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Latest Articles: Science/Tech
Cells That Go Back in Time
Post Date: 2005-05-04 13:46:17 by RickyJ
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Lop off a newt's leg or tail, and it will grow a new one. The creature's cells can regenerate thanks to built-in time machines that revert cells to early versions of themselves in a process called dedifferentiation. Researchers who study this mechanism hope one day to learn how to induce the same "cell time travel" in humans. If the cells go back far enough, they become stem cells, which researchers believe hold promise for treating many diseases. Stem cells, which are often taken from embryos, are unformed and have the ability to become many different types of cells. If researchers succeed in inducing this cell time travel, they will also eliminate the ethical issues surrounding ...
Brain-Damaged Firefighter Talks after 10 years
Post Date: 2005-05-03 16:45:15 by Jethro Tull
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Things that make you go hmmmmmmmm...... *** ********** (Page 1 of 2) ORCHARD PARK, N.Y., May 3, 2005 (CBS/AP) Ten years after a firefighter was left brain-damaged and mostly mute during a 1995 roof collapse, he did something that shocked his family and doctors: He perked up. "I want to talk to my wife," Donald Herbert said out of the blue Saturday. Staff members of the nursing home where he has lived for more than seven years raced to get Linda Herbert on the telephone. "The word of the day was 'amazing,'" Herbert's uncle, Simon Manka, said. It was the first of many conversations Herbert, who will turn 44 Saturday, had with his wife, four sons and other family ...
Giant Earthquakes To Rock World In Next 15 Years
Post Date: 2005-05-02 23:35:53 by robin
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News.com.au May 2, 2005 The Indonesian earthquake behind the Boxing Day tsunami that killed 300,000 people could be the first of a series of giant quakes that will rock the world in the next 10 to 15 years, scientists have warned. The Mediterranean is among areas at high risk, particularly the coasts of Greece and Turkey, both popular tourist destinations. The scientists are urging the installation of a tsunami warning system there as a matter of urgency. They found that quakes such as the one in Indonesia can destabilise the whole of the earth´s crust, so that one is followed by others, often thousands of kilometres away, within a few years. "The four biggest earthquakes of ...
Microsoft's Gates Urges End to Tech Visa Limits
Post Date: 2005-05-01 22:50:33 by RickyJ
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States should remove visa limits to allow more skilled foreign citizens to work at U.S. companies if it wants to remain a leader in technology, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chairman Bill Gates said on Wednesday. Microsoft is having a hard time finding skilled workers within the United States, and the lack of H-1B visas for skilled workers is only making the situation worse, Gates said in a panel discussion at the Library of Congress. "The whole idea of the H-1B visa thing is, don't let too many smart people come into the country. The whole thing doesn't make sense," Gates said. Gates echoed the concerns of other business ...
What we need more of is science
Post Date: 2005-05-01 01:30:35 by Elliott Jackalope
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If you click HERE and then select "Watch this Movie", you'll get the chance to watch a delightful animated music video starring M.C. Hawking as "Dr. Astro" versus his arch-nemesis, "The Fundamentalist". For extra fun, I'll post the lyrics here so you can read along with the song. Enjoy! What We Need More Of Is Science Verse 1 I'm a disciple of science I know the universe is compliance with natural laws, but many place reliance on the psuedo-science of quacks and morons and fools because, their educations deficient, they put faith in omniscient, make believe beings who control their fate, but the Hawk aint with it, dig it, their Holy writ aint the least bit ...
Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas
Post Date: 2005-04-27 22:14:34 by crack monkey
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Itty-Bitty and Shrinking, Fusion Device Has Big Ideas By KENNETH CHANG n a surprising feat of miniaturization, scientists are reporting today that they have produced nuclear fusion - the same process that powers the sun - in a footlong cylinder just five inches in diameter. And they say they will soon be able to make the device even smaller. While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs. The findings, by a team at the University of California, Los Angeles, led by Dr. Seth J. Putterman, are ...
Thousands of Amphibians Exploding In Germany, Experts Baffled
Post Date: 2005-04-25 21:09:21 by robin
13 Comments
On a busy German road, a female toad makes haste, with her male partner clinging on, as a speeding car approaches. Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded.(AFP/DPA/File/Markus Farhrer) BERLIN (AFP) - Hundreds of toads have met a bizarre and sinister end in Germany in recent days, it was reported: they exploded. According to reports from animal welfare workers and veterinarians as many as a thousand of the amphibians have perished after their bodies swelled to bursting point and their entrails were propelled for up to a metre (three feet). It is like "a science fiction film", according to Werner Smolnik of ...
GM industry puts human gene into rice
Post Date: 2005-04-25 18:37:59 by DeaconBenjamin
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Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops in a dramatic extension of genetic modification. The move, which is causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy surrounding it to new heights. Even before this development, many people, including Prince Charles, have opposed the technology on the grounds that it is playing God by creating unnatural combinations of living things. Environmentalists say that no one will want to eat the partially human-derived food because it will smack of cannibalism. But supporters say that the controversial new ...
Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue'
Post Date: 2005-04-24 21:05:51 by tom007
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Archaeologist finds 'oldest porn statue' Krysia Diver in Stuttgart Monday April 4, 2005 The Guardian Stone-age figurines depicting what could be the oldest pornographic scene in the world have been unearthed in Germany. Archaeologists have discovered what they believe to be the 7,200-year-old remnants of a man having intercourse with a woman. The extraordinary find, at an archaeological dig in Saxony, shatters the belief that sex was a taboo subject in that era. Until now, the oldest representations of sexual scenes were frescos from about 2,000 years ago. Article continues Harald Stäuble of the Archaeological Institute of Saxony, based in Dresden, discovered the 8cm lower ...
Earthquake Detector Finds Solid Earth Core
Post Date: 2005-04-24 17:36:40 by robin
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Cutaway of Planet Earth April 20, 2005 — For the first time, the solid inner core of the Earth has been directly detected and its existence confirmed, seismologists have reported. New evidence of a solid iron inner core to the planet comes from a digital broadband seismic array in Germany that is located in a lucky enough position to have captured a faint, but telltale, seismic signal. The signal was sent through the Earth from a particularly clear sort of earthquake deep in the crust on the other side of the planet. The seismic discovery was announced in the April 15 issue of the journal Science. "The earthquake they used was at the right depth and magnitude," said ...
Utah sits on huge oil reserve
Post Date: 2005-04-21 07:49:25 by Esso
6 Comments
As a prominent advocate for encouraging unconventional energy sources, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was asked to testify today in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on his efforts to develop fuel from a vast untapped domestic oil reserve in tar sandsand oil shale -- a large part of which sits in eastern Utah. "Who would have guessed that in just Colorado and Utah, there is more recoverable oil than in the Middle East?" Hatch said. "We just don't count it among our nation's oil reserves because it is not yet being developed commercially. I find it disturbing that Utah imports oil from Canada tar sands, even though we have a larger tar sands resource ...
Down to the Wire
Post Date: 2005-04-19 07:31:01 by RickyJ
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Summary: Once a leader in Internet innovation, the United States has fallen far behind Japan and other Asian states in deploying broadband and the latest mobile-phone technology. This lag will cost it dearly. By outdoing the United States, Japan and its neighbors are positioning themselves to be the first states to reap the benefits of the broadband era: economic growth, increased productivity, and a better quality of life. Thomas Bleha, the recipient of an Abe Fellowship, is completing a book on the race for Internet leadership. Previously, he was a Foreign Service officer in Japan for eight years. BROADBAND NATION? In the first three years of the Bush administration, the United ...
Earth’s Gravity May Lure Deadly Asteroid
Post Date: 2005-04-18 10:55:29 by Brian S
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A HUGE asteroid which is on a course to miss the Earth by a whisker in 2029 could go round its orbit again and score a direct hit a few years later. Astronomers have calculated that the 1,000ft-wide asteroid called 2004 MN4 will pass by the Earth at a distance of between 15,000 and 25,000 miles — about a tenth of the distance between the Earth and the Moon and close enough to be seen with the naked eye. Although they are sure that it will miss us, they are worried about the disturbance that such a close pass will give to the asteroid’s orbit. It might put 2004 MN4 on course for a collision in 2034 or a year or two later: the unpredictability of its behaviour means that the ...
Spy agency jobs to flow into S.A.
Post Date: 2005-04-15 20:54:35 by Zipporah
3 Comments
The National Security Agency, the nation's cryptology branch, has leased the former Sony chip plant in Northwestern Bexar County and plans to hire at least 1,500 employees, NSA officials said Thursday. Even more jobs could be added as the site develops in several phases, according to the NSA. Nationwide, the NSA is hiring up to 4,500 employees through 2008 and some of those employees will be located here, according to an e-mail message from Ellen Cioccio, an NSA spokeswoman. The NSA already has about 2,000 people at Lackland AFB's Medina Annex. In addition, a group of experienced analysts will transfer from NSA's Fort Meade, Md., headquarters to San Antonio. They will be here to train ...
The Gemetriculator (An on line test for good and evil.)
Post Date: 2005-04-13 21:33:58 by crack monkey
23 Comments
Here's a useful device that determines if a website (or a block of text) is good or evil. It returns the results on a percentage basis, e.g., 36% Evil and 64& Good. You might want to cut and paste the quotes from your favorite Tos Bots to precisely quantify their evilness. We could then speak more intelligently of them, e.g., Trace, being 12.67% more evil than badeye, is blah, blah, blah, etc. The site allows you to specify a url and then reports how evil the website is, again on a percentage basis. Here is the link: The Germatriculator
Science's Doomsday Team vs. the Asteroids
Post Date: 2005-04-09 07:56:02 by crack monkey
2 Comments
Science's Doomsday Team vs. the Asteroids By Guy Gugliotta Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page A01 Astronomer David Tholen spotted it last year in the early evening of June 19, using the University of Arizona's Bok telescope. It was a new "near-Earth object," a fugitive asteroid wandering through space to pass close to Earth. Tholen's team took three pictures that night and three the next night, but storm clouds and the moon blocked further observations. They reported their fixes to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., and moved on. Six months later, Tholen's object was spotted again in Australia as asteroid "2004 MN4." In the space of ...
The active ingredient of cannabis may protect against heart disease and strokes
Post Date: 2005-04-08 07:56:21 by gengis gandhi
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The active ingredient of cannabis may protect against heart disease and strokes Reuters A joint approach to medical treatment THERE is a certain cognitive dissonance associated with the word “drug”. On the one hand, it can mean “life-saving medicine”. On the other, it can signify “probably illegal and possibly life-threatening recreation”. Some substances fall into both categories. Heroin, for instance, has legitimate medical uses (though it tends to be branded as the more user-friendly “diamorphine” when administered in hospitals). But for those drugs without established medical track records, such as marijuana, there is a lot of resistance to ...
Partial solar eclipse on Friday
Post Date: 2005-04-05 21:40:24 by robin
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The partial eclipse will be visible from the U.S. south of a line extending across the nation from southern California to central New Jersey. LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Sky-watchers from the South Pacific to the Americas will witness the first solar eclipse of 2005 on Friday when the moon blots out part of the sun. It will be a partial eclipse rather than a total one, in which the Earth is cast into darkness. But it will be the last partial solar eclipse visible from the continental United States until May 20, 2012. Solar eclipses occur when the Earth, sun and moon line up in such a way that the moon casts a shadow over Earth. Friday's eclipse will last from a few minutes to ...
In Cloning, Don't Think Big - Don't Clone a T-Rex??
Post Date: 2005-04-04 20:56:04 by crack monkey
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In Cloning, Don't Think Big April 4, 2005 It seems strange to call anything "fresh" after 70 million years, especially in a youth-obsessed society that deems day-old bread worthy of deep discounting. But secreted within the immense thighbone of a prehistoric monster pried from the harsh badlands of remote Montana, scientists say they've found supple soft tissue. By all expectations, that stuff should have been long dried and gone. According to Robert Lee Hotz's riveting Times account, scientists found the surviving biological material accidentally within the goliath remains of an 18-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex that took three years to dig out. When a helicopter proved unable to ...
Zapper Detects, Destroys Unwanted RFID Chips
Post Date: 2005-04-04 07:51:16 by gengis gandhi
3 Comments
Zapper Detects, Destroys Unwanted RFID Chips Why Not.net 4-4-5 US-based West End Laboratories, the research arm of LDC Security, has developed a special RFID tag zapper designed to kill the RFID chip preventing readers from performing unwanted scanning and tracking of people or goods. According to the company, because information stored on RFID tags can be read by anyone, they may pose privacy threats to customers when deployed in retail environments, and have already triggered a wave of consumer outcry. "In a naive, RFID-enabled world without technical forethought, there is risk that sensitive information could be visible in secret to anyone with an RFID reader," said Le ...
Meet the mind readers
Post Date: 2005-04-03 20:27:37 by Mr Nuke Buzzcut
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Meet the mind readers Ian Sample (The Guardian) >Paralysed people can now control artificial limbs by thought alone. Matt Nagle has a chip that was placed on his brain that translates his thoughts to a computer. He is connected to the computer via a cable that is screwed into his head. > READING SIGNALS There's a hand lying on the blanket on Matt Nagle's desk and he's staring at it intently, thinking "Close, close," as the scientists gathered around him look on. To their delight, the hand twitches and its outstretched fingers close around the open palm, clenching to a fist. In that moment, Nagle made history. Paralysed from the neck down after a vicious knife attack ...
NASA Starts Planning to Retire Space Shuttle
Post Date: 2005-04-03 17:30:57 by crack monkey
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NASA Starts Planning to Retire Space Shuttle By WARREN E. LEARY ASHINGTON, April 1 - Even as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration prepares to resume flights of the space shuttle, the agency has begun forming detailed plans to retire the spacecraft in five years, if not before, a top NASA official said on Friday. The official, Michael Kostelnik, the agency's deputy associate administrator for the shuttle and the International Space Station programs, said he had established a special group within his office to deal with retiring the shuttle. Agency leaders decided to create a separate entity to deal with shuttle retirement issues so there would be no conflict of interest with ...
A Fierce Debate on Atom Bombs From Cold War
Post Date: 2005-04-03 17:27:53 by crack monkey
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A Fierce Debate on Atom Bombs From Cold War By WILLIAM J. BROAD or over two decades, a compact, powerful warhead called the W-76 has been the centerpiece of the nation's nuclear arsenal, carried aboard the fleet of nuclear submarines that prowl the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. But in recent months it has become the subject of a fierce debate among experts inside and outside the government over its reliability and its place in the nuclear arsenal. The government is readying a plan to spend more than $2 billion on a routine 10-year overhaul to extend the life of the aging warheads. At the same time, some weapons scientists say the warheads have a fundamental design flaw that could cause ...
Using Oil Platforms for Fish Farms Gets Another Look; Evironmentalists Fear Ocean 'feedlots'
Post Date: 2005-04-03 15:47:34 by Mr Nuke Buzzcut
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Using Oil Platforms for Fish Farms Gets Another Look; Evironmentalists Fear Ocean 'feedlots' By Cain Burdeau Associated Press Writer Published: Apr 3, 2005 NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Thousands of oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico could be converted into deep-sea fish farms raising red snapper, mahi mahi, yellow fin tuna and flounder, under a plan backed by the Bush administration. For years, marine biologists and oil companies have experimented using the giant platforms as bases for mariculture, but commercial use of the platforms as fish farms never got off the ground because of the federal government's reluctance to open up the oceans to farming. Yet in December, ...
MIT Team Seeks to Seed Developing World With $100 Laptops
Post Date: 2005-04-03 15:37:20 by Mr Nuke Buzzcut
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MIT Team Seeks to Seed Developing World With $100 Laptops By Mark Jewell The Associated Press Published: Apr 3, 2005 In a rural Cambodian village where the homes lack electricity, the nighttime darkness is pierced by the glow from laptops that children bring from school. The students were equipped with notebook computers by a foundation run by MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte and his wife Elaine. "When the kids bring them home and open them up, it's the brightest light source in the home," said Negroponte. "Parents love it." Negroponte and some MIT colleagues are hard at work on a project they hope will brighten the lives and prospects of hundreds of ...
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