Even when they are off a lot of appliances eat up amazing amounts of energy.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Potatoes May Hold Key To Alzheimer's Treatment
A virus that commonly infects potatoes bears a striking resemblance to one of the key proteins implicated in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and researchers have used that to develop antibodies that may slow or prevent the onset of AD.
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Study Reveals Ocean 'Dead Zones' Expanding Worldwide
Oceanic "dead zones" where marine life cannot survive have been steadily increasing over the past five decades and now encompass 400 coastal areas of the world, a US-Swedish study said Friday.
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Portal to Mythical Mayan Underworld Found in Mexico
Mexican archeologists have discovered a maze of stone temples in underground caves, some submerged in water and containing human bones, which ancient Mayans believed was a portal where dead souls entered the underworld.
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Scientists: Star Trek's Warp Drive is Actually Possible
Two physicists have boldly gone where no reputable scientists should go and devised a new scheme to travel faster than the speed of light. The advance could mean that Star Trek fantasies of interstellar civilisations and voyages powered by warp drive are now no longer the exclusive domain of science fiction writers.
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Engineers build mini drug-producing biofactories in yeast
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a novel way to churn out large quantities of drugs, including antiplaque toothpaste additives, antibiotics, nicotine, and even morphine, using mini biofactories--in yeast.
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Brain 'will be battlefield of future'
The human brain could become a battlefield in future wars, a new report predicts, including 'pharmacological land mines' and drones directed by mind control
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Scientists Develop a Robot with a Biological Brain
It’s interesting to note that this project is being led by Professor Kevin Warwick, who became famous in 1998 when a silicon chip was implanted in his arm to allow a computer to monitor him in order to assess the latest technology for use with the disabled.
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Mankind is the 'Earth's Biggest Threat'
Global warming is causing significant changes to the Earth's natural systems and it is highly unlikely that any force but man-made climate change can be blamed .
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Guy Films Space Shuttle Launch from Passing Airliner
Watching a space shuttle launch from the ground is undoubtedly very awe inspiring, but this video of a launch takes the biscuit: It's filmed from thousands of feet in the air.
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Remains of Ancient Cemetery Found in Sahara
A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there.
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Spaceship Could Fly Faster Than Light
The idea involves manipulating dark energy – the mysterious force behind the universe's ongoing expansion – to propel a spaceship forward without breaking the laws of physics. "Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Gerald Cleaver, a physicist at Baylor University. "The ship would be pushed by the spatial bubble and the bubble would
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Nukeidolia
Well, this one is original, I’ll give it that…I got an interesting email from French BABloggee Pierre Joliveau. His father worked on some nuclear tests in French Polynesia back in the 1950s, and took some amazing photographs of the explosions.
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Report: spies need to stay on top of neuorscience research
The National Research Council is publishing a report, Emerging Cognitive Neuroscience and Related Technologies, on the need for the intelligence community to develop better institutional awareness of neuroscience research as a matter of national security.
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Scientists Find Ways to Cloak 3D Materials
New invisibility cloak works toward fulfilling long-time dreams of military, ninjas, fantasy fans alike.A new breakthrough in the art of illusion has been achieved. Researchers at the UC Berkeley have for the first time found a way to cloak 3D materials.They did this with not only one, but with two different materials.
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Birth Control Pill Make Women Pick Bad Mates
Birth-control pills could screw up a woman's ability to sniff out a compatible mate, a new study finds. While several factors can send a woman swooning, including big brains and brawn, body odor can be critical in the final decision, the researchers say.
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Study: The Ocean is Totally Screwed
A major part of Jackson’s study, is the view that humans are laying the groundwork for mass extinctions within our oceans not seen since the ecological upheavals of our murky past, according to a new study published in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
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Spooky Physics: Signals Seem to Travel Faster Than Light
Strange events that Einstein himself called "spooky" might happen at least 10,000 times the speed of light, according to the latest attempt to understand them. Atoms, electrons, and the rest of the infinitesimally tiny building blocks of the universe can behave rather bizarrely, going completely against the way life as we normally experience it.
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Nanoantenna Arrays Seen As Possible Solar Cell Replacement
Traditional solar cells only use up to 20% of the visible light they collect, and more efficient solar cells are too expensive for mass production. Now researchers at the US Department of Energy’s Idaho Laboratory have figured out a way to capture solar energy on the cheap: plastic sheets filled with billions of nanoantennas.
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DNA Glitch Prevents Kids From Learning From Their Mistakes
In about 30% of children, the coils of their DNA carry a glitch, one that leaves their brains with few dopamine receptors, molecules that act as docking ports for one of the neurochemicals that carry our thoughts and emotions. Children with the genetic variant are unable to learn from mistakes.
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The Top 7 Biofuels to Drive Us Beyond Gasoline
Forget food crops. Future fuels will come from more practical feedstocks. Plus, each generation will use fewer resources and pack more energy than the last. PM crunches the numbers on alternative fuels for the real world.
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Molecules multiplied
The ability to amplify minuscule quantities of DNA into workable samples, using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), has transformed biology. Now Chad Mirkin and Hyo Jae Hoon at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, think they have a working example that proves that the feat is possible for compounds other than nucleic acids.
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Berkeley Scientists: World In 'Mass Extinction Spasm'
Devastating declines of amphibian species around the world are a sign of a biodiversity disaster larger than just frogs and salamanders. Researchers said substantial die-offs of amphibians and other plant and animal species add up to a new mass extinction facing the planet.
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Mental Images Are Like Pictures - Slide Show
Joel Pearson and his team from Vanderbilt University have found strong evidence suggesting that our brains experience mental images as if they were pictures.
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Fear Factors: Understand Your Phobias
...if your anxiety is so intense that it causes you to alter the way you live, you might be classified as a having a phobia, an anxiety disorder characterized by intense, irrational fear of an object, situation or person. If so, you have company...the behavioral part of cognitive-behavioral therapy involves gradually exposing yourself
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Magnificent Waterfall “Discovered” in Peru
Magnificent Waterfall “Discovered” in Peru– Perhaps One of World’s Tallest. The big environmental news coming out of Peru this past week was that a huge waterfall previously unknown to the greater world was “discovered” in the country’s Amazon Rainforest region.
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Invisibility cloak 'step closer'
Scientists in the US say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people invisible...
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APOD: Black Hole Candidate Cygnus X-1
Is that a black hole? Quite possibly. The Cygnus X-1 binary star system contains one of the best candidates for a black hole. The system was discovered because it is one of the brightest X-ray sources on the sky, shining so bright it was detected by the earliest rockets carrying cameras capable of seeing the previously unknown X-ray sky.
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Scientists stop the ageing process
Scientists have stopped the ageing process in an entire organ for the first time, a study released today says.
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Extraordinary satellite images: Britain as seen from space
This is Britain - but not as we know it. These extraordinary satellite images reveal what our nation looks like from the skies.From flight paths and road networks to telephone exchanges across London, the stunning aerial shots paint a striking new perspective on the British Isles.
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Glaciers: Before and After (Photo Gallery)
BEFORE: Take a look at Agassiz Glacier, in this photograph taken in 1913, near Boulder Pass, Glacier National Park. NEXT IMAGE: Agassiz Glacier (2005) Click to enlarge.
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CERN rap video about LHC creates black hole of awesomeness
Been having a tough time figuring out just what CERN's Large Hadron Collider does? Worried that it will create a Möbius strip (a rip in the fabric of space where time becomes a loop)? Just love to jam? Watch this CERN-sponsored rap after the break, and have your universe totally destroyed. Er, but not for real.
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Why We Are All Insane
Natural selection wants us to be crazy — at least a little bit. While true debilitating insanity is not nature's intention, many mental health issues may be byproducts of the over-functional human brain, some researchers claim. And thus, a diversity of new mental abilities, and disabilities, unfurled.
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The Neanderthal murder mystery
Why did Neanderthal man become extinct? Was it interbreeding with humans? Or did our ancestors wipe them out? Steve Connor reports on a fossil that may solve the puzzle
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Bees, Fish Analyzed to Understand Serial Killers
Studying species in the animal world helps police catch human criminals -- and vice versa. Originally developed to catch serial killers, a method called geographic profiling is now being used to study great white sharks, bats and bees.
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Slow Motion Lightning Video is Mindblowing
Well, this is just about the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It's a lightning bolt that's shooting down from the sky, shot in slow motion. I'm not sure exactly how fast this camera is, but it's got to be shooting at a speed faster than the Casio EX-F1 can shoot at, at least at a resolution this high. Whatever, who cares?
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Tracking the location of objects in your mind
It depends on what you believe. Imagine yourself in a room surrounded by 11 objects arranged in a circle. You memorize the position of the objects, then you close your eyes, and rotate 1/3 of the way around (120°). Keeping your eyes closed, can you point to the object that was behind you before? Most people can do this without much difficulty.....
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Wednesday, August 6, 2008
APOD: X-Rays From the Cat's Eye Nebula
Haunting patterns within planetary nebula NGC 6543 readily suggest its popular moniker -- the Cat's Eye nebula. Starting in 1995, stunning false-color optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope detailed the swirls of this glowing nebula, known to be the gaseous shroud expelled from a dying sun-like star about 3,000 light-years from Earth.
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Top 5 Plants that Inspire New Technology
There’s a lot of hype out there about new technologies that will “change everything”. Sometimes it’s nice to sit back and “smell the roses”. In that spirit, here are five plants with surprising super powers - they have provided a boost to technological innovation or invention, often with a green lining.
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Rare ‘Devil’s Cigar’ fungus discovered in Nara
One of the world’s rarest fungi, an exotic star-shaped mushroom known to exist at only three locations on Earth, has been discovered in the mountains of Nara prefecture.
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Amazing Gorilla Find In The Congo
Researchers have found what they Gorillasare labeling the 'mother load' of western lowland gorillas in the Republic of Congo. The gorillas have been found in an isolated forest known by researchers and scientists alike as the "Green Abyss" because the forest is nearly impossible to navigate on foot because of all the swamps...
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Nearly 50% of all the World's Primates at Risk of Extinction
Nearly half of all primate species are now threatened with extinction, according to an evaluation by the IUCN. The study, which drew on the work of hundreds of scientists and is the most comprehensive analysis for more than a decade, found that the conservation outlook for monkeys, apes and other primates has dramatically worsened.
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Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline
In a period of hours during a day a couple of weeks ago, 300 people on Barcelona's bustling beaches were treated for stings, and 11 were taken to hospitals. From Spain to New York, to Australia, Japan and Hawaii, jellyfish are becoming more numerous and more widespread, and they are showing up in places where they have rarely been seen before.
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Sleep makes you SMARTER
New studies reveal exciting insights into the nature of sleep, memory, consciousness, and learning!
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NASA Image of the Day - Phoenix Provides a Panorama of Mars
Combining more than 400 images taken during the first weeks after the Phoenix arrived on the Red planet's arctic plain gave scientists this view of Mars.
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Boozing Mammal DrinksBeer Every Night.1st Nonhuman Alcoholic
NatGeo: "Because the species is considered similar to the ancient ancestors of all primates, its 55-million-year bender suggests that our own taste for alcohol might predate the known advent of brewing some 9,000 years ago."
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The Colorful Beauty of Scenic Stones (PICS)
Over millions of years the natural process of water penetrating and seeping into stones, bringing with it solutions of iron and magnesium, leaves traces of color and forms within the stone. This, along with cracks created from pressure and channels of water, combine their lines to push up imagery of mountains and trees, creating landscapes.
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