Interesting Tech

Saturn probe to acquire Earth image

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:31:27 +0000

The Cassini probe in orbit around Saturn is going to picture the ringed planet in a special photo that also includes a distant Earth.

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Bullying and suicide among youth is a public health problem

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:30:28 +0000

Recent studies linking bullying and depression, coupled with extensive media coverage of bullying-related suicide among young people, led to a CDC-assembled expert panel to synthesize the latest research about the complex relationship between youth involvement in bullying and suicide-related behaviors: 1) Bullying among youth is a significant public health problem, with widespread and often harmful results; 2) There is a strong association between bullying and suicide-related behaviors; and 3) Public health strategies can be applied to prevent bullying and suicide.

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Older beetles ‘make better dads’

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:32:28 +0000

Older male burying beetles work harder at parental care and mating than younger counterparts, a study suggests.

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‘Hoff’ crab’s oceanic ‘road trip’

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:31:29 +0000

A hairy crab named after US actor David Hasselhoff hitched a ride on an ocean "highway" to colonise deep sea vents in the Atlantic tens of millions of years ago.

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Cassini to Photograph Earth From Deep Space

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:30:30 +0000

On July 19th, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will photograph Earth through the rings of Saturn.

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Applause is a ‘social contagion’

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:31:25 +0000

The quality of a performance does not drive the amount of applause an audience gives, a study suggests.

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Will the Boeing and Airbus duopoly crack?

admin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:30:27 +0000

Will Russian and Chinese planemakers ever break the Airbus/Boeing duopoly?

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City-life changes blackbird personalities, study shows

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:34:31 +0000

The origins of a young animal might have a significant impact on its behavior later on in life. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell, Germany, have been able to demonstrate in hand-reared blackbirds that urban-born individuals are less curious and more cautious about new objects than their country counterparts. This study sheds light on an interesting debate on whether personality differences between rural and urban birds are behavioral adjustments to urban environments, or if there is an underlying evolutionary basis to the existence of different personalities in urban habitats.

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Origins of ‘The Hoff’ crab revealed (w/ Video)

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:33:26 +0000

The history of a new type of crab, nicknamed ‘The Hoff’ because of its hairy chest, which lives around hydrothermal vents deep beneath the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean, has been revealed for the first time.

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Research shows moves to ban pay-to-delay deals are justified

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:32:27 +0000

Controversial deals that delay generic versions of drugs coming onto the market can lead to consumers paying significantly more for some treatments, according to new research by an academic from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

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Older males make better fathers: Mature male beetles work harder, care less about female infidelity

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:31:28 +0000

Researchers at the University of Exeter found that older male burying beetles make better fathers than their younger counterparts. The study found that mature males, who had little chance of reproducing again, invested more effort in both mating and in parental care than younger males.

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Juiced roads: Volvo explores electric power for trucks, buses

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:30:29 +0000

(Phys.org) —How are engineers doing in solving the problem of large-sized all electric transport vehicles traveling long distances without the burden of large batteries? One workaround that has been the topic of much discussion is the use of power lines that are built into the surface of the road. The Volvo Group has issued its state of progress and says it has come a long way in its research but that there’s still work and planning decisions ahead. The goal is to find a cost-efficient way to supply electricity to vehicles in long-distance traffic. Work continues on technical development of the collector, electric motor and control systems, not to mention issues of road construction, road maintenance, electricity supply along the roads and payment models. Translation: You won’t see long-distance buses using this method any time soon.

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World’s largest all-solar-powered boat shines in NYC

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:31:30 +0000

The world’s largest fully solar-powered boat, "Turanor PlanetSolar," docked in New York on Tuesday during a mission to study the effects of climate change on the Gulf Stream current.

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DreamWorks says TV revenue to hit $200M by 2015

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:30:31 +0000

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. says its new deal to provide original TV shows to Netflix will help it double the revenue it gets from TV shows to $200 million by 2015.

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US spy chief: Plot against Wall Street foiled

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:33:25 +0000

The U.S. foiled a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange because of the sweeping surveillance programs at the heart of a debate over national security and personal privacy, officials said Tuesday at a rare open hearing on intelligence—a set-piece for supporters of the snooping.

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Poland may delay launch of nuclear plants

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:32:26 +0000

Poland could delay building its first nuclear power plants as natural gas, including shale gas, becomes less costly, the prime minister of the central European heavyweight said Tuesday.

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Nvidia updates programming tools to boost mobile device speed

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:31:27 +0000

Nvidia wants to accelerate mobile-device performance with underlying tools that enable CPUs and graphics processors to work in a coherent manner. The company released on Tuesday its CUDA 5.5 programming tools, which will for the first time support ARM CPUs used in most smartphones and tablets. The tools could bring the type of performance gains that have helped supercomputers surpass petaflops in performance. But with mobile devices, the performance boosts will fit within a specific power limit.

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Google’s Project Loon to float the internet on balloons

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:30:28 +0000

Google admits its new balloon-based connectivity project is a "moonshot" to bring the last two-thirds of the global population online. How realistic is the audacious plan?

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Cassini imaging lead hopes for planet-wide celebration of the Pale Blue Dot

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:39:28 +0000

(Phys.org) —On July 19, 2013, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft will be turned to image Saturn and its entire ring system during a total eclipse of the sun, as it has done twice before during its previous 9 years in orbit. But this time, the images that will be collected have been specifically designed for something very special. They will capture, in natural color, a glimpse of our own planet next to Saturn and its rings, during an event that will be the first time Earthlings know in advance their picture will be taken from a billion miles away.

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Icahn revamps Dell offer, urges rejection of buyout

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:38:25 +0000

Corporate raider Carl Icahn revamped his proposal Tuesday for embattled computer company Dell, calling for a big share buyback in a plan which would keep the company public.

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Google asks US court to allow release of data queries

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:37:25 +0000

Google said Tuesday it asked a special US court handling national security investigations for permission to publish the number of requests for data to the Internet giant.

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The hidden agenda of Obama’s opposition

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:36:25 +0000

Is the US Tea Party movement a racial backlash against President Obama? A new study by Angie Maxwell from the University of Arkansas, and Wayne Parent from Louisiana State University, assesses whether racial attitudes are contributing to Tea Party membership, and if so, the exact nature of this racial prejudice. Their work is published online in Springer’s journal, Race and Social Problems.

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NOAA predicts possible record-setting deadzone for Gulf of Mexico

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:35:23 +0000

Scientists are expecting a very large "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and a smaller than average hypoxic level in the Chesapeake Bay this year, based on several NOAA-supported forecast models.

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New computer simulations help scientists understand how—and why—viruses spread

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:34:24 +0000

It’s not a hacker lab. At Brandeis University, sophisticated computational models and advances in graphical processing units are helping scientists understand the complex interplay between genomic data, virus structure and the formation of the virus’ outer "shell"—critical for replication.

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Bay Area thrushes nest together, winter together, and face change together

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:33:26 +0000

Swainson’ s Thrushes, from a local population near Bolinas, CA spend their winters together in Mexico, according to a new tracking study released by Point Blue Conservation Science, (Point Blue, formerly PRBO). This result is important because it shows that the conservation of habitat for these local populations in California is tightly linked with climate and habitat changes in Mexico, where these birds spend their winters, 1,600 miles away.

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Tesla to demo quick-swap electric car batteries

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:32:27 +0000

Tesla Motors said Thursday it would demonstrate a way to quickly recharge electric cars by swapping drained batteries for fresh power cells.

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Google Defends Efforts Against Rogue Pharmacies

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:31:28 +0000

Under fire from law enforcement officials, Google insists it has been making progress in its effort to deny advertising to rogue pharmacies.

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Internet-facing SAP systems suffering increased attacks

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:30:28 +0000

Hundreds of organizations around the world are running unpatched, Internet-facing versions of SAP software, exposing them to data theft, APTs (advanced persistent threats), and other unpleasantness, according to security analyst Alex

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Long distance calls by sugar molecules

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:32:27 +0000

All our cells wear a coat of sugar molecules, so-called glycans. ETH Zurich and Empa researchers have now discovered that glycans rearrange water molecules over long distances. This may have an effect on how cells sense each other.

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NASA announces Asteroid Grand Challenge

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:31:29 +0000

NASA announced Tuesday a Grand Challenge focused on finding all asteroid threats to human populations and knowing what to do about them.

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Kenneth Wilson, Nobel winner for physics, dies

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:30:30 +0000

A physics professor who earned a Nobel prize for pioneering work that changed the way physicists think about phase transitions has died in Maine at age 77.

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Academics earn street cred with TED Talks but no points from peers, research shows

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:37:21 +0000

(Phys.org) —TED Talks, the most popular conference and events website in the world with over 1 billion informational videos viewed, provides academics with increased popular exposure but does nothing to boost citations of their work by peers, new research led by Indiana University has found.

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3D printing tiny batteries

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:36:22 +0000

(Phys.org) —3D printing can now be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand. The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields from medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to fit the device, yet provide enough stored energy to power them.

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Personality test finds some mouse lemurs shy, others bold

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:35:22 +0000

Anyone who has ever owned a pet will tell you that it has a unique personality. Yet only in the last 10 years has the study of animal personality started to gain ground with behavioral ecologists, said Jennifer Verdolin of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, in Durham, NC.

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Shellfish show population growth did not send humans out of Africa

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:34:23 +0000

(Phys.org) —Artifacts from the Middle Stone Age, which lasted from about 200,000 to 50,000 years ago, provide us with the earliest glimpses of modern human art and culture. Previously, scientists thought an increase in population drove the behavioral innovations that led to the creation of these artifacts and eventually, the expansion out of Africa. However, by examining mollusk shells from Stone Age sites, Richard Klein of Stanford University and Teresa Steele of University of California, Davis, have determined that a significant population increase did not occur until the Late Stone Age, after the migration out of Africa had already begun. Their research appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Scientists: Timber in Lake Michigan centuries old

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:33:25 +0000

A wooden beam embedded at the bottom of northern Lake Michigan appears to have been there for centuries, underwater archaeologists announced Tuesday, a crucial finding as crews dig toward what they hope is the carcass of a French ship that disappeared in the 17th Century.

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Scientists: Soggy British weather likely to stay

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:32:26 +0000

The best advice for visitors to Britain—pack an umbrella—is more vital than ever.

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NewsGator’s SharePoint add-on tries to filter and reduce enterprise social noise

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:31:28 +0000

NewsGator has upgraded its Social Sites ESN (enterprise social networking) add-on for SharePoint to make the software better able to tailor the content, notifications and capabilities it displays for each user. The overall goal is to make it easier for Social Sites users to stay engaged with work tasks, information and colleagues.[ Discover what's new in business applications with InfoWorld's Technology: Applications newsletter. ]

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Huge ‘holograms’ created for doctors

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 18:30:30 +0000

Two junior doctors develop giant 3D animations of human body parts to make medics’ lectures more memorable.

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Chemical probe confirms that body makes its own H2S to benefit health

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:39:19 +0000

(Phys.org) —A new study confirms directly what scientists previously knew only indirectly: The poisonous "rotten egg" gas hydrogen sulfide is generated by our body’s growing cells. Hydrogen sulfide, or H2S, is normally toxic, but in small amounts it plays a role in cardiovascular health.

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Chemical probe confirms that body makes its own H2S to benefit health

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:38:20 +0000

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Hong Kong dolphin numbers dwindling quickly

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:37:20 +0000

Conservationists Tuesday warned that the number of rare Chinese white dolphins in Hong Kong waters has fallen to its lowest level in a decade of monitoring, and urged the government to immediately create more protected areas.

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Minister hails ‘web porn’ progress

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:36:21 +0000

Ministers say agreements reached with internet firms will lead to a "fundamental change" in how images of child abuse are dealt with online.

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Wet summers down to warmer Atlantic

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:35:22 +0000

Meteorologists and scientists meeting at the Met Office say the UK’s damp summers could be caused by a warmer Atlantic Ocean.

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FBI Driver’s License Photo Searches Raise Privacy Questions

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:34:24 +0000

Facial-recognition software advances allow law enforcement and government agencies to match images of unknown suspects with government-issued ID photos.

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Google Glass privacy concerns raised by international data protection authorities

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:33:26 +0000

The Canadian privacy commissioner and 36 other data protection authorities on Tuesday raised privacy concerns about Google Glass in an open letter to CEO Larry Page. Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s privacy commissioner, signed the letter. Co-signers include Europe’s privacy watchdog the Article 29 Working Party and as well as the privacy commissioners of New Zealand and Australia and their counterparts in Mexico, Israel, and Switzerland, among others.

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New NASA astronauts headed for destinations unknown

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:32:26 +0000

Eight people have been selected as the first US astronauts since Apollo to be trained for deep space, but will they visit an asteroid or Mars?

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‘Charged charmonium’ confounds particle physicists

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:31:28 +0000

Mystery particle spotted in two different experiments

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Physicist Kenneth Wilson dies at 77

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:30:29 +0000

Nobel laureate developed theory of phase transitions

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Hewlett-Packard puts Bradley in strategy role

admin — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:43:16 +0000

Todd Bradley, the head of Hewlett-Packard Co.’s printing and personal computer business, has been appointed to a new position in charge of the company’s strategy with a focus on China, the company said Tuesday.

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