January 4, 2012

14 Comments

Science & Technology News Digest

4.5 billion year old meteorite the source for the only known natural quasicrystal specimen … [more]


Avoidable errors in Freakonomics, the wildly popular statistics book series … [more]


Unipolar and Bipolar Depression treated effectively and safely using deep brain stimulation (DBS) … [more]


World’s first hybrid shark found in Australian waters … [more]


Scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center developing comet harpoon to quickly collect samples from comets it space … [more]


Winning the Brazilian war on deforestation of the Amazon rainforest … [more]


Silkworms genetically engineered to make artificial spider silk, a breakthrough that could lead to incredibly strong fabric … [more]


Researchers grow sperm in laboratory by using germ cells in breakthrough that could revolutionize fertility treatment for men … [more]


Top 10 Weird Doomsday Predictions … [more]


NASA debunks 2012 doomsday predictions … [more]


Slower response times in the elderly due to conscious focus on accuracy, not slowing of brain processing speed … [more]


Recycling old Christmas lights into slippers in China … [more]


Theories on the evolution of complex life upended by discovery of 600 million year old microscopic fossils of amoeba-like micro-organisms … [more]


Researchers explain how shearing causes granular materials to transform from a loose state to a solid state … [more]


Killer Whales Vs. Sharks on New Zealand Beach … [more]


Using DNA analysis, Scientists at New Mexico State University make progress on drought-tolerant alfalfa … [more]


More than ever, organic produce doesn’t mean small farms, sustainability, or environmentally friendly … [more]


Chimpanzees communications influenced by what their audience knows … [more]


According to new study, moss spreading throughout the Hawaiian Islands has cloned itself for 50,000 years … [more]


First computer model created that incorporates the influence of glia, brain cells that regulate synapses and control learning, memory, and adaptation … [more] [related]


Must-see science videos of 2011 … [more]


China’s National Space Administration plans to put a man on the moon … [more]


Farmers failure to rotate crops may have caused rootworms to develop resistance to genetically modified Bt corn … [more]


According to new skeletal evidence, Columbus’s crew brought back Syphilis from New World … [more]


VeriChip, an implantable computer chip, has been approved for humans by the FDA … [more]


Two charred planets recently found by NASA’s Kepler space telescope likely sped the transformation of the star they orbit from red giant to subdwarf … [more]


Mystery behind avian suicides of 1961, the inspiration for Hitchcock’s The Birds, solved at last … [more]


Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2011 according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science … [more]


U.S. based security think tank Stratfor hacked by “Anonymous” … [more]


Forgetting is key to sharp intellect and a sound state of mind … [more]


Little exciting new technology expected in 2012. Is American innovation dying? … [more]


Weirdest Stories of 2011 on Discovery News … [more]


Capture of Borneo Sumatran rhino in Malaysia raises hope that this highly endangered species can be saved from extinction … [more]


Prosopagnosia, aka Face Blindness, and the inability to recognize voices … [more]


Concerns that giant Asian tiger prawn may dominate Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystem … [more]


Understanding consciousness by studying the brain during general anesthesia and mapping how neural circuits change … [more]


Twin Grail probes to enter orbit around the moon over New Year’s weekend and begin study of the lunar gravity field … [more]


Observing RNA editing in real time by tracking a green glow … [more]


New technology, called the RootChip, could revolutionize root research with ability to monitor roots in real time with high precision … [more]


Best Science Pictures of 2011 … [more]


MIT neuroscientists found Npas4 gene to be master controller of new memories in the human brain … [more]


Chi_b (3P): The first new particle discovered at the Large Hadron Collider … [more]


Hollow metallic ball with a circumference of 1.1m fell out of the sky and landed in Namibia … [more]


Extremely powerful quantum computers and new states of matter may be possible by supercooling objects at the atomic level … [more]


“Sun-Believeable” – Inexpensive paint that can generate electricity from sunlight … [more]


First complex cell may have been an accidental byproduct of an attempted parasitic invasion of an archaeon by a bacterium … [more]


Evidence of complex hydrocarbon molecules spotted on the surface of Pluto by the Hubble Space Telescope … [more]


Ingredient pairing is what makes Asian food taste so different from Western food … [more]


Intense heat and pressure deep in the Earth causes iron oxide to transition into a highly conducting metal without a change to its structure … [more]


Mean Drunks: People that don’t consider future consequences when sober get very aggressive after consuming alcohol … [more]


Mean Drunks: People that don’t consider future consequences when sober get very aggressive after consuming alcohol … [more]


FDA approval granted for human trials of HIV vaccine developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario … [more]


IBM predicts 5 innovations that will change our lives in the next 5 years … [more]


In southwest Wales, researchers have located the exact source of the rocks used to build part of the 5,000 year old Stonehenge monument … [more]


Quantum Entanglement of macroscopic diamonds at room temperature … [more]


According to a study using fish, Uninformed Voters may provide value in producing democratic outcomes … [more]


U.S. DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory creates solar cell with 114% external quantum efficiency (more electrons in photocurrent than photons entering cell) … [more]


Fermilab breaks ground on Illinois Accelerator Research Center … [more]


Soldierdroids, Robot Chefs, Dragons, and other Robots of the Week … [more]


Rebel Angel, Sloshed Galaxies, Red Dragonfish, Survival Story, and other Space Pictures of the Week … [more]


British study shows that loud music and noise make Alcoholic drinks taste sweeter (and I thought it was nightclubs watering down the drinks) … [more]


Astronomers may have found the smallest known black hole using NASA’s Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer … [more]


Fluorescent molecules with a metal-organic framework developed at MIT could provide easy visual identification of pathogens, explosives, or toxins … [more]


Comet Lovejoy survives fiery plunge through sun’s corona to the surprise and delight of NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory scientists … [more]


New MRI study comparing activation of various brain regions finds roots to dehumanization that may facilitate atrocities, torture, and genocide … [more]


Russian icebreaker on mission to save more than 100 Beluga whales trapped off the Bering Sea before they die from suffocation or starvation … [more]


New suite of statistical tools called MINE provides new way to mine vast data sets and analyze a broad spectrum of patterns … [more]


Four Eras of Astrobiology from the Big Bang to intelligent life: Physical, Chemical, Biological, Cognitive … [more]


Google is working around the clock to release its Apple Siri competitor, codenamed Majel—a Star Trek reference, for the Android platform … [more]


NASA considers using 3D printing on the International Space Station to build spare parts and tools on demand … [more]


High-energy physicists from Caltech set record with sustained network data transfer rate of 186 gigabits per second … [more]


New chemical process developed that can create a range of complex metallic nanoparticles with potential uses in the medical industry … [more]


MIT researchers create extremely high speed camera: One Trillion Frames Per Second … [more]


Paul Allen’s new company, Stratolaunch Systems, plans to build giant airplane with a 385 foot wingspan to launch rockets into space … [more]


Longevity researchers believe that the secret to immortality, or at least extending human life spans to thousands of years, may be just around the corner … [more]


NASA’s Mars-Bound Curiosity Rover begins research in space with its Radiation Assessment Detector … [more]


CERN Scientists close in on “God Particle,” but cannot make any conclusive statement on the existence of Higgs boson … [more]


400 billion particles modeled in largest-ever simulation of the universe … [more]


Study of African lungfish offers clues on the evolution of walking … [more]


Russian scientists astonished by volume of methane release from the seabed of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in the Arctic Ocean … [more]


Two new species of frogs found in the forests of southeastern Papua New Guinea are world’s smallest tetrapods (PDF) … [more]


Quantum Computers Breakthrough: Reconfigurable photonic chip can generate, manipulate and measure entanglement … [more]


Environmental Protection Agency report shows clear link between hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and contaminated ground water … [more]


Patents on how doctors treat to their patients? Supreme Court Looks at Medical Patents … [more]


Innovative learning method improves performance on high-performance visual tasks with little or no conscious effort … [more]


Intrasexual Competition Experiment Results: Almost all women were aggressive toward an attractive female … [more]


Antenna proteins, chlorophyll coherence, quantum effects, and room temperature photosynthesis … [more]


NASA lists over 500 moon rock samples as missing or stolen and much more may be missing … [more]


Swarms of bees make decisions using very similar mechanisms to human brain neurons … [more]


Accelerated ice loss in Greenland during 2010 caused lifted bedrock up to 0.79 inches … [more]


NOAA Administrator – Predicting and Managing Extreme Events … [more]


Self Cleaning Glass – New coating made of superamphiphobic glass repels water and oil … [more]


Columbia University Medical Center researchers discover that worms can pass a trait down for 100 generations, without using DNA … [more]


Giant dinosaur bones discovered in New Mexico belong to North America’s biggest dinosaur, the sauropod Alamosaurus … [more]


New Apple Headquarters may have 500,000 square feet of solar panels generating over 5MW of power … [more]


How the voices of our ancestors sounded, back when humans still had air sacs … [more]


Pristinely detailed fossils show that the ancient predator Anomalocaris had compound eyes and keen vision … [more]


Scientists at King’s College London produce ‘clinical-grade’ human embronic stem cells without using any animal products … [more]


More rumors that evidence of Higgs Boson found at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, with results expected to be released Tuesday, December 13 … [more]


Mineral vein deposited by water found on Mars by NASA Rover Opportunity … [more]


New color images from NASA Dawn show that Vesta’s rock and mineral composition make it different than other asteroids and more like a planet … [more]


Researchers from NASA and Ohio State University find that a Merging Tsunami caused by ocean ridges pushing two wave fronts together doubled the destruction in Japan … [more]


40 gallons of highly radioactive waste water containing 26 billion becquerels of radioactive materials has leaked into the Pacific Ocean from the Fukushima nuclear power plant … [more]


Almost half of cancer cases in the UK caused by lifestyle choices … [more]


Canada switching to Polymer Money to thwart counterfeiters … [more]


The Yeti Crab, a species that live in the deep sea, grows its food, extremophile bacteria, on its own claws … [more]


Rate of deforestation in the Amazon region of Brazil is at the lowest level in 23 years … [more]


Newly discovered black hole is around 20 billion times the mass of our sun and 3 times as massive as the largest previously known black hole … [more]


California high school student wins $100,000 scholarship at the Siemens Foundation’s annual science competition … [more]


Studying animal growth rates by comparing dinosaurs and ancient crocodiles … [more]


According to rumors, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are ready to announce the discovery of the Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV … [more]


Search for the Higgs boson “God Particle” at the Large Hadron Collider disrupted by “UFOs” … [more]


Is global warming causing a reduction in oceanic dissolved oxygen? … [more]


Researchers at the University of East Anglia say that global carbon emissions have reached a new high … [more]


Flerovium and Livermorium are the new names proposed for elements 114 and 116 on the periodic table … [more]


Animals may sense impending earthquakes through chemical changes in groundwater (PDF) … [more]


Outside our solar system, Voyager Probes now able to see Milky Way’s ultraviolet glow … [more]


Scientists studying algae believe drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels triggered formation of Antarctic Ice Sheet 34 million years ago … [more]


Just for fun: Sci-Fi Ballistic Weapons … [more]


Does Islam allow the intellectual freedom needed for Muslim countries to keep up in science and innovation? … [more]


Cancer killing virus found by research team at Penn State’s Milton S. Hershey Medical Center … [more]


Genetically modified mosquitoes that leave females flightless could wipe out the population of disease carrying species … [more]


Gene Therapy completely protected mice against HIV in laboratory trials … [more]


Researchers discover a synthetic compound that is very effective at Killing HIV on contact … [more]


First Arachnid Genome Cracked revealing unique characteristics of the Spider Mite … [more]


Genetically modified strain of H5N1 bird flu virus could trigger a deadly influenza pandemic … [more]


New DNA Analyses suggest animal lineages diverged 200 million years before the Cambrian explosion … [more]


Experiment proposed to test for existence of Fourth Neutrino … [more]


NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals a cosmic-ray cocoon in Cygnus constellation … [more]


Worms successfully grown for 12 generations in space – May help Colonize Mars … [more]


Flexible robot built by Harvard scientists can crawl and slither through small spaces … [more]


New military communications capabilities enabled by new embeddable cryptographic processors … [more]


London’s Science Museum to open Robotville, a new robot exhibit … [more]


According to a new theorem, Quantum Wavefunction is a physically real object … [more]


Why are some stars loaded with gold and other precious metals … [more]


Cheap reusable sensors made of Graphene Foam can detect gases 10 times better … [more]


Efficient large capacity rechargeable batteries made possible with copper hexacyanoferrate electrodes … [more]


Successful launch of Mars Rover on its 354 million mile journey to the Red Planet … [more]


New Weather and Climate Satellite captures first images … [more]


Swiss scientists create super-strong mice using genetic engineering … [more]


Carbon nanotube coating invented that can cloak three-dimensional objects … [more]


Could the giant-headed mummy found in Peru be an alien skull … [more]


New study probes the composition of Earth’s outer core … [more]


SETI and NASA researchers taking new approach in search for alien life… [more]


NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft generates most detailed topographic map of the moon ever… [more]


Italian scientists cast doubt on faster than speed of light neutrinos… [more]


Four Liquid Robotics Wave Gliders on 300 day mission to explore the Pacific Ocean… [more]


Details of the Cygnus X-1 Black Hole revealed in new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory… [more]


New tests confirm faster-than-light neutrinos, but more study needed… [more]


Solving the mystery of the Gamburtsev ghost mountains buried under the Antartic ice… [more]


Buried lake on Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter could support life according to new research… [more]


Harnessing solar energy with giant orbiting solar panels to supply the world’s power… [more]


Breathtaking Time-Lapse Video: View of Earth from the International Space Station… [more]


Nuclear-powered $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory “Curiosity” rover… [more]


Scientists improve batteries strength and recharge speed… [more]


 

Continue reading...

January 4, 2012

0 Comments

Animals Get Tickled in The Name of Science

Animals Get Tickled in The Name of Science

You tickle someone and it is like a magic laughter button. What is that all about? When we are tickled it is a thrill and turmoil at the same time, but the result is always laughter and a giddy feeling. This silly pastime that gives us so much joy isn’t just for humans. Scientists have [...]

Continue reading...

January 4, 2012

0 Comments

First Hybrid Sharks Discovered Near Australia

Hybrid Sharks Discovered Near Australia

As one of the oldest species on the planet, Sharks have had millions of years of evolution to perfect their predator form, and now sharks are getting even more specialized; possibly in an attempt to better adapt to ocean temperatures. For the first time, researchers have detected 57 hybrid sharks off the coast of Australia. [...]

Continue reading...

January 3, 2012

0 Comments

Sleeping On The Job: Russian Rocket Security

Russian Rocket Security Sleeping On The Job

As a general rule of thumb, it isn’t a good thing to be sleeping on the job; especially if you are Russian rocket security. To let a blogger and several friends explore and take plenty of photos of the facility you’re supposed to be watching, is even worse. On Thursday, Russia’s deputy prime minister vowed [...]

Continue reading...

January 3, 2012

0 Comments

Brainless, Faceless Fish Found in Scottish Waters

Brainless Faceless Fish Found in Scottish Waters

Discovered during a series of 15 Scottish marine excavations in 2011, covering roughly 2,000 square miles, a brainless and faceless fish (pictured above) was found off the waters of Tankerness in Orkney. The fish has a nerve cord running down its back and is thought to be a representative of the first animals to evolve [...]

Continue reading...

January 3, 2012

0 Comments

New Zealand Beach Hosts Battle Between Killer Whales and Sharks

Battle Between Killer Whales And Sharks

Normally when killer whales and sharks do battle, it takes place far away from humans, but one recent brawl took place on a New Zealand beach where some were able to witness these titans doing battle. Beachgoers at Blue Cliffs Beach in Tuatapere, New Zealand watched as a pod of orcas forced a group of [...]

Continue reading...

January 2, 2012

0 Comments

GRAIL Probes Now Orbiting The Moon

GRAIL Probes Now Orbiting The Moon

Two new satellites are now in orbit around the moon and they could give us some valuable info about whether our moon merged with another many moons ago. The GRAIL probes (short for Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) launched together in September and entered orbit on December 31st and January 1st. The probes are orbiting [...]

Continue reading...

January 2, 2012

0 Comments

Asian Tiger Prawn Threatens Texas Gulf Coast

Giant Asian Tiger Prawn Threatens Texas Gulf Coast

The Asian Tiger Prawn is a very invasive species that can grow to almost a foot long. This species is known for threatening native wild stocks and has been found on the Texas coast. They are native to the western Pacific, but have been spreading along the Gulf Coast since at least 2006. This year [...]

Continue reading...

January 2, 2012

0 Comments

Record Numbers of Gray Whales Spotted Off California Coast

Record Numbers of Gray Whales Spotted Off California Coast

According to Whale watchers, migrating gray whales are swimming through Southern California waters in record numbers this winter and amazing all who see them. Whale watchers at Point Vicente in Rancho Palos Verdes have recorded over 163 sightings in December, which is a new record. It is the most that they have seen at that [...]

Continue reading...

January 2, 2012

1 Comment

The Future Of Incandescent Bulbs Not So Bright

Future Of Incandescent Bulbs Not So Bright

Although Congress defunded the January 1st bill, the federal law still exists and the incandescent light bulb may soon be a thing of the past. It’s a good thing Thomas Edison isn’t here to see these lights go out. New efficiency standards will gradually do away with his creation in favor of new technologies that [...]

Continue reading...

December 30, 2011

0 Comments

Germany’s Solar Power Output Rose By 60% in 2011

Germany’s Solar Power Output Rose by 60 Percent in 2011

Here’s a bit of good news for renewable energy from Germany. The German Solar Industry Association (BSW) says that the nation’s solar power producers have now produced 60% more electricity in 2011 than they did in all of 2010, producing 18 billion kWh. That’s very impressive growth. 19.9% of Germany’s energy was produced from low-carbon [...]

Continue reading...

December 30, 2011

1 Comment

“Pollution Glue” May Improve London’s Air Quality

Pollution Glue May Improve London’s Air Quality

London has had an air quality problem for a long time and now they may have found a way to combat air pollution. They are not going after the sources, but rather trying to capture the pollution by spreading “pollution glue” or calcium magnesium acetate on the city’s roads. It’s a novel idea that just [...]

Continue reading...