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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
A question of control
Post Date: 2007-05-03 13:30:17 by bluedogtxn
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A Question of Control by David Calderwood by David Calderwood DIGG THIS You might have heard already, but a vast grass-roots guerilla war has occurred right under our noses. I first heard of it when my computer scientist son forwarded to me a link to a technology site detailing the chaos created by the posting of a series of numbers on the Internet. A series of numbers? Yes, that’s right. Special numbers, to be sure. As predicted by anyone who knows anything about software, the encryption code used by HD-DVD and Blue-ray DVD discs was cracked, and the enterprising folks who did it disseminated the numeric key. In no time at all the key turned up on site after site, and those sites ...
Sex Fattens Female Ticks to 100 Times Normal Size
Post Date: 2007-05-01 15:58:05 by Tauzero
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Sex Fattens Female Ticks to 100 Times Normal Size By Jeanna Bryner LiveScience Staff Writer posted: 27 April 2007 12:15 pm ET Sex can be fattening if you’re a female tick. After mating, one species of female tick balloons to a body-bursting 100 times its original size. Why the once lean tick would get so engorged after sex has been a mystery. Does the female enjoy the human equivalent of a celebratory feast once it has accomplished the mating mission? Not so much, according to one scientist. Lifestyle differences between the African tick, a species in a family of hard-bodied ticks called ioxids, and its blood-sucking counterparts could be partially to blame for the massive weight ...
Ducks Wage Genital Warfare
Post Date: 2007-05-01 15:43:09 by Tauzero
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Ducks Wage Genital Warfare By Charles Q. Choi Special to LiveScience posted: 30 April 2007 08:14 pm ET A sexual arms race waged with twisted genitals has been discovered in waterfowl. The genitalia of the females of these species have at times apparently evolved to make it harder for males to successfully impregnate them, according to new findings that shed light on the eternal war of the sexes. Most birds lack phalluses, organs like human penises. Waterfowl are among the just 3 percent of all living bird species that retain the grooved phallus found in their reptilian ancestors. Male waterfowl are especially unusual in that their phalluses vary greatly among different species in ...
Scientists find clues to the formation of Fibonacci spirals in nature
Post Date: 2007-05-01 15:07:37 by gengis gandhi
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Scientists find clues to the formation of Fibonacci spirals in nature While the aesthetics and symmetry of Fibonacci spiral patterns has often attracted scientists, a mathematical or physical explanation for their common occurrence in nature is yet to be discovered. Recently, scientists have successfully produced Fibonacci spiral patterns in the lab, and found that an elastically mismatched bi-layer structure may cause stress patterns that give rise to Fibonacci spirals. The discovery may explain the widespread existence of the pattern in plants. Chaorong Li, of the Zhejiang Sci-Tech University and the Institute of Physics in Beijing, along with Ailing Ji and Zexian Cao, both of the ...
The marketers have your ear-Beam of sound aims its messages (spooky tech)
Post Date: 2007-05-01 14:09:30 by gengis gandhi
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The marketers have your ear-Beam of sound aims its messages By Jenn Abelson, Globe Staff | April 24, 2007 Marketers around the world are using innovative audio technology that sends sound in a narrow beam, just like light, making it possible to direct messages right into consumers' ears while they shop or sit in waiting rooms. The audio spotlight device, created by Watertown firm Holosonic Research Labs Inc., has been used to hawk everything from cereals in supermarket aisles to glasses at doctor's offices. The messages are often quick and targeted -- and a little creepy to the uninitiated. Court TV recently installed the audio spotlight in ceilings of bookstores to promote the ...
The Dark Side of DNA
Post Date: 2007-05-01 00:06:36 by Tauzero
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The Dark Side of DNA Fred Gould Genes in Conflict: The Biology of Selfish Elements. Austin Burt and Robert Trivers. x + 602 pp. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. $35. Although many of us have gotten used to the idea that our bodies serve the needs of a variety of viruses, bacteria, mites and other parasitic species, it comes as a surprise to most people when they hear that their bodies are also hosting alien parasitic DNA. Analysis of output from the Human Genome Project makes it clear that just one form of such alien DNA, transposons, makes up about 50 percent of our genome. Every time one of your cells divides, it uses time and energy to replicate this parasitic ...
Sun's Next Cycle of Fury Delayed
Post Date: 2007-04-28 21:19:17 by Horse
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The Sun?s next cycle of solar storms will brew up later than expected, though astronomers are split on just how strong the star?s tempests will be. Initially expected to begin last fall, the Sun?s 11-year storm season is now pegged to begin in March 2008 and hit its peak near the end of 2011, according to a new forecast compiled by a panel of solar experts for the Space Weather Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The 12-member panel split into two equal camps, one predicting a weak season while the other expects a strong one, though both facets are not anticipating the Sun set any new records in coming years. "By giving a long-term outlook, we?re ...
4-Inch Lake County Chihuahua May Be World's Smallest Dog
Post Date: 2007-04-28 16:41:36 by Peetie Wheatstraw
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LEESBURG -- Meet tiny Dancer, a rust-colored, long-haired Chihuahua that may just be the world's smallest dog, weighing 18 ounces and standing not much more than 4 inches tall. Dancer's owner, Jenny Gomes, said the diminutive Lake County canine may be on his way to being named the world's smallest living dog by Guinness World Records. And Dancer may have a legitimate claim to the title. The last smallest dog -- measured by height -- was Danka Kordak of Slovakia, which stood 5.4 inches high, according to Guinness officials. But that long-haired Chihuahua died. And Gomes said her Dancer is slightly smaller at 4.1 inches, from foot to the top of the shoulder. Born June 8, ...
European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests
Post Date: 2007-04-27 16:56:57 by Mind_Virus
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European Skin Turned Pale Only Recently, Gene Suggests Ann Gibbons PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA--At the American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting, held here from 28 to 31 March, a new report on the evolution of a gene for skin color suggested that Europeans acquired pale skin quite recently, perhaps only 6000 to 12,000 years ago.
Not too bright? You can still be rich
Post Date: 2007-04-26 13:03:35 by Tauzero
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Not too bright? You can still be rich Study: People with below-average IQs are just as wealthy as brainiacs By Jeanna Bryner You don't have to be smart to be rich. Individuals with below-average IQ test scores were just as wealthy as brainiacs, finds a national survey. "What the results really say is it doesn't matter whether you are born smart or you are not born smart, you can do financially okay," said the study's author Jay Zagorsky, an economist at Ohio State University's Center for Human Resource Research. "It's not 'I'm not particularly intelligent, I'm destined to a life of financial failure and hardship.' The results said [if ...
Wasp larvae eat siblings for good of the family
Post Date: 2007-04-26 12:34:31 by Tauzero
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Wasp larvae eat siblings for good of the family Threat of starvation creates strong competition between larvae By Corey Binns Updated: 3:00 p.m. CT April 19, 2007 While most young male wasps are just bags of loosely organized cells, their sterile sisters develop quickly into slender snake-like shapes, grow huge jaws and start chomping on their little brothers. The sterile sisters' lethal sibling rivalry is downright spiteful, but unusual genetics, not to mention the opportunity to keep living, means that fertile sisters benefit from the nasty behavior in more than one way. After a mother wasp from the genus Copidosoma lays two eggs — one male and one female — into a host ...
Mystery fossil turns out to be giant fungus
Post Date: 2007-04-26 12:22:53 by Tauzero
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Mystery fossil turns out to be giant fungus 20-foot-tall organism evaded classification for more than a century CHICAGO - Scientists have identified the Godzilla of fungi, a giant, prehistoric fossil that has evaded classification for more than a century, U.S. researchers said on Monday. A chemical analysis has shown that the 20-foot-tall (6-metre) organism with a tree-like trunk was a fungus that became extinct more than 350 million years ago, according to a study appearing in the May issue of the journal Geology. Known as Prototaxites, the giant fungus originally was thought to be a conifer. Then some believed it was a lichen, or various types of algae. Some suspected it was a fungus. ...
Termites actually social cockroaches
Post Date: 2007-04-26 12:17:22 by Tauzero
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Termites actually social cockroaches Findings could shed light on how social behaviors develop in all insects By Charles Q. Choi Termites may look like white ants, but new genetic research confirms they are really a social kind of cockroach. Given how relatively solitary regular cockroaches are compared with termites and their complex societies, researchers note these findings could shed light on how social behaviors develop in all insects. Researchers added that the cockroach penchant for coprophagy, or eating feces, could very well have led termites to evolve in the first place. Scientists had long known that cockroaches and termites were related to each other and to praying ...
Things Are Heating Up (On the Sun)
Post Date: 2007-04-25 20:56:31 by Horse
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We tend to think of our Sun as a paragon of stability. While other stars pulsate, go nova, collapse, or bubble and churn like overheated pots of oatmeal, Sol provides us with steady, dependable radiance. Of course there are variations, such as the 11 year sunspot cycle, but these are predictable and benign. Recent evidence, however, suggests that we don't know all there is to know about the nearest star. Drs. David Gray (University of Western Ontario) and William Livingston (Kitt Peak) have been studying the Sun's temperature with a technique that compares the strength of absorption lines in the solar spectrum. Gray finds that in addition to a fluctuation of 1.5 degrees Kelvin over ...
To Bee Or Not To Be
Post Date: 2007-04-25 11:39:37 by Horse
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Over the past couple of months we here at SOTT have been following the Bee crisis with some interest. It caught my eye when I read the first media article about it that was brought to my attention; I knew this was important. As Albert Einstein observed: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." This really is BIG, people! Do you realize how CLOSE you are to the total collapse of whatever lifestyle you have, including having food on your table (let alone having a table to put it on or a house to keep the table in!) Don't yawn because ...
To Bee Or Not To Be
Post Date: 2007-04-25 11:36:40 by Horse
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Over the past couple of months we here at SOTT have been following the Bee crisis with some interest. It caught my eye when I read the first media article about it that was brought to my attention; I knew this was important. As Albert Einstein observed: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." This really is BIG, people! Do you realize how CLOSE you are to the total collapse of whatever lifestyle you have, including having food on your table (let alone having a table to put it on or a house to keep the table in!) Don't yawn because ...
New 'super-Earth' found in space
Post Date: 2007-04-25 09:39:12 by TheSilverFox
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Astronomers have found the most Earth-like planet outside our Solar System to date, a world which could have water running on its surface. The planet orbits the faint star Gliese 581, which is 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra. Scientists made the discovery using the Eso 3.6m Telescope in Chile. They say the benign temperatures on the planet mean any water there could exist in liquid form, and this raises the chances it could also harbour life. "We have estimated that the mean temperature of this 'super-Earth' lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius, and water would thus be liquid," explained Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the ...
Potentially Habitable Planet Found
Post Date: 2007-04-24 19:25:09 by Ada
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WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe." The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun. There's still a lot that is unknown about the new planet, which could be deemed inhospitable to life once more is known about it. And it's worth noting that scientists' ...
RedHat goes prix fixe
Post Date: 2007-04-24 12:17:37 by TheSilverFox
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RedHat has rejigged its JBoss offerings in a move it reckons will make it the default choice for businesses that have had enough of the proprietary world. It has also signed a deal to acquire MetaMatrix, which it will integrate into its new JBoss product set. The firm says until now it has offered JBoss solutions on an "a la carte" basis. But no more. RedHat knows what you want, and is making its products available as "a set of integrated, tested, and certified JBoss Enterprise Platform distributions for the most common use cases". The announcement goes on to explain that the idea is to free up the community from the "constraints of the productisation ...
To Bee or not to Be
Post Date: 2007-04-23 14:46:49 by Eoghan
4 Comments
Over the past couple of months we here at SOTT have been following the Bee crisis with some interest. It caught my eye when I read the first media article about it that was brought to my attention; I knew this was important. As Albert Einstein observed: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man." This really is BIG, people! Do you realize how CLOSE you are to the total collapse of whatever lifestyle you have, including having food on your table (let alone having a table to put it on or a house to keep the table in!) Don't yawn because ...
Michael Dell chooses Linux at home
Post Date: 2007-04-21 12:47:00 by Red Jones
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Michael Dell chooses Linux at home 19 Apr 2007 01:19 Ubuntu and OpenOffice are the software of choice for the PC vendor's chief executive After a lifelong allegiance to all things Microsoft, the chief executive of Dell is using Linux in his own home. His choice of distribution? Ubuntu. It has emerged this week that the Dell chief is using a Precision M90, loaded with the just-released version of Ubuntu called Feisty Fawn. He is also running OpenOffice and Firefox, according to his biography on Dell's website. The revelations about the fondness of the company's founder for Linux may surprise some Dell customers. A recent investigation by ZDNet UK revealed that UK customers ...
Power lines link to cancer in new alert
Post Date: 2007-04-21 07:46:27 by gengis gandhi
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Power lines link to cancer in new alert By Nicholas Cecil, Evening Standard 20.04.07 Add your view Power lines Homes and schools could be banned from being built near power lines A secret report has raised fresh fears of a link between power lines and cancer. The confidential study, obtained by the Evening Standard, urges ministers to consider banning the building of homes and schools close to overhead high-voltage power cables because of possible health risks. It says a ban is the best way to reduce significantly exposure to electromagnetic fields from the electricity grid system. The report was drawn up by scientists, electricity company bosses, the National Grid, government ...
Texas Senate waves through cell phone wiretapping bill
Post Date: 2007-04-20 15:14:10 by TheSilverFox
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A bill extending wiretapping provisions to cell phones and covering a wider range of crimes - including kidnaping, human trafficking and money laundering - has been approved by the Texas Senate. Only murder, drug-related crimes and child pornography investigations are covered by existing lawful interception laws in Texas, AP reports. Wiretaps authorised by the proposed laws could be used to authorise the tracking of suspect's mobile, land line and online activities in multiple locations; unlike current laws which are location specific. The draft Homeland Security legislation also places tighter controls on the sale of prepaid phones. Retailers will be asked to keep records of ...
Users force Dell to resurrect XP
Post Date: 2007-04-20 15:10:08 by TheSilverFox
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Responding to customer demand Dell has restarted selling new PCs with Windows XP installed on them. The decision reverses a policy begun in January that meant Windows Vista was the only operating system available on almost all new home machines. The change came after Dell's feedback site was swamped with calls for the return of the venerable software. Now customers can opt for the Home or Professional version of XP on six models of Dell machines. Customer clamour The four consumer versions of Windows Vista went on sale on 30 January and since then many PC makers have sold most of their machines with the software pre-loaded. Since January Dell has been gradually phasing out the XP ...
Global Warming?
Post Date: 2007-04-20 13:18:45 by intotheabyss
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Are sea levels really rising? Falling sea levels The tiny country of Tuvalu is not cooperating with global warming models. In the early 1990s, scientists warned that the Pacific coral atoll of nine islands - only 12 feet above sea level at its highest point - would vanish within decades, swamped by rising seas. Sea levels were supposedly rising at the rate of 1.5 inches per year. However, new measurements show that sea levels have fallen 2.5 inches since that time. Similar sea-level declines have been recorded in Nauru and the Solomon Islands. (London Telegraph, 6 Aug 2000) In 2003, Nils-Axel Mörner and his colleagues (see below) pub- lished a well-documented paper showing that ...
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