Jun. 26th, 2007

dracodraconis: (Default)
From SPACE.com

Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target for the 21st Century - Mars will be transformed into a shirt-sleeve, habitable world for humanity before century's end, made livable by thawing out the coldish climes of the red planet and altering its now carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere. How best to carry out a fast-paced, decade by decade planetary facelift of Mars - a technique called "terraforming" - has been outlined by Lowell Wood, a noted physicist and recent retiree of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a long-time Visiting Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Lowell presented his eye-opening Mars manifesto at Flight School, held here June 20-22 at the Aspen Institute, laying out a scientific plan to "experiment on a planet we're not living on."
Stars Have Earth-Like Weather - The skies of stars might experience weather like that on planets, researchers now find. The drifting clouds scientists have seen are wispy, "just like cirrus clouds on Earth"-except these are made of mercury, explained astrophysicist Oleg Kochukhov at Uppsala University in Sweden. Investigating these metal clouds might shed light on how elements form inside stars.


From news@nature.com


High notes really are high - The way that people talk about 'high' and 'low' notes makes it sound as though musical pitch has something to do with physical location. Now it seems there may be a reason for this: the same bit of our brain could control both our understanding of pitch and spatial orientation. The result comes from a study of tone-deaf people — also known as 'amusics' — which shows that they have poorer spatial skills than those who have no problem distinguishing between two musical notes.
Older siblings are smarter - Eldest sibblings are, on average, 2.3 IQ points more intelligent than their younger brothers and sisters, says a study of Norweigan kids. And it's not necessarily being born first that makes the difference — it's being raised as the eldest child.
Ancient disease resistance made us vulnerable to HIV - Humans may be susceptible to infection by HIV because our ancient ancestors evolved resistance to another virus. That's the conclusion reached by geneticists who have compared our own genome sequence with that of apes, in search of signs of old viral attacks. The researchers wondered whether chimps had been battered by a virus that humans had evolved a resistance to, and whether that resistance might shed some light on our modern susceptibility to other viruses. Their hunch was right.


From Slashdot




ATM Turns 40 - (from BBC News) The world's first ATM was installed in a branch of Barclays in Enfield, north London, 40 years ago this week. Inspiration had struck Mr Shepherd-Barron, now 82, while he was in the bath. The machine paid out a maximum of £10 a time." It struck me there must be a way I could get my own money, anywhere in the world or the UK. I hit upon the idea of a chocolate bar dispenser, but replacing chocolate with cash."
FBI Seeks To Restrict University Student Freedoms - (from Press Esc blog) FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls 'espionage indicators' aimed at identifying foreign agents. Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators.
Fiber Optic Table Illuminates Your Dining - (From Luxury Launches) We highly doubt LumiGram's Luminous Fiber Optic Tablecloth was designed with power outages in mind, but why hook up a boring string of lamps or fiddle with half melted candles when you can plug this bad boy into the generator? The cloth, which has fiber optics woven throughout, cotton borders, and a Europlug mains adapter, proves most useful when the lights are dimmed, and should prove quite the centerpiece at your next get-together. The illuminating device is available in a trio of sizes, comes in a variety of color schemes.
Peer Review Starts for Software Patents - (From IEEE Spectrum) As seen in an interview in IEEE Spectrum: Qualcomm v. Broadcom. Amazon v. IBM. Apple v. seemingly everyone. The number of high-profile patent lawsuits in this country has reached a staggering level. Hoping to curtail the orgy of tech-industry litigation, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is experimenting with reforming the way patents are applied for and processed. Launched on 18 June 2007 was an Internet-based peer-review program whereby anyone (even you) can help to evaluate a number of software patent applications voluntarily submitted for public evaluation. The one-year pilot Peer-to-Patent program is a collaboration between the USPTO and New York Law School's Institute for Information Law and Policy, in New York City. The program's Web site allows users to weigh in on patent applications by researching, evaluating, submitting, and discussing prior art, which is any existing information, such as articles in technology journals and other patents, relevant to the applicant's claims.
Airships to Patrol Venezuela's Skies - (From BBC News) The BBC reports that officials in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, have bought three airship UAVs to keep tabs on the local populace. From the article: 'The 15 metre (49 foot) long air ships are emblazoned with government slogans. Written in bright red are the words, We watch over you for your security.' They're not exactly black helicopters, but how long do you think until we see similar measures in high-crime American cities?

Update

Jun. 26th, 2007 04:40 pm
dracodraconis: (Default)
Survey paper has completed the Carleton review and is now being reviewed by NRC. I expect few changes and the turn-around time should be short. Ideally, this things should be ready to go out to the journal by the first week of July. This also constitutes Chapter 2 of the thesis

The second journal paper is nearing completion (perhaps another week), then goes to NRC and Carleton for independent reviews. With luck, I should be able to get that out by the start of August. A bit of tweaking and that paper becomes Chapter 3 of the thesis.

That leaves Chapters 1 (Introduction), 4 and 5 (Conclusion) to finish.

January 2010

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