Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Nokia dumps IE for Firefox: 55,000 times
"Reports on two Scandinavian web sites said that Nokia is pushing Microsoft Internet Explorer off its desktop PCs in favour of the Firefox browser..."
Go! Go! Firefox!
Go! Go! Firefox!
Astronomers Spy Galaxy's Strongest Explosion Yet
Scientific American - "Telescopes around the world recorded the brightest explosion ever detected in our galaxy, which sent x-rays and gamma rays careening outward at incredible speeds, astronomers announced on Friday...In just two-tenths of a second, the flare, located 50,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius, shot out as much energy as our sun gives off in 250,000 years..."
Muons may be key to nuclear bomb detection
"Muons produced by cosmic rays could be the key to catching terrorists trying to smuggle nuclear material into the United States, New Mexico scientists said..."
Monday, February 21, 2005
'Pack ice' suggests frozen sea on Mars
"A frozen sea, surviving as blocks of pack ice, may lie just beneath the surface of Mars, suggest observations from Europe's Mars Express spacecraft. The sea is just 5° north of the Martian equator and would be the first discovery of a large body of water beyond the planet's polar ice caps..."
Virus hits some US mobile phones
"A new mobile-phone virus was found in one of the US cellphone stores last week as a warning sign that virus-writers got accustomed to cell phones and will soon be able to destroy programs in mobile phones..."
Appears to affect Bluetooth-enabled Symbian-based phones. More info here.
Appears to affect Bluetooth-enabled Symbian-based phones. More info here.
Large Storms On Earth Are Particle Accelerators
According to a UC Santa Cruz paper, the atmosphere above Earth's strongest storms becomes a particle accelerator, emitting Terrestrial Gamma Ray bursts...
Date set for shuttle RTS...
NASA announced Friday that May 15 is the target date for the next shuttle launch!
Friday, February 18, 2005
Toy robots walk more efficiently
"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Simple robots that toddle along like an old-fashioned child's toy offer a more realistic and efficient model of human walking than more sophisticated models, researchers said on Thursday..."
I love my Legos!
I love my Legos!
New proof that man is causing global warming
"The strongest evidence yet that global warming has been triggered by human activity has emerged from a major study of rising temperatures in the world’s oceans..."
And you thought it was all bunk.
And you thought it was all bunk.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Stonehenge 2 complete...
Built in New Zealand for some "back-to-basics" astronomy...
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Lobsters apparently don't feel pain...
"PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - A new study out of Norway concludes it's unlikely lobsters feel pain, stirring up a long-simmering debate over whether Maine's most valuable seafood suffers when it's being cooked..."
But I always heard that they scream when you boil 'em...
But I always heard that they scream when you boil 'em...
Monday, February 14, 2005
Sedna Could Hold Secrets to Earth's Past
"It is the most distant object in the solar system ever identified -- traveling around the sun every 10,500 years in a highly elliptical orbit that keeps it 7 billion to 93 billion miles from Earth. Nothing else that far out has ever been seen..."
If all goes well NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto ten years from now, within the lifetime of those born the year the planet was discovered.
If all goes well NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto ten years from now, within the lifetime of those born the year the planet was discovered.
Inventor Kurzweil Aiming to Live Forever
"The famed inventor and computer scientist is serious about his health because if it fails him he might not live long enough to see humanity achieve immortality, a seismic development he predicts in his new book is no more than 20 years away..."
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Can This Black Box See Into the Future?
"DEEP in the basement of a dusty university library in Edinburgh lies a small black box, roughly the size of two cigarette packets side by side, that churns out random numbers in an endless stream...according to a growing band of top scientists, this box has quite extraordinary powers. It is, they claim, the 'eye' of a machine that appears capable of peering into the future and predicting major world events..."
Insert spooky theremin sound here...
Insert spooky theremin sound here...
Friday, February 11, 2005
NASA picks shuttle repair techniques for space tests
"After weeks of internal debate, testing and analyses, NASA managers today selected four rudimentary tile and wing leading edge repair techniques to demonstrate during the first post-Columbia shuttle mission..."
It's both a dessert topping AND it's a floor wax!
It's both a dessert topping AND it's a floor wax!
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Images of tsunami seabed show huge ruptures
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) -- "The first images of the seabed battered by the quake that triggered Asia's catastrophic tsunami have revealed huge ruptures spanning several kilometers..."
Hope Diamond cut from French crown jewel
WASHINGTON (AP) -- "Researchers using computer analysis have traced the origin of the famed Hope Diamond, concluding that it was cut from a larger stone that was once part of the crown jewels of France..."
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Dude, It's like you are THERE (almost)!
Experience the moon just as the astronauts did (almost) with these 360-degree interactive panoramas using actual photos from the Apollo missions.
No spacesuit required! And you don't have to pee in a hose...unless you really want to...
No spacesuit required! And you don't have to pee in a hose...unless you really want to...
Star seen beating-feet out of the Milky Way...
Wired news - "A star three times bigger than the sun has been seen fleeing our galaxy at over 1.5 million mph, according to astronomers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
The gravitational pull of a black hole thought to exist there is likely responsible for the extreme velocity of the star, swinging it around the center of the Milky Way. A companion star may once have traveled with the speeding star and contributed to its velocity before being trapped by the black hole..."
The gravitational pull of a black hole thought to exist there is likely responsible for the extreme velocity of the star, swinging it around the center of the Milky Way. A companion star may once have traveled with the speeding star and contributed to its velocity before being trapped by the black hole..."
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Mysterious object imaged...
From APOD - "The Night Sky Live (NSL) project keeps its global array of continuously updating web cameras (CONCAMs) always watching the night sky. On the night of 2004 December 17, the fisheye CONCAM perched on top of an active volcano in Haleakala, Hawaii, saw something moving across the night sky that remains mysterious. The NSL team might have disregarded the above streak as unconfirmed, but the Mauna Kea CONCAM on the next Hawaiian island recorded the same thing..."
Strange Miniature 'Solar Systems' Revealed
"An object smaller than Pluto has been discovered orbiting a dying star in what astronomers said Monday resembles a pint-sized version of our solar system..."
Monday, February 07, 2005
Closest Flyby of Large Asteroid to be Naked-Eye Visible
From the Department of Butt-Puckering Events - "Space.com - An asteroid expected to fly past Earth in 2029 will be visible to the naked eye, scientists projected Thursday.
It's a once-in-a-millennium event. And you may want to buy plane tickets now, as the flyby will be visible only from Europe, Africa and western Asia..."
It's a once-in-a-millennium event. And you may want to buy plane tickets now, as the flyby will be visible only from Europe, Africa and western Asia..."
Global Warming - Mars Style...
"Pumping greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere over hundreds or even thousands of years could warm the frozen planet enough to sustain life, according to new research."
Sunday, February 06, 2005
A Hubble alternative...
Astronomy magazine reports - "An international team led by Johns Hopkins University astronomers suggests an alternative: create a new space telescope, called the Hubble Origins Probe (HOP), that would carry instruments built for the canceled servicing mission. 'Though we support any option that will maintain the Hubble mission, the Hubble Origins Probe is the best choice not only for continuing that tradition of discovery, but also for taking it one step further...'"
Sounds like a good, cost-effective alternative...
Sounds like a good, cost-effective alternative...
Friday, February 04, 2005
The business of Nanotech
"There's still plenty of hype, but nanotechnology is finally moving from the lab to the marketplace. Get ready for cars, chips, and golf balls made with new materials engineered down to the level of individual atoms..."
Light continues to echo three years after stellar outburst
"The Hubble Space Telescope's latest image of the star V838 Monocerotis (V838 Mon) reveals dramatic changes in the illumination of surrounding dusty cloud structures. The effect, called a light echo, has been unveiling never-before-seen dust patterns ever since the star suddenly brightened for several weeks in early 2002." Pretty!
'Zero intelligence' trading closely mimics stock market
"A model that assumes stock market traders have zero intelligence has been found to mimic the behaviour of the London Stock Exchange very closely."
You'd think I'd be making more money in the stock market, then...
You'd think I'd be making more money in the stock market, then...
Thursday, February 03, 2005
Scientists locate universe's missing matter
"Paris - Some of the universe's missing "normal" matter has been found hiding in clouds of hot gas between galaxies, according to research published on Thursday in the British scientific journal Nature."
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Solar super-sail could reach Mars in a month
"A LICK of paint could help a spacecraft powered by a solar sail get from Earth to Mars in just one month, seven times faster than the craft that took the rovers Spirit and Opportunity to the Red Planet."
A Glow In The Martian Night
"Jean-Loup Bertaux, of the Service d'Aeronomie du CNRS in France, is Principal Investigator for the spectrometer instrument onboard the ESA's Mars Express orbiter. His SPICAM instrument team detected a night glow on Mars, and they have now published their discovery in the January 28th edition of the journal Science."
Tiny medicine
The Washington Post has an interesting read about the potentials of Nanotechnology+Medicine...
Nanobots, here we come!
Nanobots, here we come!
