|
Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Frozen vault saves crops for mankind
Post Date: 2007-11-10 19:46:08 by robin
1 Comments
Engineers last week finished work on one of the world's most ambitious conservation projects: a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside in the archipelago of Svalbard, a few hundred miles from the North Pole. Over the next few weeks, the huge cavern - backed by the Norwegian government and the Gates Foundation - will be filled with more than a million types of seed and will be officially opened in February next year. 'This will be the last refuge for the world's crops,' said Cary Fowler, of the Rome-based Global Crop Diversity Trust, which is building the vault. 'There are seed banks in various countries round the globe, but several have been destroyed or ...
Scientists Chart Record Rise In Yellowstone Caldera
Post Date: 2007-11-09 13:35:22 by Brian S
2 Comments
The floor of Yellowstone National Park's gigantic volcano has been rising at a record rate in recent years, probably due to an underground blob of molten rock more than 14 times the size of Billings, according to a new study. The Yellowstone caldera rose nearly 3 inches a year for the past three years, faster than anyone has ever recorded. "These are rates three times (greater) than previous historic rates," said University of Utah seismologist Bob Smith, a lead author of the study to be published in the journal Science today. But that rapid rising isn't an indication of an imminent volcanic eruption or hydrothermal explosion at Yellowstone, he said. It appears in line ...
BBC Horizon's Super-String Theory M-Theory Origin of the Universe
Post Date: 2007-11-07 19:44:21 by Zipporah
0 Comments
BBC Horizon's Super-String Theory M-Theory Origin of the UniversAdd to My Profile | More Videos
8yr old Twins Invent Wedgie Proof Underwear
Post Date: 2007-11-07 08:16:00 by gengis gandhi
4 Comments
Methane Blast
Post Date: 2007-11-06 20:18:12 by farmfriend
4 Comments
Methane Blast May 4, 2007: On January 16, 2007, a dazzling blue flame blasted across the sands of the Mojave desert. In many respects, it looked like an ordinary rocket engine test, but this was different. While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, "we were testing a methane engine," says project manager Terri Tramel of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Click on the image to play the movie: See the link for the movie The main engine, built and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystems/XCOR Aerospace, is still in an early stage of development and isn't ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, ...
Hotter weather, fewer deaths
Post Date: 2007-11-06 20:09:14 by farmfriend
0 Comments
Hotter weather, fewer deaths Man-made global warming will take thousands of lives. It will save many more Bjorn Lomborg, National Post Published: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 What will happen over the coming century, with temperatures rising? The standard story is that our world will become a very unpleasant one. Famously, the chief scientific advisor to the British government, Sir David King, even envisions that an ice-free "Antarctica is likely to be the world's only habitable continent by the end of this century if global warming remains unchecked." Nearly all discussions of the future impacts of global warming use the 2003 heat wave in Europe as their prime example. In Al ...
Motorhead Messiah
Post Date: 2007-11-05 06:47:05 by YertleTurtle
7 Comments
“Check it out. It's actually a jet engine," says Johnathan Goodwin, with a low whistle. "This thing is gonna be even cooler than I thought." We're hunched on the floor of Goodwin's gleaming workshop in Wichita, Kansas, surrounded by the shards of a wooden packing crate. Inside the wreckage sits his latest toy--a 1985-issue turbine engine originally designed for the military. It can spin at a blistering 60,000 rpm and burn almost any fuel. And Goodwin has some startling plans for this esoteric piece of hardware: He's going to use it to create the most fuel-efficient Hummer in history. Goodwin, a 37-year-old who looks like Kevin Costner with better hair, ...
Devices Enforce Silence of Cellphones, Illegally
Post Date: 2007-11-05 01:21:19 by Ferret Mike
2 Comments
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 2 — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone. “She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal. Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius. “She kept ...
Ice age comet theory causes big bang
Post Date: 2007-11-03 13:37:40 by robin
3 Comments
Some say it hit U.S. 13,000 years ago Overhunting. Abrupt climate change. Disease. Scientists have cited those and other theories in their decades-old debate about why mammoths, mastodons, sloths, saber-toothed cats, camels, horses and other large creatures disappeared from North America at the end of the last ice age. Now a research group that includes two University of Oregon scientists is proposing a more dramatic cause for the extinctions: A 3-mile-wide comet or asteroid exploded over Canada or slammed into the continent about 13,000 years ago. The researchers say the impact also may have wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis people who flourished in North America at the ...
50 years later, supporters promote discredited scientist's work
Post Date: 2007-11-03 10:18:32 by Indrid Cold
6 Comments
RANGELEY, Maine --It was 50 years ago that physician-scientist Wilhelm Reich, best known for his discovery of a purported cosmic life force associated with sexual orgasm, died in federal prison, his books burned and his equipment destroyed by the government. Ridiculed at the time, the European-born psychiatrist is today largely forgotten and his work on what he called orgone energy remains outside the scientific mainstream. But a small number of scientists and other believers are working to advance his studies -- and resurrect his reputation. "Personally, I think it's going to be a long time before all of his work is understood and recognized," said Reich's ...
Time' names iPhone 'invention of the year
Post Date: 2007-11-02 12:23:42 by a vast rightwing conspirator
0 Comments
November 1, 2007 12:42 PM PDT'Time' names iPhone 'invention of the year'Posted by Tom Krazit And lo, it was foretold in the fall of 2007, that a mobile telephone would lead humanity out of the New Dark Ages and into a better future free from roaming charges and buttons. Time, which likes to anoint things, has named Apple's iPhone the "Invention of the Year," following such recent IotYs like YouTube and SpaceShipOne. The number one reason why the iPhone is Time's Invention of the Year? "It's pretty." Further: "An example: look at what happens when you put the iPhone into 'airplane' mode (i.e., no cell service, ...
Lab creates 'long-distance mouse'
Post Date: 2007-11-02 11:20:19 by robin
1 Comments
Lab creates 'long-distance mouse' The modified mice: They were also found to be aggressive A genetically modified "supermouse" which can run twice as far as a normal rodent has been created by scientists working in the US. It also lives longer, and breeds later in life compared with its standard laboratory cousin. The research has been conducted at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Details of the scientists' new transgenic animals are published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The mice were produced to study the biochemistry at play in metabolism and could aid the understanding of human health and disease. ...
Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything
Post Date: 2007-11-02 07:52:46 by Kamala
1 Comments
Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything By Tim O'Shea 10-30-7 Aldous Huxley's inspired 1954 essay detailed the vivid, mind-expanding, multisensory insights of his mescaline adventures. By altering his brain chemistry with natural psychotropics, Huxley tapped into a rich and fluid world of shimmering, indescribable beauty and power. With his neurosensory input thus triggered, Huxley was able to enter that parallel universe described by every mystic and space captain in recorded history. Whether by hallucination or epiphany, Huxley sought to remove all bonds, all controls, all filters, all cultural conditioning from his perceptions and to confront Nature or the World or Reality ...
Shook-Up San Franciscans Prepare to Crack Open Earthquake Kits
Post Date: 2007-11-01 11:15:51 by Brian S
8 Comments
Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) -- San Franciscans shaken by the earthquake two days ago are even more unnerved by seismologists' warning that they should be ready for a bigger temblor soon. ``I'm leaving town this Friday, and that makes me happy,'' said resident Michelle Clemensen, who works for a hedge fund. ``I'm not prepared in any way for an earthquake.'' The 5.6-magnitude earthquake that rattled the Bay Area significantly increased the likelihood of another damaging seismic shift in the next few days, a panel of scientists said yesterday. The quake broke windows and tossed items from shelves in San Jose but didn't cause major damage. It was centered near the ...
Smarty Plants: Inside the World's Only Plant-Intelligence Lab
Post Date: 2007-10-31 06:29:43 by Ada
1 Comments
The "plantoid" is a concept robot for exploring Mars. Its roots would explore the soil, while power and telecommunications are provided by the main stem and the solar "leaves." FIORENTINO, Italy -- Professor Stefano Mancuso knows it isn't easy being green: He runs the world's only laboratory dedicated to plant intelligence. At the International Laboratory of Plant Neurobiology (LINV), about seven miles outside Florence, Italy, Mancuso and his team of nine work to debunk the myth that plants are low-life. Research at the modern building combines physiology, ecology and molecular biology. "If you define intelligence as the capacity to solve problems, plants ...
Worm study may bolster idea of human sexuality - Scientists Create Homo Nematodes
Post Date: 2007-10-30 01:00:18 by Minerva
1 Comments
Biologists at the University of Utah have engineered "transgendered" worms that are attracted to worms of the same sex, bolstering evidence that sexual orientation may be hard-wired in the brain. The researchers isolated the nerve cells responsible for sexual attraction in nematode worms, then "flipped" a genetic switch in the brains of female worms so they became attracted to other females. "They look like girls, but act and think like boys," said Jamie White, a postdoctoral fellow at the U. and lead author of the study, which will be published in the November issue of Current Biology. The research does not provide solidanswers about human sexuality - ...
Scientists Kill Ming the Clam, The World's Oldest Living Creature
Post Date: 2007-10-30 00:53:20 by Minerva
7 Comments
t has been christened Ming and it's officially the oldest animal to have ever lived. A British scientific team discovered the 405-year-old clam, named after the Chinese dynasty and not the former Liberal Democrat leader, at the bottom of the ocean, and hope its longevity will reveal the secrets of ageing. The oldest creature ever So significant is the find that Help The Aged have awarded a £40,000 grant to the team to investigate how the molusc, born when Queen Elizabeth I was on the throne and William Shakespeare was writing The Merry Wives of Windsor, has survived over the centuries. The record-breaking shellfish, 31 years older than the previous oldest animal, another clam, ...
Terabyte Thumb Drives Made Possible by Nanotech Memory
Post Date: 2007-10-27 21:10:38 by robin
1 Comments
Terabyte Thumb Drives Made Possible by Nanotech Memory By Alexis Madrigal 10.26.07 | 4:00 PM Michael Kozicki, director of Arizona State's Center for Applied Nanoionics, has developed a new type of computer memory that he claims is cheaper and more energy-efficient than current technology. Photo: Michael Kozicki Researchers have developed a low-cost, low-power computer memory that could put terabyte-sized thumb drives in consumers' pockets within a few years. Thanks to a new technique for manipulating charged copper particles at the molecular scale, researchers at Arizona State ...
Non Lethal Heroes Needed
Post Date: 2007-10-27 17:03:53 by Ada
2 Comments
DIGG THIS Recently, on my favorite television channel, Turner Classic Movies, I saw a couple of old biopics. One was about French chemist Louis Pasteur, and the other was about Paul Ehrlich, a German scientist. They reminded me of how poisoned our culture has become. Hollywood's idea of heroes today are soldiers, cops, psychopaths or comic-book fantasy characters – all essentially killers. Yet Pasteur and Ehrlich did more for the human race and saved more lives than all the generals who have ever been born. Pasteur, from whose name the verb "pasteurize" comes, fought a lonely battle trying to convince physicians that most diseases were caused by microbes. He was ...
Exhibitionist spiny anteater reveals bizarre penis
Post Date: 2007-10-26 19:12:42 by Zipporah
1 Comments
The bizarre sex life of the spiny anteater has been exposed by researchers – the male ejaculates using only one half of its penis. New findings about the creature’s sex life may seem salacious but they could help shed light on an evolutionary mystery.
It seems that the way the mammal ejaculates is similar to the way reptiles do – by shutting down one side of its penis before secreting semen from the other side. Reptiles have a pair of male members called hemipenes for sex, and they use only one of the two during each act of copulation.
The spiny anteater (Tachyglossus aculeatus), also known as the short-beaked echidna, is a primitive mammal ...
HAARP: VANDALISM IN THE SKY? [Weather control, Earthquakes, Mind Control, Crowd control, etc. / DARPA, 9/11 Missing $2.3 TRILLION, ZAKHEIM]
Post Date: 2007-10-26 15:38:45 by AllTheKings'HorsesWontDoIt
1 Comments
HAARP: VANDALISM IN THE SKY? [Weather control, Earthquakes, Mind Control, Crowd control, etc. / DARPA, 9/11 Missing $2.3 TRILLION, Dov Zakheim] Published in Nexus Magazine, Volume 3, Number 1 (December '95-January '96) PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. email: nexus@peg.apc.org Telephone: +61 (0)74 429 280; Fax: +61 (0)74 429 381 Copyright: 1995 by Dr Nick Begich and Jeane Manning Technonet is the protest form of the 1990s-picketing on the information highways. For example, a fast-growing assortment of men and women around the world are using the Internet (started by the US military for information transfer and exchange that would never be interfered with) to draw ...
Teen's Ticket Hinges on GPS Vs. Radar
Post Date: 2007-10-26 13:30:08 by Brian S
3 Comments
WINDSOR, Calif. (AP) — Given the option of contesting a traffic ticket, most motorists — 19 out of 20 by some estimates — would rather pay up than pit their word against a police officer's in court. A retired sheriff's deputy nevertheless hopes to beat the long odds of the law by setting the performance of a police officer's radar gun against the accuracy of the GPS tracking device he installed in his teenage stepson's car. The retired deputy, Roger Rude, readily admits his 17-year-old stepson, Shaun Malone, enjoys putting the pedal to the metal. That's why he and Shaun's mother insisted on putting a global positioning system that monitors the ...
The Third Electrical Current
Post Date: 2007-10-26 07:05:40 by gengis gandhi
1 Comments
The Third Electrical Current A US Patent has been awarded to John Timothy Sullivan for the Sully Direct Current, which is not AC nor DC. Discovered as part of a new electrolysis technique. Critics say it is not new, and it is not a third type of current. BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, USA -- Clear Energy, Inc., a small R&D company in Baltimore, has been issued US Patent number 7,041,203 for a new electrical current. Previously, there were two types of currents used to deliver electrical power. Direct Current (DC), the kind that comes from your battery in your automobile, was discovered by Ben Franklin in the 1700’s. Alternating Current (AC) was brought forth by Nikola Tesla over a ...
Scientists map out first Asian genome
Post Date: 2007-10-25 23:34:49 by Tauzero
8 Comments
Scientists map out first Asian genome BEIJING, Oct. 12 -- Scientists have successfully completed the first sequence map of the diploid genome of an Asian individual. The sequence was worked out by a group of scientists in Shenzhen and is now on display at the Ninth Annual China Hi-Tech Fair in the city. The results, based on a Chinese, represent only the third human genome to have been sequenced in the world. The sequence map was created using advanced sequencing technology. American scientists earlier this year created the first two genome sequence maps, of two Caucasian people. The Chinese project was undertaken by the Shenzhen branch of the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), along ...
Scientists Denounce Global Warming Report 'Edits'
Post Date: 2007-10-25 17:35:16 by robin
0 Comments
Scientists Denounce Global Warming Report 'Edits' Public Health Experts Say Edits Represent Censoring of Science By RAJA JAGADEESAN, M.D. and CARLA WILLIAMS ABC News Medical Unit Oct. 25, 2007 — Environmental and public health experts overwhelmingly denounced editing by the White House of a federal health agency head's testimony to Congress Tuesday. Significant deletions were made from the testimony, concerning global warming and the potential impact on human health. The original, unedited testimony presented to Congress by Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and obtained by ABC News was 14 pages long, but the White ...
Latest [Newer] 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 [Older]
|