same time. “We can do it to hundreds of thousands of phones in a short time frame,” he told Reuters. Roughly 80 percent of world mobile phone users, including practically everyone in Germany, use GSM networks. Mass attacks against phones in the networks could be particularly insidious because ...
Sony uses shredded paper as a bio-battery power source
Post Date: 2011-12-30 03:44:20 by Tatarewicz
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At the moment, the rechargeable batteries we rely on in our gadgets don’t contain the most environmentally-friendly materials, and aren’t the type of thing anyone should be throwing away. They should be recycled at a specialist recycle center. What would be much more eco-friendly is a way to create power from waste products, but at a level where an individual could do it themselves. Sony has been working to create these so-called bio-batteries, and has just shown one off at the Eco-Products 2011 environmental products fair in Tokyo. Sony’s idea is to provide a battery where by the user adds their own fuel sourced from waste materials. In this case, the proof of concept ...
Bugs may be resistant to genetically modified corn
Post Date: 2011-12-29 03:22:15 by farmfriend
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Bugs may be resistant to genetically modified corn By RICK CALLAHAN, AP One of the nation's most widely planted crops — a genetically engineered corn plant that makes its own insecticide — may be losing its effectiveness because a major pest appears to be developing resistance more quickly than scientists expected. The U.S. food supply is not in any immediate danger because the problem remains isolated. But scientists fear potentially risky farming practices could be blunting the hybrid's sophisticated weaponry. When it was introduced in 2003, so-called Bt corn seemed like the answer to farmers' dreams: It would allow growers to bring in bountiful harvests using ...
ASU cosmologist suggests studying moon for alien artifacts
Post Date: 2011-12-27 16:32:52 by PSUSA2
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(PhysOrg.com) -- If you were part of a team sent to explore an unknown planet; and that planet had a natural orbiting moon, wouldn’t it make sense to use that moon as a base camp or remote observation post? Especially if you didn’t want those being observed to know you were there? Professor Paul Davis and research technician Robert Wagner think so, and that’s why they’ve published a paper in Acta Astronautica that suggests we humans begin taking a little closer look at our own moon to see if any alien life forms might have left behind some evidence of their visit. Though some might see it as farfetched, or heaven forbid, lunacy, Davis and Wagner are convinced that ...
from Texas_Engineer, posting at The Oil Drum [Full Thread]
Post Date: 2011-12-26 18:29:06 by lead.and.lag
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Human beings are not creatures of facts and logic - they are people who live in stories. This is not new - it has always been that way. We have certain collective narratives that almost everyone automatically accept without further thought. It is how we make sense of the world. These narratives keep us sane by allowing us to filter out the hurricane of information swirling around us daily and making some sense of it. The current narrative that most people subscribe to is that economic growth will eventually return or we have plenty of oil but the government is not letting is drill for it. For that reason I am not convinced that you will ever convince the average citizen (not a technical ...
Neuroscientists identify a master controller of memory
Post Date: 2011-12-26 02:02:08 by Tatarewicz
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One gene appears to regulate the brain’s ability to form new memories. When you experience a new event, your brain encodes a memory of it by altering the connections between neurons. This requires turning on many genes in those neurons. Now, MIT neuroscientists have identified what may be a master gene that controls this complex process. The findings, described in the Dec. 23 issue of Science, not only reveal some of the molecular underpinnings of memory formation — they may also help neuroscientists pinpoint the exact locations of memories in the brain. The research team, led by Yingxi Lin, a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, focused on the Npas4 ...
The Internet is 21 years old Today (Dec 25th)
Post Date: 2011-12-25 08:53:15 by Shoonra
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The internet began 21 years ago today, with a first transmission on December 25th 1990. www.is ra elnationalnews.co....aspx/151049#.TvckIDUV1Lc
Releasing Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Poses Unknown Risks To Florida
Post Date: 2011-12-25 06:25:26 by HOUNDDAWG
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Saturday, December 24, 2011 Releasing Genetically Engineered Mosquitoes Poses Unknown Risks To Florida Aedes Aegypti mosquito - CDC/Wiki image Brandon Turbeville Activist Post A recent announcement made by a UK-based biotechnology company known as Oxitec has caused quite a stir in some Florida communities as of late. This is because Oxitec plans to release 5,000 to 10,000 genetically modified mosquitoes over an as-of-yet undisclosed 36-acre block in the Florida Keys, most likely Key West near the Key West Cemetery. The experiment is being presented to the public under the guise of an attempt to eradicate mosquito-borne illnesses, specifically Dengue fever. The mosquitoes have been ...
Space ball drops on Namibia
Post Date: 2011-12-23 10:41:13 by Ada
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A photo provided by the National Forensic Science Institute shows a giant metallic ball, 1.1 metre in diameter and weighing some 6 kilograms (13 pounds), that fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia. Baffled authorities were prompted to contact NASA and the European space agency. Photo: AFP. Topics: authorities ♦ Namibia ♦ the European space agency A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled authorities to contact NASA and the European space agency. The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital ...
DIY solar panel maker heads to Africa for charity
Post Date: 2011-12-23 07:30:08 by Tatarewicz
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Mark Kragh explains how to make a solar-powered mobile phone charger In a north London suburban street there is an unassuming wooden door which leads into a garage-cum-workshop which at first glance is remarkable only for a drum kit at one end. A second glance reveals a bunch of solar panels stacked against the wall and a man, busy breaking them up and reassembling them in a very home-made fashion. The end result is DIY solar kits that can recharge phones and batteries. They look makeshift but they have the potential to make a huge difference to people thousands of miles away in Kenya. As the director of KnowYourPlanet, Mark Kragh's day job is to resell solar panels to small ...
LHC reports discovery of its first new particle
Post Date: 2011-12-23 00:53:40 by Tatarewicz
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The Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator at Cern The LHC has been built to investigate the fundamental building blocks of nature Continue reading the main story The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) on the Franco-Swiss border has made its first clear observation of a new particle since opening in 2009. It is called Chi-b (3P) and will help scientists understand better the forces that hold matter together. The as-yet unpublished discovery is reported on the Arxiv pre-print server. The LHC is exploring some of the fundamental questions in "big physics" by colliding proton particles together in a huge underground facility. Detail in the sub-atomic wreckage from these impacts is ...
New super vaccine could tackle 70% of lethal cancers and is better than 'wonder drug' Herceptin
Post Date: 2011-12-19 08:31:48 by Tatarewicz
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A vaccine that could deal a serious blow to seven in ten lethal cancers has been developed by scientists. In tests, it shrunk breast tumours by 80 per cent, and researchers believe it could also tackle prostate, pancreatic, bowel and ovarian cancers. Even tumours that resist treatment with the best medicines on the market, including the ‘wonder drug’ Herceptin, may be susceptible to the vaccine. Vaccine: A new drug could help fight 70 per cent of all cancers The experiments done so far have been on mice, but researchers hope to pilot the drug on people within two years. If all goes well, the vaccine – one of the first to combat cancer – could be on the market by 2020 ...
Download Knowledge Directly to Your Brain, Matrix-Style
Post Date: 2011-12-19 05:49:53 by Tatarewicz
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For the first time, researchers have been able to hack into the process of learning in the brain, using induced brain patterns to create a learned behavior. It’s not quite as advanced as an instant kung-fu download, and it’s not as sleek as cognitive inception, but it’s still an important finding that could lead to new teaching and rehabilitation techniques. Future therapies could decode the brain activity patterns of an athlete or a musician, and use them as a benchmark for teaching another person a new activity, according to the researchers. Scientists from Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto used functional magnetic resonance ...
Chinese scientists finish sequencing Genghis Khan descendant's genome
Post Date: 2011-12-19 05:06:01 by Tatarewicz
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HOHHOT, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Scientists said on Sunday that they have finished sequencing the genome of a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Zhou Huanmin, project leader and head of the biological research lab at the Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, said Sunday that this was the first individual genome sequencing of a Mongolian. The blood donator was a male only identified as one of Genghis Khan's 34th-generation offspring from the Sunit Tribe, which is based in the Xilingol league (prefecture) in Inner Mongolia. Zhou said the research team will continue to sequence the genomes of another 199 ethnic Mongolians and build a database consisting of Mongolian genetic code. Zhou ...
Scientists May Be Able to Double Efficacy of Radiation Therapy
Post Date: 2011-12-18 03:17:42 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2011) — Scientists may have a way to double the efficacy and reduce the side effects of radiation therapy. Georgia Health Sciences University scientists have devised a way to reduce lung cancer cells' ability to repair the lethal double-strand DNA breaks caused by radiation therapy. "Radiation is a great therapy -- the problem is the side effects," said Dr. William S. Dynan, biochemist and Associate Director of Research and Chief, Nanomedicine and Gene Regulation at the GHSU Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics. "We think this is a way to get the same amount of cancer cell death with less radiation or use the same amount and maybe ...
Self-cleaning cotton nanoparticle coating invented
Post Date: 2011-12-17 07:29:48 by Tatarewicz
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Efforts to create self-cleaning cotton fabrics are bearing fruit in China. Engineers have created a chemical coating that causes cotton materials to clean themselves of stains and remove odours when exposed to sunlight. The researchers say the treatment is cheap, non-toxic and ecologically friendly. Retail experts say the innovation could prove a hit with retailers thanks to a growing demand for "functional clothing". The research was carried out by engineers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Hubei University for Nationalities, and is published in the latest issue of the Applied Materials and Interfaces journal. The study focuses on titanium dioxide - a chemical known to ...
47 year old television signals bouncing back to Earth
Post Date: 2011-12-17 00:27:12 by X-15
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While searching deep space for extra-terrestrial signals, scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have stumbled across signals broadcast from Earth nearly half a century ago. Radio astronomer Dr. Venn described how he made the historic discovery after analysing a number of signals originating from the same point in space. "I realised the signal was in the VHF Band and slap bang in the middle of 41-68 MHz. It was obviously old terrestrial television broadcasts, but they seemed to be originating from deep space." After boosting and digital enhancement the resulting video signals are remarkably clear. Responding to questions, Dr Venn was at pains to explain that little ...
Next Step to Space: Allen, Rutan announce Stratolaunch Systems for commercial spaced launches
Post Date: 2011-12-15 14:35:45 by X-15
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December 13, 2011 – Burt Rutan, homebuilt aviation and private space flight icon, reunited with entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul G. Allen in Seattle Tuesday, December 13, to announce what they called “a revolutionary approach to space transportation: an air-launch system to provide orbital access to space with greater safety, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility.” Stratolaunch Systems, like their SpaceShipOne (SS1) collaboration seven years ago, uses a mothership to lift a vehicle to altitude, release it, then return to Earth as the launch vehicle rockets into space. While SS1 was proof of concept, Stratolaunch Systems is commercial application. “I have long ...
'Matrix'-Style Effortless Learning? Vision Scientists Demonstrate Innovative Learning Method
Post Date: 2011-12-15 05:35:35 by Tatarewicz
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ScienceDaily (Dec. 12, 2011) — New research published December 8 in the journal Science suggests it may be possible to use brain technology to learn to play a piano, reduce mental stress or hit a curve ball with little or no conscious effort. It's the kind of thing seen in Hollywood's "Matrix" franchise. Experiments conducted at Boston University (BU) and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, recently demonstrated that through a person's visual cortex, researchers could use decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce brain activity patterns to match a previously known target state and thereby improve performance on ...
Ultrafast Camera Records at Speed of Light
Post Date: 2011-12-14 11:14:15 by gengis gandhi
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Ultrafast Camera Records at Speed of Light By Larry Greenemeier | December 13, 2011 | 3 Share Email Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) have developed an imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second–fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom. As Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor in M.I.T.’s Media Lab, explains in the video below, a high-speed camera can capture the image of a bullet mid-flight. The M.I.T. camera can capture the movement of photons, which travel about ...
LHC: Higgs boson 'may have been glimpsed'
Post Date: 2011-12-14 05:12:28 by Tatarewicz
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The most coveted prize in particle physics - the Higgs boson - may have been glimpsed, say researchers reporting at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva. The particle is purported to be the means by which everything in the Universe obtains its mass. Scientists say that two experiments at the LHC see hints of the Higgs at the same mass, fuelling huge excitement. But the LHC does not yet have enough data to claim a discovery. Finding the Higgs would be one of the biggest scientific advances of the last 60 years. It is crucial for allowing us to make sense of the Universe, but has never been observed by experiments. Continue reading the main story The Higgs boson The Higgs is a ...
British scientists discover new way to target cancer
Post Date: 2011-12-14 04:03:11 by Tatarewicz
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- British scientists have discovered a new way to target cancer through manipulating a master switch responsible for cancer cell growth. The findings, published Monday in the U.S. journal Cancer Cell, reveal how cancer cells grow faster by producing their own blood vessels. Cancer cells gain the nutrients they need by producing proteins that make blood vessels grow, helping deliver oxygen and sugars to the tumor. These proteins are vascular growth factors like VEGF -- the target for the anti-cancer drug Avastin. Making these proteins requires the slotting together of different parts of genes, a process called splicing. Scientists at the University of West ...
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