Is tungsten carbide a ceramic or a metal?
iPhone OS 4 Live Coverage Starts Now [Liveblog]
The fourth iPhone OS comes today. iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad will be getting new features. Multitasking? Tethering? The cloud? Our live coverage is already under way, but the official event starts at 10PT (1ET). [Gizmodo Live] More »
Air Cooling System Design
I am designing an air cooling system by cooling water through a normal water cooler and passing the cold water from the cooler to a heat exchanger and the cold air is sucked from the heat exchanger by a blower. this is the brief description of the project .
my problem is that when the wate
Area 51 used to – GASP – test secret planes, not flying saucers | Bad Astronomy
When the topic of flying saucers comes up, someone inevitably talks about the government’s secret installation in the Nevada desert called Area 51. The base has been public knowledge for a long time, though I suspect a lot of folks heard about it through the movie "Independence Day". The idea is that the alien spaceships that crashed at Roswell New Mexico and other sites were carted off to Area 51, and the technology there examined and reverse engineered to create a lot of modern tech today.
You can just guess what I think of this theory.
But I’ll spell it out: it’s nonsense. Yes, Area 51 exists, but the idea that we keep alien tech there is pretty silly. First, all our technology has a clear line of antecedents; the transistor, velcro, smart metals, and so on didn’t just pop up ex nihilo as some UFO enthusiasts claim.
Second, we have a simpler and more logical line of reasoning here. We know that the military has a black budget to create advanced tech. They don’t want our enemies to know what’s going on, and the Nevada desert is pretty isolated. When the news came out that a base was out there, of course the government’s first line of defense is to deny it. When the rumors and evidence pile up, they admit it exists, but won’t say what it’s for. Of course they don’t! That’s kinda the point of it being a secret.
And we know that advanced tech comes from the military; the SR 71 Blackbird is an incredible piece of engineering, and it was designed in the 1960s. Stealth tech can be thought of in a similar way, and it’s decades old as well. They are clearly designing amazing stuff at Area 51 and perhaps other locations, and this is exactly the sort of hardware that we need to keep secret. Like it or not, there are bad guys out there who would love to see America fall, and this kind of technology helps prevent that from happening.
Jumping from that to harboring aliens and their flying saucers is a wee bit of jump of logic. Of course, I have said for years that I’m sure the government loves the UFO rumors, since it takes the pressure off the real secrets there.
And so it goes: an article in the Statesman corroborates that view. Several Area 51 vets have come out and discussed recently declassified information. My favorite bit is at the very end:
[Area 51 radar specialist] Barnes thinks the Air Force and the CIA didn’t mind the stories about alien spacecraft. They helped cover up the real secret planes that were being tested.
Ya think? Anyway, while I may not be happy with everything that supposedly goes on at Area 51, I can be reasonably — stress the word reasonably — sure that it involves stuff developed right here on good old planet Earth.
Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to James Oberg.
iPhone App Concept Makes A Nooka Watch With Your Photos [IPhone Apps]
This is a brilliant idea for an iPhone app, but Nooka should actually get it made—it wouldn't take too much extra elbow grease to make custom watches based on people's iPhone snaps. More »
Pixellated Video Game Beasties Attack Manhattan’s Streets | Discoblog
New York City has been attacked by all manner of monsters and alien invaders, but never before have its assailants been so, well, low-res.
A magnificent new video from Patrick Jean and One More Production shows an assault on the city that begins when a stream of pixels explode out of TV screen. Soon, the unwary streets of Manhattan are under attack from pixellated Space Invaders. Pac-Man runs amok in the subway stations, Tetris blocks slam down on skyscrapers, and Donkey Kong stands atop the Empire State Building.
For anyone whose childhood dreams were invaded by these crude villains, the video is pure nostalgic delight. Watch and enjoy.
Related Content:
Visual Science: The Pixel Vision of Kirk Crippens
Discoblog: Will The iPad Blend? Watch and Find Out.
Discoblog: Who Needs Million-Dollar Producers? Girl Reproduces Pop Hits Via iPhone Apps
Discoblog: Book-Balancing, Rubik’s Cube-Solving, Pi-Reciting Geek Girl Goes Viral
Discoblog: The Mother of all Rube Goldberg Machines!
Heritable, yes, which gene…another issueGene Expression
Dr. Daniel MacArthur points to a long article by Edmund Yong, Dangerous DNA: The truth about the ‘warrior gene’. Dr. MacArthur notes on his twitter account: “Nice piece on behavioural genetics…but should emphasize MOST behav. gene assocs are actually false.” I think he’s pointing to the winner’s curse; there are lots of people studying various topics, but only a subset of studies pass which yield appropriate effect sizes and p-values actually get published. A sequence of such may give a false sense of certitude as to the strength of the association between a locus and a trait, as negative results are not usually published. I hope David Dobbs keeps this in mind in relation to his new book on the ‘orchid hypothesis’. We have decades of research which suggest that a lot of human behavior is due to variation in genes within the population. In other words, many psychological traits and predispositions are heritable. But both the earlier linkage studies and now the associations which try and establish a particular gene as the primary causal factor are much more provisional, and like much of science wrong or ultimately of marginal long term value.
The incredible amount of press which genetics and genomics research with behavioral implications receive in the press is more about our psychology than the state of science as it is now. Similarly, consider the enormous swell of neuroimaging research within the past decade. Both genetics and neuroscience offer up the possibility of establishing a sturdier biophysical grounding for the human sciences, but we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. Finally, the fact that we know that psychological traits are heritable is useful in and of itself, whether we know the underlying genetic architecture of the trait or the neurobiology mediating between the genetic and behavioral level. Look to the parents, and you shall know a great deal.
NASA Updates and a VP Telecon With Congress
NASA Internal memo: "You are invited to join Administrator Charlie Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver in the James E. Webb Memorial Auditorium at Headquarters for a special NASA Update today at 1 p.m. EDT. The program will be carried internally on NASA Television on Headquarters channel 76. The program also will be streamed internally over the Web to NASA Headquarters employees at: http://aquarius.hq.nasa.gov/ramgen/broadcast/hq.rm
Administrator Bolden and Deputy Administrator Garver will outline the next steps in implementing the new exploration strategy outlined in the 2011 fiscal year budget proposal. Please join them for this important announcement."
NASA Work Assignments Topic of Media Telecon on Thursday, April 8
"NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Deputy Administrator Lori Garver will brief reporters on Thursday, April 8, about the next steps in implementing the agency's new exploration initiatives outlined in the new fiscal year 2011 budget."
Information is now online here.
- NASA Johnson Space Center Director Michael Coats Avaialable Thursday to Discuss Center's Roles in 2011
- NASA Kennedy Center Director Holds Media Briefing on April 8
- NASA to Hold New Exploration Strategy Briefing; Marshall Center Director Robert Lightfoot to Speak with Media
- Media Invited to Dial In for NASA Langley Assignment News
Keith's note: Relibable sources also note that a conference call is being arranged for today between the Vice President's office and key members of Congress involved in the space policy and budget debate.
Training Snipers Using Segways [Robots]
How do you make sniper target practice more helpful and more fun? By shooting at Segway robots, of course. More »
The Moonwatch Is One of Very Few Accessories for Werewolves [Fashion]
"This watch? Oh, it just warns me when I'll turn into a berserk beast capable to ripping off your head, chomping you entrails, surfing on vans, hooking up with Willow, hooking up with Bella, you know, normal werewolf stuff." More »
For This Deep-Sea Animal, Oxygen-Free Is the Way to Be | 80beats
Microorganisms can live the far reaches of the planet, in extreme temperatures and pressures, and in some cases even without oxygen. But now scientists say they have found the first multicellular organisms inhabiting an anoxic environment. In other words: They’ve found the first animals living without oxygen.
They belong to the group called loriciferans, a phylum of creatures that live in marine sediment. About a millimeter long, they look something like a half-jellyfish, half-crab. The beasts live in conditions that would kill every other known animal. As well as lacking oxygen, the sediments are choked with salt and swamped with hydrogen sulphide gas [New Scientist].
Roberto Danovaro and his colleagues, who documented this find in BMC Biology, had been searching the salty, oxygen-free depths of the Mediterranean Sea down below 10,000 feet for life. When previous searches turned up animal bodies, he says, researchers wrote them off, thinking they had fallen to those depths from oxygenated waters closer to the surface. But Danovaro says his team recovered living loriciferans from the area, including ones with eggs.
Unlike plants, all previously discovered animals, and fungi, the newly discovered animal species don’t use mitochondria, the cellular organelle that converts sugar and oxygen into water, CO2 and, energy, to power their cells [Popular Science]. Instead, the animals pack the hydrogenosome organelle, a feature common among the miccoorganisms that live in oxygen-free zones.
Danovaro’s find should lead other life-hunters to start seeking animal life in locations that had been labeled inhospitable to animals, like subduction zones, hydrothermal vents, and other places only simpler organisms had been discovered. And every time we push back the preconceived limits of life on our own planet, it excites those seeking life on others. Says oceanographer Lisa Levin: “Are there metazoans on other planets with atmospheres different from our own?” Levin added. “Our ability to answer this question would be strengthened considerably by more intensive studies of animal-microbe interactions in extreme settings of our own inner space — the deep ocean” [LiveScience].
Related Content:
DISCOVER: Science Nation Video: Extremophile Hunter
DISCOVER: Looking for Life in All the Wrong Places
80beats: Tiny Invertebrates Survive a Trip Through the Vacuum of Space
80beats: Where Would Martian Life Hang Out? Under a Giant Volcano, Naturally
Image: Roberto Danovaro
Mitsubishi WD-82738: 82 Inches of 3D TV For Only $3800 [HomeTheater]
Mitsubishi announced three new lines of (relatively) affordable 3D Home Cinema TVs today, but the one that sticks out? An 82-inch DLP that puts jumbo-sized 3D in your home for under $4,000. More »
New 3D Burritos Will Revolutionize the Burrito Industry [Humor]
You know, 3D makes sense for some burritos when eaten in a restaurant, but if the industry thinks I'm going to pay for glasses to eat them at home, they've got another thing coming. [Landline TV] More »
Teen Sues Mom for Hacking His Facebook Account | Discoblog
It’s tough work raising teenagers. As if worrying about their studies, drinking, partying, driving, and raging hormones wasn’t all-consuming enough, parents have recently had to fret about their Facebook usage. But one mom in Arkansas may have taken her parental concern too far.
A 16-year-old boy in the town of Arkadelphia is suing his mom, claiming that she hacked into his Facebook account and posted slanderous stuff about him on his page. The teen, Lane New, also alleges that his mom changed his email and Facebook passwords to lock him out of his accounts.
The mom, Denise New, is flabbergasted by the harrassment lawsuit. She says that like any other parent, she was just looking out for her son, and adds that her actions weren’t driven by any malicious intent. She told local TV station KATV:
“I read things on his Facebook about how he had gone to Hot Springs one night and was driving 95 m.p.h. home because he was upset with a girl and it was his friend that called me and told me about all this that prompted me to even actually start really going through his Facebook to see what was going on.”
Denise says she was so upset at what she read on Lane’s profile that she had to post some response on his page–though the specifics of the posts she left haven’t been revealed. Denise New told Associated Press:
“The things he was posting in Facebook would make any decent parent’s eyes pop out and his jaw drop…. He had been warned before about things he had been posting.”
Like any teenager, when Lane found out his mom was snooping around his profile, he wasn’t pleased. But instead of storming off to his bedroom to sulk, Lane slapped mom with a lawsuit. The suit alleges that Denise’s posts contained untrue material, and that they damaged his reputation.
PC World reports that Denise admits to changing the passwords on Lane’s accounts, but denies hacking into his Facebook page; she says the page was left open on her computer.
She also admits to making “maybe three, maybe four actual postings,” but says the rest of it was a “conversation” between her, her son, and his friends.
The teenager has been living with his grandmother over the last five years and Denise says, despite the current suit, she and Lane share a “great relationship.” Denise also issued a warning to parents worldwide via the Associated Press: “If I’m found guilty on this it is going to be open season on parents.”
Related Content:
Discoblog: Bulgarian Politician Punished for Playing Farmville During Budget Meetings
Discoblog: Are Happy Facebook Pics Proof That You Aren’t Depressed?
Discoblog: Desperate For Facebook Friends? Buy Some!
Discoblog: Computer Program Can “Out” Gay Facebook Users
DISCOVER: Your Digital Privacy? It May Already Be an Illusion
Image:Facebook
‘Primate Palooza’ at Duke University | The Intersection
Duke's celebrating more than just the return of this season's NCAA champions... While we're on the subject of bonobos, it's worth mentioning that readers in Durham, NC are in for a treat from April 14-17 as the Blue Devils host 'Primate Palooza'--an initiative to raise awareness for primates. Internationally renowned conservationist Claudine André will be speaking at the university. From the press release: André founded and runs the world’s only sanctuary and release program for orphaned bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bonobos, like chimpanzees, are our closest living relative and are highly endangered. However, unlike chimpanzees and humans, bonobos are the only ape that has found a way to maintain peace in their groups. -- "Having Claudine here at Duke is a wonderful opportunity to share with students and the general public the difference a single individual can make," says Duke researcher Brian Hare. "Claudine has done more for bonobo conservation than anyone else in the world. If you want to meet a conservation heroine this is your chance."
These events are open to the public:
Primate Symposium: Why you need to know you are a primate
5-8 p.m., Wednesday, April 14 Duke faculty studying primates will discuss how knowing you’re ...
Sony and FIFA release more details on World Cup 2010 3D broadcast
From Engadget:
Sony and FIFA have just released a list of World Cup 2010 games that'll be broadcast in 3D, with ESPN taking care of the US audience, Sogecable for Spain, and more partners to come (including eight matches for selected 3D cinemas around the world). Out of all ten sta
Florida City Moves To Integrated Smart Grid
From IEEE Spectrum:
came across an interesting article in Government Technology magazine about a smart grid project in Tallahassee, Florida. Tallahassee's public utility will be soon linking electric, natural gas and water services utilizing some 220,000 smart meters that have been
The Thrill of Flying the SR-71 Blackbird
From Gizmodo:
I can tell you about the SR-71 Blackbird's titanium frame, its Pratt&Whitney J58-P4 engines, or its genesis. But that's not important. What really matters is the thrill of flying it in an extremely dangerous mission, as remembered by this pilot.-JD In April 1986, f
Jeffrey Schnapp in Genova (Apr. 19)
LECTURE AND BOOK PRESENTATION of Speed Limits
Jeffrey T. Schnapp
professore di Letterature Comparate, Stanford University, California
Monday, April 19, 2010 – 5:30pm
Palazzo Ducale, Salone del Minor Consiglio
Genova
Organized by : Settore Musei/Wolfsoniana; Fondazione Regionale per la Cultura e lo Spettacolo
Durante la conferenza verrà presentato il volume “Speed Limits” a cura di Jeffrey T. Schnapp, edito da Skira in occasione della mostra omonima del Canadian Center for Architecture di Montréal e The Wolsonian-FIU di Miami Beach.
How They Flock Together: Pigeons Obey the Pecking Order During Flight | 80beats
When you see a flock of birds flying in formation, it might seem like their group dynamics are fairly simple: The one out front leads the way. But does the same birds always take the lead in a group? And do the birds in the back follow the overall leader, or rather the middle managers in front of them?
To find out, Tamás Vicsek and colleagues strapped backpacks equipped with GPS sensors to pigeons for a study out this week in Nature. The lightweight trackers recorded the birds on both solo flights and group flight and measured their positions five times per second. Indeed, Vicsek found, birds fly according to the group pecking order, with the leader out front. When it changed direction, its direct followers would do the same in less than a second, and then the more junior members of the group would respond to the direction of those middle managers.
But there were surprises, too. Sometimes the lead bird wouldn’t fly out front; it may have been tired from leading the pack and needed some time off. So perhaps birds are like cycling teams, occasionally trading off who carries the taxing burden of leading the group.
For more details about the study—including why it’s not as obvious as you might think that the leading bird flies in the front of the group, and why left and right matter so much to pigeons—check out DISCOVER blogger Ed Yong’s post at Not Exactly Rocket Science.
Related Content:
Not Exactly Rocket Science: GPS Backpacks Identify Leaders Among Flocking Pigeons
Not Exactly Rocket Science: Light-detecting backpacks record the complete migration routes of songbirds
80beats: “State of the Birds” Report, and is Climate Change Shrinking Avians?
80beats: To Read the Brain of a Pigeon, Scientists Outfit It with a “Neurologger”
80beats: Tiny Bird Backpacks Reveal the Secrets of Songbird Migration
Image: Zsuzsa Ákos
