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Terraforming Mars and Fibre optic Tables
Jun. 26th, 2007 09:53 amFrom SPACE.com
From news@nature.com
From Slashdot
 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? |
Bloomframe is part window frame, part balcony. Although I'm a little bit fuzzy as to why it is useful to be able to retract your balcony, the Bloomframe (as the image sequence suggests) starts as a window frame but can be extended out into a balcony.
One type of parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, has evolved and unusual way to ensure it reproduces. The parasite can only reproduce in the gut of a cat, but spends much of its time infecting rats. The solution? It concentrates within the amagdyla of the mouse and causes the rat to be attracted cat urine, an action that goes counter to healthy rat behaviour for obvious reasons. They have not found any other rat aversions were affected, just the aversion to cat. The parasite is unique in the precision with which it is able to change the behaviour of the host.
A New Zealand scientists claims to have made a demonstration solar cell that can generate more electricity than conventional systems, is environmentally friendly, and can be produced for a fraction of the cost of contemporary solar cells. The secret? The dye-based solar cells consist of synthetic chlorophyll and titanium dioxide, the latter already a common ingredient in products as diverse as toothpaste and paint. He expects that a dye-based solar panel would cost 1/10th of an equivalent silicon-based solar panel. They plan to move to commercialization of the system after making some more tweaks on the dye and the design of the solar cell.
Another one pointed out by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
India's largest car manufacturer has signed a deal to create a production version of the MiniC.A.T. air-powered (sort of) car. The vehicle is small, light, cheap to build and cheap to run, and the engine uses compressed to drive each of the cylinders. A reserve tank is used to store the compressed air to drive the engine, giving you an effective range of between 200 and 300km. The tank is either refilled in about 3 minutes at a service station equipped with a high-pressure air pump, or the tank can be refilled in less than 4 hours by plugging it into an outlet. The top speed is only 68-km/hr so it is only useful for in-city driving. You can find out more about it at 
Australian researches have developed a dress made from fermented wine. Normally when wine turns to vinegar, a rubbery layer of cellulose is produced. The scientists removed the material as it formed and layered it over an inflated human doll. When complete, the doll is deflated and the dress is ready for use. One catch: they have to be kept wet, otherwise they tear like tissue paper. They hope to find a way to polymerize the short chains produced in the vat to long chains that will withstand daily wear.
Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, may have all the components necessary to create some form of life say astronomers. The planet's core is believed to have been hot during it's early development, possibly hot enough to create the material components of life, particularly nitrogen. Combine this with water and a core still hot enough to create geysers of steam and the moon features the bet chance of being a place to find extraterrestrial life, albeit albeit fairly primitive.
A prominent scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem believes that remains claimed in James Cameron's documentary to be of Mary Magdalene are actually the remains of two women. He says that the script was written by two different hands, one part stating that the occupant was a woman named Mary while the second, possibly later, inscription names the occupant as a woman named Martha. He believes that the remain of Martha were added later so that the ossuary, at one point, contained the remains of both women.
Micromanagers beware, nagging may make it less likely that what you want done will be accomplished. Psychologists have published a study indicating that nagging will encourage the other person to do the opposite of what the nagger wants. The impetus of the research was Psychologist Tanya Chartrand's frustration that her husband had a tendency to do the opposite of what she wanted. He, being a psychologist as well, joined with her into researching the problem. They claim that their study shows that attempts by another person to exert control over an individual results in the one being controlled rebelling against that control. They admit, however, that the results are not conclusive. Her personal response to the research was that, given what they have learned, her husband should be in a better position to "suppress his reactant tendencies" and do what he is told. He sees it as an automatic response to a controlling spouse so it not convinced that it is possible to suppress those tendencies. It appears that they still have issues to work through.
An amusing (depending how you get your amusement) article, written by a US Intellectual Property lawyer, on why patent trolls "...provide a valuable service to inventors...". The article is fairly short so should be suitable for those with a low crap tolerance.
High-tech meets tech for getting high. "Herbal enthusiasts" are using a type of vapourizer to extract marijuana's psychotropic compounds while leaving most of the solid particles (and, supposedly, most of the carcinogenics) behind.
Sorry to see spring on the way? $750 US will give you the answer with a snow maker, capable of generating 180 cubic feet per hour.
A film crew claims to have identified the location of Jesus's ossuary, and has completed DNA analysis of it and its companion. The other ossuaries apparently contained the remains of Mariamne (Mary Magdelene), Matthew, and Yose (Jesus' brother). DNA testing showed that Yeshua (Jesus) and Mariamne were not related, indicating that they may, instead, have been married. The original bones were, apparently buried in unmarked graves long ago in accordance with Jewish custom. The ossuaries have been proven by archaeologists to be authentic and from the same time period, but there is no way to confirm that this is the same Yeshua on which the Christian Bible is based. Odds of it NOT being the same have been estimated at between 1 in 600 to 1 in 42 million. The documentary will air on the Discovery channel on March 4.
