forsv: potpourri of thoughts

Can your printer tell on you?

This seems like a direct threat from the big brother:

Dancing cellphone

Disappointed with your cellphone's lack of enthusiasm? Then you'll be relieved to hear that Motorola has devised a handset that dances for joy when it receives a call.

The "ambulatory" device, as it is described, sits on four vibrating feet that shake with different strength and in slightly different directions to make the whole handset wriggle around.

The device could, for example, shimmy in a clockwise direction to signal an incoming call from the office, or wobble counter-clockwise to alert the user to a new message.

Motorola even proposes using accelerometers to let the owner teach the phone how to dance when a certain person calls. A further party trick would see the device detect the beat of a music track and dance along in time.

Read the dancing cellphone patent here.

Einstein's Big Idea

Exactly 100 years ago, Albert Einstein grappled with the implications of his revolutionary special theory of relativity and came to a startling conclusion: mass and energy are one, related by the formula E = mc2. In "Einstein's Big Idea," NOVA dramatizes the remarkable story behind this equation.

PBS Broadcast Date: October 11, 2005 from 8 to 10 pm

Baby you can park my car

Nissan has developed an egg-shaped car for drivers who find backing out of tight parking spots a hassle.

The car's body pivots 360 degrees so that its rear end becomes the front.

The Pivo, shown on Friday at a Tokyo Nissan showroom, is still an experimental model and probably will not go on sale publicly for several years. It is a three-seater electric car that looks like a big egg on wheels. Its body revolves in a complete circle while its wheels stay put.

Such moves are possible because Pivo's steering, wheels and other parts are controlled electronically by wireless, or electronic signals, not mechanical links between the cabin and the vehicle's chassis.

"This is a cute car for people who have problems parking," said Nissan Motor Co. chief designer Masato Inoue.

Pivo, also planned for display at the Tokyo auto show opening next month, highlights other technologies, including a system that allows the driver to control devices inside the car simply by raising his or her fingers off the steering wheel.

Finger pointing

That is done through a camera embedded in the steering wheel that senses heat. Lifting one finger might turn on the radio. Two fingers might set car navigation equipment.

The technology works much like voice-recognition capabilities already available in some advanced cars, but Tokyo-based Nissan says some people prefer finger-pointing than talking.

Pivo also allows the driver to see blind spots via cameras attached to the outside of the car.

Inoue says it is possible to design a gasoline-engine vehicles that spins in the same way if electronic controls are approved for traffic safety. But they are unlikely to have the round look of Pivo because a conventional engine requires more room than an electric motor.

Mysterious Stars Surround Andromeda's Black Hole

Stars race around a black hole at the center of the Andromeda galaxy so fast that they could go the distance from Earth to the Moon in six minutes.

The finding, announced today, solves a mystery over the source of strange blue light coming from Andromeda's center. But it generates a new puzzle: The stars' phenomenal orbital velocity suggests they should never have formed in the first place.

Astronomers first spotted the blue light near Andromeda's core in 1995. Three years later, another group determined that the light emanated from a cluster of hot, young stars. Nobody knew how many were involved.

Continue reading.

Botany Photo of the Day

Inspired by NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, the gardeners and plant enthusiasts at the University of British Columbia's Botanical Centre have grown their very own photo blog. The first entry, on April 5, 2005, of a Chinese parasol storax, let it be known that these pictures would be painterly and lush. From a close-up of ferns, a Himalayan blue poppy, or this delicate fragrant granadilla, the diverse plants of Canada and the plentiful holdings of the UBC garden bloom forth. Categories include mosses, conifers, and the always-popular flowering plants. If you're the type who thinks fungus is don't-touch-that gross, dare to view these beauties. The garden syndicates its content through RSS, so plant a feed and see a new picture blossom each day.

Cellular Squirrel project

Do you suffer from mobile telephone calls at inopportune times? Could you use a cute PA to take calls for you while gaming, or asleep? A dissertation project from MIT by HCI specialist Stefan Marti may have your solution: Cellular Squirrel.

Of course you will always want to talk to people who are thinking the same things as you, so Cellular Squirrel waves and moves about rather than making a sound. His oddly bulbous figure makes use of "socially strong non-verbal cues like gaze, posture, and gestures, to alert and interact with the user" rather than intrusive alerts in order to minimise user stress and social disruption.

The Air Car

The Air Car. A car that runs on compressed air. While not a new idea, or unique,
the MDI car can reach a speed of 68 mph and has a claimed range of
roughly 124 miles. To recharge the tank, the car reportedly needs to be
plugged into the grid for 3 to 4 hours or attached to an air pump in a
gas station for only 2 minutes.
Is the wind of the future about to break? Will this technology pass gas as our urban fuel of choice?

Sustainable energy source could solve Bermuda Triangle riddle

Are methane-producing bacteria the explanation of the Bermuda Triangle mystery?

Haute couture

A new aeroplane has been designed entirely in virtual reality.

Intelligent Carpet Directs Robot Vacuum

An "intelligent carpet" that tells robotic vacuum cleaners where to go, and can even direct the robot to spots it might have missed.

'Teleporting' over the internet

Computer scientists in the US are developing a system which would allow people to 'teleport a solid 3D recreation of themselves over the internet. And it's based on the animation of "Wallace and Gromit".

makes computers think about the consequences

Researchers at the US, along with teams from the UK, France, Germany and Japan have come up with a new programming language which allows a computer to think through the consequences of an action before executing it.

Developed the international team led by scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have come up with what they call a 'process specification language software' which is more mundanely known as ISO 18629.

A traditional programming language consists of a series of instructions which, as any programmer faced with buggy code knows, will be followed slavishly whether the consequences are those intended or not.

The ISO 18629 language is different. Built around developments in artificial intelligence it allows the computer to analyse an instruction and make decisions based on its 'meaning' and 'context'.

Continue reading ...

a Better Brain

11 Steps to a Better Brain Funny, reading forSV is not on the list.

Flying Snakes: New Videos Reveal How They Do It

You might not think snakes need any more tools in their box of fright tactics. However, some of these slithering reptiles are dramatic flyers.

Jake Socha of the University of Chicago has been studying snakes' ability to act like birds for eight years. Today he revealed just how good they are at winging it.

"Despite their lack of wing-like appendages, flying snakes are skilled aerial locomotors," he said.

Like a Frisbee

Snakes join birds, insects, bats, squirrels and even ants in the realm of aerial prowess. So just how do they do it?

Continue reading ...

New Award (attempts to) challenge the Nobel Prize

$1 million science awards created
Kavli Prizes for astrophysics, neuroscience, nanotech

OSLO, Norway - Nobel science prizes will face a "more daring" rival beginning in 2008, with $1 million awards for research into everything from the Big Bang to the brain, a Norwegian-born philanthropist says.

Fred Kavli, a physicist who left Norway in 1955 with $300 and turned it into a $340 million fortune in California, said he was setting up three prizes for astrophysics, neuroscience and nanotechnology, the use of molecule-sized devices.

Kavli already funds 10 science institutes — nine at U.S. universities including Stanford, Yale and Cornell, and one at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Three scientists linked to the institutes won Nobel prizes last year.

"We want to spread the word of science and get more students interested. ... In many parts of the world that's a problem, from Norway to the United States," Kavli told Reuters on Monday.

"I think we'll be more daring," than the Nobel awards, he said, because they would seek to reward scientific breakthroughs more quickly than the conservative Nobel system.

Continue reading ...

Koreans Report Major Stem Cell Breakthrough

South Korean researchers are reporting today that they have developed a highly efficient recipe for producing human embryos through cloning, and then extracting their stem cells.

Writing in the journal Science, the researchers, led by Dr. Woo Suk Hwang and Dr. Shin Yong Moon of Seoul National University, said they used their method to produce 11 human stem cell lines that were genetic matches of patients who ranged in age from 2 to 56.

The method, called therapeutic cloning, is one of the great hopes of the stem cell field. It produces stem cells, universal cells that are extracted from embryos, killing the embryos in the process, and that, in theory, can be directed to grow into any of the body's cell types.

Continue reading ...

Human evolution at the crossroads

Scientists are fond of running the evolutionary clock backward, using DNA analysis and the fossil record to figure out when our ancestors stood erect and split off from the rest of the primate evolutionary tree.

But the clock is running forward as well. So where are humans headed?

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins says it's the question he's most often asked, and "a question that any prudent evolutionist will evade." But the question is being raised even more frequently as researchers study our past and contemplate our future.

Paleontologists say that anatomically modern humans may have at one time shared the Earth with as many as three other closely related types — Neanderthals, Homo erectus and the dwarf hominids whose remains were discovered last year in Indonesia.

Does evolutionary theory allow for circumstances in which "spin-off" human species could develop again?

Some think the rapid rise of genetic modification could be just such a circumstance. Others believe we could blend ourselves with machines in unprecedented ways — turning natural-born humans into an endangered species.

Continue reading ...

Top 25 Technological Breakthroughs

CNN has a list of tech advances over the past 25 years:

1) Wireless world
2) Defense technology
3) Alternative fuel vehicles
4) Biotechnology
5) Computers
6) Lasers
7) Genomics
8) Global finance
9) Processors
10) Digital storage
11) Space
12) Fiber optics
13) Satellite TV & radio
14) DNA testing
15) Video games
16) Biometrics
17) Energy and water savers
18) Scanning tunneling microscopes
19) Batteries
20) E-baggage
21) Remote controls
22) Animal cloning
23) Manufacturing technology
24) The big picture
25) Weather technology

A tiny robot swarm - fiction no longer

The cartoon superheroes were frustrated. They confronted a menacing robot that quickly repaired any damage they inflicted. It was made up of a swarm of microscopic robots - so-called nanobots - that could change its function and shape at will. Suddenly the swarm became fluid and flowed away.

That cartoon scenario may seem entertaining. But the reality is startling. Engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration want to pull off a similar trick. They are testing a robot that they hope to shrink to nanobot size and eventually form what NASA calls "autonomous nanotechnology swarms" (ANTS). The researchers aim to give ANTS enough artificial intelligence to make smart decisions as well as know intuitively when and how to walk and swarm.

Continue reading ...

Fully automated robotic parking garage.

Fully automated robotic parking garage.

The way it works is, a driver pulls in and drives onto a parking tray. The machinery does the rest.

"You get out of your car," said [developer Danny] Bivens. "It'll scan your car to make sure there's no dog in there or baby or husband."

The tray rises into the structure like an elevator and shifts the tray into an empty spot, returning with another tray.

"It slides them like an electronic Rubik's cube," said Bivens.

When the resident is ready for the car, a handheld device can be scanned in the elevator on the way down. The car will be waiting.

Robotic camel riders are ready to race

Camel racing is to be transformed as a spectator sport in the United Arab Emirates with robot riders taking the place of child jockeys.

The remotely operated riders were developed following a ban on the use of jockeys under 16 years of age, imposed by the UAE Camel Racing Association in March 2004.

Camel racing is a lucrative sport with a long tradition among Bedouin Arabs. But human rights groups have linked it to the kidnap and mistreatment of children as young as four years old. Riders have traditionally been younger than 16 years-old and weighed less than 45 kg (7 stone).

Continue reading...

ITSY-BITSY DRONE

There are now dozens of different types of drones in the Pentagon's arsenal. But you'd be hard-pressed to find one smaller than this Wasp Micro Air Vehicle (MAV), now being tested aboard the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group off Southern California.

"The Wasp has two cameras — one forward and one aft — that collect and feed live video or other information. It’s designed to follow a programmed or relayed route using Global Positioning System waypoints or other navigational systems," C4ISR Journal says.

Last month, researchers on the Nimitz's ships "launched several of the 7-ounce, 13-inch planes." Sailors there will be taking "the Wasp along on its upcoming deployment, used it for several missions, including maritime interdiction and force protection. Micro UAVs might help in situations in which ships do not have helicopters available... 'It has the potential to save lives during boardings,' said Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Roth, the Nimitz group’s communications officer."

Meanwhile, Darpa and Honeywell are teaming up for a second, slightly larger MAV program. Weighing in at about 12 pounds, the gallon-of-apple-juice-sized drone is meant to fit inside a soldier's (already overstuffed) backpack. The idea is that the MAV will give a small infantry unit the ability to see over the next hill, or around the next corner. That's pretty much what the hand-launched Raven and Dragon Eye drones do today. But this MAV uses ducted fan propulsion, giving it a helicopter-like ability to hover over a valley or alleyway -- or even land on a nearby rooftop, and watch a battle unfold.

Sony aims to beam sights, sounds into brain

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- If you think video games are engrossing now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp. has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.

The technique could one day be used to create video games in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.

The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.

"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear sounds."

According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent, Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small groups of brain cells.

Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.

A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."

Pentagon Invests in Unmanned 'Trauma Pod'

The Pentagon (news - web sites) is awarding $12 million in grants on Monday to develop an unmanned "trauma pod" designed to use robots to perform full scalpel-and-stitch surgeries on wounded soldiers in battlefield conditions.

The researchers who pitched the Defense Department on the idea have prepared a futuristic "concept video" that seems straight out of a teen fantasy game, showing with full color and sound effects the notion that robots in unmanned vehicles can operate on soldiers under enemy fire and then evacuate them.

"The main challenge is how can we get high-quality medical care onto the battlefield as close to the action and as close to the soldiers as possible," said John Bashkin, head of business development at SRI International, a nonprofit laboratory that often handles Defense Department research. "Right now, the resources are pretty limited to what a medic can carry with him."

Read

SleepTracker wristwatch

Invention of the day: The SleepTracker wristwatch, which "monitors your sleep and wakes you at the moment that your body would best adjust from moving from a sleeping state to being awake."

'Bionic eye' may help reverse blindness

A "bionic eye" may one day help blind people see again, according to US researchers who have successfully tested the system in rats.

The eye implant - a 3-millimetre-wide chip that would fit behind the retina - could be a dramatic step above currently available technology, says the team at Stanford University, California, US.

About 1.5 million people worldwide have a disease called retinitis pigmentosa, and 700,000 people in the western world are diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration each year. In both degenerative diseases, retinal cells at the back of the eye that process light gradually die.

Read

Fight Osteoporosis: Bone Up on B12

Women are about four times more likely than men to develop osteoporosis, or weak, porous bones. But a new study links vitamin B12 deficiency with low bone mineral density in men, and confirms similar, previously reported findings in women. Researchers funded by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) reported the findings in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. The study was led by epidemiologist Katherine Tucker with the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University in Boston, Mass. Tucker directs the HNRCA's Dietary Assessment and Epidemiology Research Program.

While vitamin B12 deficiency has been linked with low levels of markers of bone formation, the mechanism behind the relationship is not known.

The scientists examined the relationship between vitamin B12 blood levels and indicators of bone health measured in 2,576 men and women, aged 30 to 87, participating in the Framingham Osteoporosis Study. They found that those with vitamin B12 levels lower than 148 picomoles per liter (pM/L) were at greater risk of osteoporosis than those with higher levels. Plasma B12 levels below 185 pM/L are considered "very low," according to some experts.

The study found that those with vitamin B12 concentrations below 148 pM/L had significantly lower average bone mineral density--at the hip in men, and at the spine in women--than those with concentrations above.

The range of symptoms of B-12 deficiency includes anemia, balance disturbances and cognitive decline. Osteoporosis usually progresses with no outward effect until a fracture occurs.

The recommended dietary allowance for vitamin B12 is 2.4 micrograms per day for both men and women. Low stomach acid and aging can lower the ability to absorb the vitamin. Those over age 50 are encouraged to consume fortified foods or supplements containing B12.

This study suggests adequate vitamin B12 intake is important for maintaining bone mineral density. Animal protein foods, such as fish, liver, beef, pork, milk and cheese are good sources of vitamin B12.

From ARS, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.

Insect Criminality

[Bee crimes against the colony.] [Worker] [policing]: [the policing of insect societies].

Brain chip reads man's thoughts

A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind.

Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001.

The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.

The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.

Read

Why some see colours in numbers

US scientists say they can explain why some people 'see' colours when they look at numbers and letters.

As many as one in 2,000 people has an extraordinary condition in which the five senses intermingle, called synaesthesia.

Some see colours when they hear music or words. Others 'taste' words.

The study in Neuron tracked the brain activity of people with the most common form and found peaks in areas involved with perceiving shapes and colours.

Cross-wiring

The University of California San Diego team said their findings lend support to the idea that the condition is due to cross-activation between adjacent areas of the brain involved with processing different sensory information.

This cross-wiring might develop, they believe, by a failure of the "pruning" of nerve connections between the areas as the brain develops while still in the womb.

Continue reading...

Pacemaker 'cure' for depression

SCIENTISTS claim to have developed a "brain pacemaker" that can cure depression through an electronic stimulus.

The discovery raises hopes for thousands for release from depression by drilling holes into their skull and attaching electrodes to the brain which create a brighter mood.

But psychiatrists warn such "surgery" is a drastic measure that must be used with caution.

Scientists in Toronto studied six patients who had suffered years of untreatable clinical depression. Four women and two men had electrodes planted deep into their brain to stimulate one of the areas involved in mood control.

Continue reading ...

India wins landmark patent battle

India has won a 10-year-long battle at the European Patent Office (EPO) against a patent granted on an anti-fungal product, derived from neem.

EPO initially granted the patent to the US Department of Agriculture and multinational WR Grace in 1995.

But the Indian government successfully argued that the medicinal neem tree is part of traditional Indian knowledge.

The winning challenge comes after years of campaigning and legal efforts against so-called "bio-piracy".

Continue reading ...

Using air to charge cellphones? IIT-Delhi does it!

All you need to charge your mobile is -- air!

Students at the Department of Industrial Design at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi have attached a turbine with a mobile phone that helps charge it even when the user is travelling, Head of the Department Professor Lalit Kumar Das told PTI.

"The electricity generated by the turbine when moved by wind energy could charge a cellphone in an emergency. It generates electricity to the tune of 3 to 4 watts which is sufficient to charge a mobile phone," he said.

The specially designed turbine, which costs about Rs 200 to be developed inside a laboratory, is so small that it could be easily kept in a pocket, he said.

The primary objective of the device is to extend mobile 'connectivity' where there is no electricity. The device also saves energy, though not to a significant extent, he said.

The electricity could also be used for other purposes such as illumination and playing a radio. High intensity light devices (HILDs) and radio require low energy to function that could be easily provided by the turbine, he said.

The device is best suited for coastal areas where the wind flows almost continuously.

The technique is not yet commercialised but the department has sent a proposal to the ministry of science and technology to help manufacture the turbine on a large scale, Das said.

"The device will help mobile phone users charge their phones while travelling in a bus, a car or a train. All they need to do is -- place the turbine against the wind flow. It will use wind energy to move the turbine thereby generating energy," he said.

The students have also used a spring in the device that can store energy through a handle. It could be used to charge a mobile during power cuts, the scientist added.

(via Rediff)

Invisibility Shields Planned by Engineers

In popular science fiction, the power of invisibility is readily apparent. Star Trek fans, for example, know that the devious Romulans could make their spaceships suddenly disappear.

But is the idea really so implausible? Not according to new findings by scientists who say they have come up with a way to create cloaking device.

Electronic engineers at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia are researching a device they say could make objects "nearly invisible to an observer." The contrivance works by preventing light from bouncing off the surface of an object, causing the object to appear so small it all but disappears.

Continue reading ...

Need milk? Study says no

A new medical review suggests there is little evidence that current calcium recommendations help protect bones in children. Instead, experts recommend both exercise and calcium-rich foods.

Children who drink more milk do not necessarily develop healthier bones, researchers said Monday in a report that stresses exercise and modest consumption of calcium-rich foods such as tofu.

Other ways to obtain the absorbable calcium found in one cup of cow’s milk include a cup of fortified orange juice, a cup of cooked kale or turnip greens, two packages of instant oats, two-thirds cup of tofu, or 1-2/3 cups of broccoli, the report said.

Continue reading...

Finally, humans may conquer cockroaches

With the fake promise of, guess what, sex.

Could it be the scientific breakthrough of the century? After decades of trying, scientists have identified and isolated the chemical that gives female German cockroaches their sex appeal - offering humankind a chance of victory over perhaps its most indestructible foe.

In varying sizes and colours, cockroaches are to be found in every corner of the planet, blamed for the spread of almost every pestilence known to man. The most widespread species is the German cockroach - half an inch long and light brown in colour, and famed for its speed.

Humans have tried to gas them and poison them with ingenious combinations of chemicals. Especially popular in the US are lethally baited sticky traps called "roach motels", sold under the slogan "They Check In but They Don't Check Out". But as anyone who has had a roach problem knows full well, nothing works for long. The creatures have been around for 200 million years, and are reputedly capable of emerging unscathed from nuclear armageddon.

But now they may be about to meet their match. According to the journal Science, US researchers have produced a synthetic version of the female cockroach's sex pheromone - the magic ingredient that makes male cockroaches drop everything in the interest of helping their ladies to produce some 350,000 offspring per breeding season. Coby Schal, professor of entomology at North Carolina State University and an author of the study, says the faintest whiff will have the most starving roach come running. "The male will choose the sex pheromone over food, even though he may die on the way." The study found that when a minuscule quantity of the artificial pheromone was placed in one branch of a forked plexiglass tube, 60 per cent of a sample of cockroaches chose that branch and made their way to the sample in less than 10 seconds.

For designers of coachroach traps, the substance is potentially the most most potent bait yet, capable of luring roaches by the millions to their doom. But there is one small problem. In the lab test, 40 per cent of male roaches failed to respond to the pheromones, for reasons unclear. It seems man's battle with the roach is not yet won.

is this it?

Bubble Chambers are used to observe the tracks of subatomic particles at extremely high resolution. The photographs taken of these tracks are often stunningly beautiful and elegant. This website contains a java applet which simulates a bubble chamber, to gorgeous effect.

Great Advertising

3M advertises for it's "Security Glass".

3M puts its money where its mouth is. Yes, that *is* real money ...

The Secret to Longevity in Tubeworms

With an incredible lifespan of up to 250 years, the deep-sea tube worm, Lamellibrachia luymesi, is among the longest-lived of all animals, but how it obtains sufficient nutrients -- in the form of sulfide -- to keep going for this long has been a mystery. In a paper just published in the online journal PLoS Biology, a team of biologists now provide a solution: by releasing its waste sulfate not up into the ocean but down into the sediments, L. luymesi stimulates the growth of sulfide-producing microbes, thus ensuring its own long-term survival.

From Penn State

The research team includes Erik E. Cordes, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Charles Fisher, professor of biology at Penn State, along with Katriona Shea, assistant professor of biology at Penn State, Michael A. Arthur, a professor of geosciences at Penn State, and Rolf S. Arvidson, an earth sciences research scientist at Rice University.

The sulfide this worm needs is created by a consortium of bacteria and archaea that live in the cold deep-sea sediments surrounding the seep where the worm lives. These organisms use energy from hydrocarbons to reduce sulfate to sulfide, which L. luymesi absorbs through unique root-like extensions of its body, which tunnel into the sediments. However, current measurements of sulfide and sulfate fluxes in the water near the vents do not match either the observed size of the tubeworm colony or the observed longevity of its individuals, leading Cordes et al. to propose that L. luymesi also uses its roots to release sulfate back to the microbial consortia from which it draws its sulfide. Without this return of sulfate, the model predicts an average lifespan of only 39 years in a colony of 1,000 individuals; with it, survival increases to over 250 years, matching the longevity of actual living tubeworms.

To date, the proposed return of sulfate to the sediments through the roots is only a hypothesis -- albeit one with much to support it -- that still awaits direct confirmation. By providing a model in which this hypothetical interaction provides real benefits and explains real observations, the authors hope to stimulate further research into the biology of the enigmatic and beautiful L. luymesi.

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

You damned dirty ape

If you're going to work with Koko the Gorilla, the famous talking ape, you've got to know more than sign language. Allegedly, Dr. Penny Patterson insists you've also gotta show your boobs... who knew?

Chimps: fair. Humans:...?

[You humans] [have been around a lot longer than you were thought to have been here] -- [since at least 190,000 years ago]. [In 1967, the Omo ] [fossils were ] [thought to be about 130,000 ] [years old.]

Gene therapy converts dead bone graft to new, living tissue

Researchers have created a way to transform the dead bone of a transplanted skeletal graft into living tissue in an experiment involving mice. The advance, which uses gene therapy to stimulate the body into treating the foreign splint as living bone, is a promising development for the thousands of cancer and trauma patients each year who suffer with fragile and failing bone grafts. The findings were posted online Feb. 13 and will appear in the March 1 issue of Nature Medicine.

Solar Cell implant for the blind

Ophthalmologists at Rush University Medical Center implanted Artificial Silicon Retina (ASR) microchips in the eyes of five patients to treat vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The implant is a silicon microchip 2mm in diameter and one-thousandth of an inch thick, less than the thickness of a human hair. Four patients had surgery Tuesday, January 25. The fifth patient is scheduled for a later date.

Rush principal investigator Dr. John Pollack performed the surgeries with Dr. Kirk Packo, Dr. Pauline Merrill, Dr. Mathew MacCumber, and Dr. Jack Cohen. All are members of Illinois Retina Associates, S.C., a private practice group and are on the Rush faculty. Patients leave the hospital the same day and will be followed for two years as part of the study, and then indefinitely.

The patients were recruited from a pool of about 5,000 applicants.

The implants are designed for people with retinal diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, which cause blindness and vision impairment in about 10 million Americans. More than one million of these people are legally blind.

Continue reading ...

Epica 2004 Awards

It contains 109 commercials from 18 countries, including the popular 'Gandhi' spot for Telecom Italia.

A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii

A Mysterious Streak Above Hawaii
Credit: Night Sky Live Collaboration

Explanation: What in heavens-above was that? Not everything seen on the night sky is understood. The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky. On the night of 2004 December 17, the fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala, Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious. The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as unconfirmed, but the Mauna Kea CONCAM on the next Hawaiian island recorded the same thing. The NSL team might then have disregarded the streak as a satellite, but no record of it was found in the heavens-above.com site that usually documents bright satellite events. If you think you have a reasonable explanation for the streak, please contribute to the on-line discussion. Current candidates include a known satellite that was somehow missed by heavens-above, a recently launched rocket, and a passing space rock. Volunteers are solicited by the NSL project to help monitor the operability of each NSL CONCAM, including looking for interesting anomalies such as this. Disclosure: Robert Nemiroff collaborates on both the NSL and APOD projects.

Cheese triangles shed light on hobbits

Cheese triangles are helping an Australian researcher to explain how hobbits on Flores could make the stone tools found with their bones.

Archaeology PhD student Mark Moore of the University of New England in Armidale presented his research at the recent Australian Archaeological Association conference.

One of the puzzling facts about the discovery of a new species of hobbit human in Liang Bua cave on Flores announced last year is that the remains were found alongside tools that appear to be as sophisticated as those made by modern humans.

This was a surprise as hobbits have such a small brain.

Continue reading ...

Parachuting to Titan

Get ready for two of the strangest hours in the history of space exploration. Two hours. That's how long it will take the European Space Agency's Huygens probe to parachute to the surface of Titan on January 14th. Descending through thick orange clouds, Huygens will taste Titan’s atmosphere, measure its wind and rain, listen for alien sounds and, when the clouds part, start taking pictures. No one knows what the photos will reveal. Icy mountains? Liquid methane seas? Hot lightning? "It's anyone's guess," says Jonathan Lunine, a professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona and a member of the Huygens science team. "We might not even understand what we see, not immediately."

Such is Titan--the biggest mystery in the solar system.

Astronomers have been watching Titan, Saturn's largest moon, for centuries. What's down there? No one knows, but it's bound to be strange. Get ready.

Infrasound animals

"Infrasonic Symphony" Intrigued by reports of tsunami-avoidance behavior in Sri Lankan wildlife? Science News offers a timely antidote to simplistic mumbo-jumbo about the "mythical power" of animal earthquake detection with a detailed look at the latest research into low-frequency sound. The Elephant Listening Project is particularly interested in elephant rumblings that produce Rayleigh waves. "Mammals, birds, insects, and spiders can detect Rayleigh waves," notes The Explainer. "Most can feel the movement in their bodies, although some, like snakes and salamanders, put their ears to the ground in order to perceive it."

Top Science Stories of 2004

Mars Exploration

Researchers Unveil New Form of Matter

Cloned Human Embryos Yield Stem Cells

Chemists Report New Superheavy Elements

Ancient Shells May be Earliest Jewels

Ringed Victory: Cassini Gets Up Close and Personal with Saturn

NASA Identifies "Likely Direct Cause" of Genesis Crash

Mini-Human Species Unearthed

Fixing the Vote

Holes in the Missile Shield

Monkey Protein Blocks HIV

Newly Discovered Galaxy is a Record-Breaker

continue reading

With Great Beer, It's All in the Rocks

With Great Beer, It's All in the Rocks (and That Doesn't Mean Ice)

By KENNETH CHANG Published: December 14, 2004 - New York Times

DENVER - The refreshing bitterness of an English pale ale, the clean light taste of a Pilsener, the dark, almost burnt graininess of Irish stout. To Dr. Alex Maltman, these are prime illustrations of the power of geology.

Wine connoisseurs often talk of terroir - a French word expressing the notion that vineyard soils impart flavors to the finished wines. But data to back up the notion is sketchy, said Dr. Maltman, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Wales. And though whiskey distillers often make much of the water they use, there is little correlation between the taste of whiskey and the geology of where it is made, he said.

Beer and geology, on the other hand, are closely entwined, Dr. Maltman said last month at a seminar on geology and beer held at a meeting of the Geological Society of America.

For one, geologists drink lots of beer, typically ending a long day examining rocks with a trip to the nearest bar. Mayor John W. Hickenlooper of Denver, a former geologist turned pub owner, told the geologists how an earlier geology meeting in 1988 bolstered his fledgling microbrewery.

continue reading...

Scientists Teach Sparrows to Sing Backward

You wouldn't think sparrows need to be taught how to whistle a happy tune, but Gary Rose wanted to try it anyway.

Rose and his colleagues captured about two dozen baby sparrows -- with permission, honest! -- and separated them so they wouldn't hear any sparrow songs. When the little nestlings were two weeks old, the researchers began to teach them how to perform a basic sparrow jingle using recordings made in the wild.

The music lessons were arduous, two 90-minute sessions every day for two months.

The pupils were treated like any aspiring musician, instructed in step-by-step fashion. Lessons were tailored to the students' instrument and their presumed collective goal, to sing the most common sparrow song, known as "ABCDE."

Here's how it goes: A is an opening whistle; B is bunch of notes; C is a buzz; D is a trill; and E is another bunch of notes. Importantly, the song's segments overlap, like this: AB, BC, CD and DE.

Grown-up sparrows know the number by heart. But how?

Is it genetic, like all human babies knowing exactly how to cry at 3 a.m. just after you've gone back to sleep? Or do sparrow virtuosos rely on short-term memory or, perhaps, on their long-term memories?

continue reading...

LifeGem Human Carbon "Diamonds"

LifeGems are diamonds made from the carbon contained in human ashes. With 8 ounces of "cremains", enough carbon can be extracted to make a synthetic diamond. The process takes several months. LifeGems can be made in sizes from .25 carats (about $2500) to a full carat ($14,000) and come in round, radiant, or princess cuts. Pet LifeGems are available as well.

"I think more people are looking for more-personal ways to remember somebody," says Dean VandenBiesen, LifeGem's vice president of operations. "Rather than having ongoing mourning for someone's loss, people are wanting to celebrate a life. The LifeGem is just another way to do that, versus having a weeping, somber occasion."

From USA Today.

Google Suggest

Pretty cool, Google's got an iterative search implementation that offers suggsested keyword terms as you type. This is really cool, because I'm thinking of how much I struggled just to get post filtering working for the search on my blog.

Liquid Lens ...!

Camera phones will soon have lenses made from nothing more substantial that a couple of drops of oil and water, but will still be capable of auto focusing, and even zooming in on subjects, says Etienne Paillard, CEO of French start-up Varioptic.

Of course, folks like myself who are keen photographers are going to pipe up with scorn saying nothing new! Sure, Nikon introduced this technology in their cameras way back in 1979; but, it was a closely-guarded secret then and nobody was quite sure what precisely the lens did. All we knew (and were ecstatic about) was that it took the best pictures in the world!

Varioptic was founded two years ago to exploit two core technology patents covering lenses based on the principles of electro-wetting. This is the tendency of liquid to spread on a substrate, Paillard explains. "It means we can tune the shape of the drop to create a lens. Think about a tunable lens, like in the human eye".

The lens has a simple structure: two liquids, of equal density, sandwiched between two windows in a conical vessel. One liquid is water, which is conductive. The other, oil, acts as a lid, allowing the engineers to work with a fixed volume of water, and provides a measure of stability for the optical axis. The interface between the oil and water will change shape depending on the voltage applied across the conical structure. At 0V, the surface is flat, but at 40V, the surface of the oil is highly convex.

There are several advantages to having a lens built like this; no moving parts so less to break and more rugged. Power consumption is very low; 10% of a motorised auto focus lens. It also has the potential to be made very small. Presently, the limit is a few millimetres, but research is on to shrink the lens further. Varioptics is developing the lens for use in endoscopy as well as camera phones. They have a non-exclusive deal with a Samsung-subsidiary to develop the lenses for camera phones and products will be on shelves by Q1 of 2006 or maybe even in time for Christmas 2005. The first product will be the auto focussing lens, but in a year's time Varioptics will have a true zoom capability, using two liquid lenses.