Tech: Darkest surface created

Researchers have developed the darkest surface known to man, using an array of carbon nanotubes, designed to minimize the amount of light reflected. The new substance has a reflectivity of 0.045 percent, far better than the previous standard (glassy carbon: 1.4 percent). More than just a laboratory curiosity, the material could be used solar cells, astronomy, and thermalphotovoltaic cells.

News: IP addresses considered personal by EU privacy chief

The head of the the European Union's data privacy regulators states that IP addresses should be considered personal information. This conflicts with the views of some industry players, such as Google, that consider IP addresses to be linked only to the computer and not the person, so should not be considered personal information. For example, "click fraud" can be detected by tracking the IP address of those that click on an ad. Multiple "clicks" from the same IP indicates that the ad traffic is being artificially inflated.

Tech: Origami plane to be dropped from Space Station

Japanese researchers are serious about origami. They plan to drop an origami plane, after saturating it with silicon to make it heat resistant, from the International Space Station to test a low-weight re-entry vehicle. The 20 centimetre-long plane should initially reach a speed to Mach 20, but should slow quickly as it enters the atmosphere. They hope that its shape and low weight will allow it to slow sufficiently that it will be relatively cool  during its decent.

Tech: Back-scatter X-ray makes fine details visible

Swiss researchers have developed an new approach to capturing an X-ray of an object that results in much finer resolution and being able to better distinguish among types of material. The approach involves taking four X-ray images with a silicon filter at different angles to capture X-rays that are scattered by the surface. The images are then combined to generate a more detailed image (like the one shown on the right) than is possible using the traditional approach, albeit at the cost of quadrupling X-ray exposure. The approach can be used in airport security where, for example, some kinds of cheese are indistinguishable from semtex. Using this new approach the cheese and explosive can be clearly seen as different.

Amusing: UK politician learns what "fetish" means

British MP Ronnie Campbell experienced some discomfort after, having agreed to wear purple in support of National Fetish Day, discovering that the word "fetish" refers to sexual kink.  To quote the good minister: “Oh my God almighty, my God, is that what a fetish is? “I thought a fetish was a worry, like worrying about backing the right horse.” It turns out he was backing a horse of a very different colour. Found on Improbable Research

News: January 23rd most depressing day of 2008

According to British psychologists, the most depressing day of the year is the third Monday in January. This year that was the 23rd. They apparently have a mathematical model to "prove" it. As a side note, they estimate that as many as 1/3 of people in Britain have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) with up to 5 percent requiring treatment. Found on Hamish MacDonald's blog

News: MPAA admist being wrong about student piracy rate

The MPAA has been citing the results of its 2005 study to illustrate that students are significant source of movie piracy, accounting for more than 44% of the movie industry's revenue losses. Well, now it appears the MPAA has discovered that their numbers were just a tiny bit out. The figure is more like 15%. However, they are still sticking by the figure of $6.1 billion in industry revenue losses to piracy in the past year.

News: Best sleep on Fridays, worst on Sundays

British sleep researchers have determined that 80% of people have their best night of sleep on Friday night and 60% have their worst night of sleep on Sunday night. They recommend maintaining a regular sleep pattern rather than sleeping in on weekends to improve their sleep on Sundays. Found on Rick Mercer's blog.

Amusing: tech-savy adults encroaching on teens' online turf

Young internet users are apparently becoming frustrated because "old" people (older than 40, so I guess I'm officially old) are savy enough to be able to use many of the same social networking sites. The result has been that teens have to decide between not friending adults they know in real life or being more careful about what they post. Found on Techdirt

News: Google hosts open-source scientific data

Google is providing hundreds of terabytes of storage for open-source scientific databases at http://research.google.com, including more than 120 terabytes of Hubble images. The database also includes papers submitted by researchers, originally published in a wide variety of sources including conferences and peer-reviewed journals.