'Seeds' of Supermassive Black Holes Discovered

'Seeds' of Supermassive Black Holes Discovered:
astroengine writes "The very existence of intermediate black holes (IBMHs) is in dispute, but a group of astronomers of Keio University, Japan, have found the potential locations of three IMBH candidates inside previously unknown star clusters near the center of the Milky Way. Using the 10-meter Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment in the Atacama Desert, Chile, and the 45-meter Nobeyama Radio Observatory in Japan, they hunted for the emissions from molecular gases associated with supernovae in star clusters — what they discovered could help evolve our view on how supermassive black holes form."

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Higgs excitations near absolute zero

Higgs excitations near absolute zero: Physicists have detected Higgs-type excitations in a low-dimensional system of ultracold atoms at the transition between different phases of matter.

Feds Ban 'Buckyballs' Magnets

Feds Ban 'Buckyballs' Magnets:
SicariusMan writes "Looks like warnings and other precautions were not enough to save Buckyballs Magnets. According to this report, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is concerned about the increase in children swallowing the rare earth magnets, and has issued its first stop-sale order in 11 years. Amazon and others have already agreed to stop selling the toys. 'Although the commission issued a safety alert in November, it has received more than a dozen reports since then of children ingesting the magnets, with many requiring surgery, it said. More than 2 million Buckyballs and at least 200,000 Buckycubes, a similar cube-shaped magnet, have been sold in the United States.'"

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A fish friendly facility for the International Space Station

A fish friendly facility for the International Space Station: While aquariums provide a relaxing pastime for humans on Earth, recreation is not the goal behind the new Aquatic Habitat, or AQH, aboard the International Space Station. Instead, researchers will use this unique facility to look at how microgravity impacts marine life.

Third ‘Hobbit’ movie: How? What? When? Why?

Third ‘Hobbit’ movie: How? What? When? Why?: I admit, when I first heard talk of “a third ‘Hobbit’ movie” from the floor of Comic-Con, I was skeptical. Reporters Quickbeam and Justin brought back footage from a press conference (that you can watch right here) breaking the story that additional shooting was a possibility, directly from Peter Jackson’s mouth. I downplayed it because [...]

Cable Companies Shouldn't Fear Google?Yet

Cable Companies Shouldn't Fear Google?Yet: If as expected Google introduces a cable TV-like service as part of the rollout, Kansas Citians could find themselves with a lot more leverage in negotiating their monthly cable bills. But beyond the city limits, cable companies and telecoms likely don't have to worry just yet that the search giant will start spreading its broadband tentacles across the country.

Why does the week before your vacation seem longer when you're going far away?

Why does the week before your vacation seem longer when you're going far away?: Consumer decision-making is affected by the relationship between time and spatial distance, according to a new study.

The Government's Mass Migration to the Cloud

The Government's Mass Migration to the Cloud: Ideally, we?ll all benefit not only from better and more efficient agencies, but also from the cloud's $12 billion worth of annual savings in the federal deficit, writes Rob Vandenberg.

Implant Gives Grayscale Vision To the Blind Using Lasers

Implant Gives Grayscale Vision To the Blind Using Lasers:
MrSeb writes with a bit from Extreme Tech: "After a lot of theorizing, posturing, and non-human trials, it looks like bionic eye implants are finally hitting the market — first in Europe, and hopefully soon in the U.S. These implants can restore sight to completely blind patients — though only if the blindness is caused by a faulty retina, as in macular degeneration (which millions of old people suffer from), diabetic retinopathy, or other degenerative eye diseases. ... The Bio-Retina, developed by Nano Retina, is a whole lot more exciting. The Bio-Retina costs ... around the $60,000 [and] the 576-pixel vision-restoring sensor is actually placed inside the eye, on top of the retina. The operation only takes 30 minutes and can be performed under local anesthetic. Once installed, 576 electrodes on the back of the sensor implant themselves into your optic nerve. The best bit, though, is how the the sensor is powered: The Bio-Retina system comes with a standard pair of corrective lenses that are modified so that they can fire a near-infrared laser beam through your iris to the sensor at the back of your eye. On the sensor there is a photovoltaic cell that produces up to three milliwatts — not a lot, but more than enough."

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Asimov's Psychohistory Becoming a Reality?

Asimov's Psychohistory Becoming a Reality?:



northernboy writes "Today's LA Times has an article describing how a Wikileaks data dump from Afghanistan plus some advanced algorithms are allowing accurate predictions about the behavior of large groups of people. From the article: 'The programmers used simple code to extract dates and locations from about 77,000 incident reports that detailed everything from simple stop-and-search operations to full-fledged battles. The resulting map revealed the outlines of the country's ongoing violence: hot spots near the Pakistani border but not near the Iranian border, and extensive bloodshed along the country's main highway. They did it all in just one night. Now one member of that group has teamed up with mathematicians and computer scientists and taken the project one major step further: They have used the WikiLeaks data to predict the future.' Considering they did not discriminate between types of skirmish, but only when and where there was violence, this seems like an amazing result. It looks like our robotic overlords will have even less trouble controlling us than I previously thought."

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3D, light-trapping solar cells successfully fabricated by Solar3D

3D, light-trapping solar cells successfully fabricated by Solar3D:

Solar3D probably isn't a company you're particularly familiar with... at least not yet. The California-based manufacturer has just successfully fabricated a three dimensional solar panel that traps sun light in nano-scale wells on a silicon wafer. Perhaps most exciting, the prototype panel was built using off-the-shelf tech from Panasonic, meaning that the price of mass production shouldn't be prohibitively high. More testing is needed, but the resulting panels should be up to 50 percent more efficient than current generation 2D ones. For a few more details, check out The PR after the break.
Continue reading 3D, light-trapping solar cells successfully fabricated by Solar3D
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3D, light-trapping solar cells successfully fabricated by Solar3D originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 20:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unlucky Breaks: When Hollywood Gets Blindsided by Bad Timing

Unlucky Breaks: When Hollywood Gets Blindsided by Bad Timing: When The Watch hits theaters in July, 20th Century Fox is banking on stars Jonah Hill and Ben Stiller to bring in the viewers. But the movie, about a pack of subdivision-patrolling buddies who stumble on an alien invasion, took a dark turn in March thanks to some unforeseen circumstances. The first trailer—released at the height of outrage over the shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood-watch captain—showed Jonah Hill pretending to shoot at a child from a car window. The macabre coincidence got the trailer pulled (and the film's title changed from Neighborhood Watch), but The Watch isn't the first movie to suffer from terrible timing. Here are some of the most cringe-worthy examples.

Geneticists Evolve Fruit Flies With the Ability to Count

Geneticists Evolve Fruit Flies With the Ability to Count: A team of geneticists has announced that they have successfully bred fruit flies with the capacity to count.

Solar system ice: Source of Earth's water

Solar system ice: Source of Earth's water: Scientists have long believed that comets and, or a type of very primitive meteorite were the sources of early Earth's volatile elements. Understanding where these volatiles came from is crucial for determining the origins of both water and life. New research focuses on ice that was distributed throughout much of the early Solar System. The team's findings contradict prevailing theories and suggest that meteorites are the most-likely sources of the Earth's water.

Alzheimer's plaques in PET brain scans identify future cognitive decline

Alzheimer's plaques in PET brain scans identify future cognitive decline: Among patients with mild or no cognitive impairment, brain scans using a new radioactive dye can detect early evidence of Alzheimer's disease that may predict future decline, according to new research.

Why Amazon Wants To Pay Sales Tax

Why Amazon Wants To Pay Sales Tax:
Maximum Prophet writes "A while ago, Amazon caved on paying individual states sales taxes. Now we know why. Amazon is setting up same-day delivery warehouses everywhere. They will put most normal retailers out of business." If that's a bet, I'll take it.

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Controlling your computer with your eyes

Controlling your computer with your eyes: Millions of people suffering from multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injuries or amputees could soon interact with their computers and surroundings using just their eyes, thanks to a new device that costs less than £40. Composed from off-the-shelf materials, the new device can work out exactly where a person is looking by tracking their eye movements, allowing them to control a cursor on a screen just like a normal computer mouse.

Has the 3-D Hype Bubble Finally Popped?

Has the 3-D Hype Bubble Finally Popped?:
An anonymous reader writes "An article at Time speculates that the recent hype surrounding 3-D display technology has finally peaked and begun to subside. As evidence, they point to comments from Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who does not seem particularly enthusiastic about it, and concedes it won't be a major selling point if the company continues to have 3-D enabled products in the future. He said, 'So, now we've created the 3DS and 3DS XL and also have some games out there that are really using that 3D effect that we can see, from my point of view, that it's an important element. But as human beings are this kind of surprise effect wears off quickly, and just [having] this 3D stereoscopic effect isn't going to keep people excited.' Revenue from 3-D films is also dropping, and while 3-D television sales are rising, only 14 percent of potential buyers think 3-D is a 'must have' feature."

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MIT Creates Car Co-Pilot That Only Interferes If You're About To Crash

MIT Creates Car Co-Pilot That Only Interferes If You're About To Crash:
MrSeb writes "Mechanical engineers and roboticists working at MIT have developed an intelligent automobile co-pilot that sits in the background and only interferes if you're about to have an accident. If you fall asleep, for example, the co-pilot activates and keeps you on the road until you wake up again. Like other autonomous and semi-autonomous solutions, the MIT co-pilot uses an on-board camera and laser rangefinder to identify obstacles. These obstacles are then combined with various data points — such as the driver's performance, and the car's speed, stability, and physical characteristics — to create constraints. The co-pilot stays completely silent unless you come close to breaking one of these constraints — which might be as simple as a car in front braking quickly, or as complex as taking a corner too quickly. When this happens, a ton of robotics under the hood take over, only passing back control to the driver when the car is safe. This intelligent co-pilot is starkly contrasted with Google's self-driving cars, which are completely computer-controlled unless you lean forward, put your hands on the wheel, and take over. Which method is better? A computer backup, or a human backup? I'm not sure."

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Is Pluto a Binary Planet?

Is Pluto a Binary Planet?:
astroengine writes "If the Pluto-Charon system were viewed in a similar way to binary stars and binary asteroids, Pluto would become a Pluto-Charon binary planet. After all, Charon is 12% the mass of Pluto, causing the duo to orbit a barycenter that is located above Pluto's surface. Sadly, in the IAU's haste to define what a planet is in 2006, they missed a golden opportunity to define the planetary binary. Interestingly, if Pluto was a binary planet, last week's discovery of a fifth Plutonian moon would have in fact been the binary's fourth moon to be discovered by Hubble — under the binary definition, Charon wouldn't be classified as a moon at all."

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Fracking's footprint on Pennsylvania forests

Fracking's footprint on Pennsylvania forests: As the natural gas extraction process known as fracking surges across Pennsylvania, scientists are trying to understand what the short- and long-term consequences could be for the state's forests and watersheds.

DARPA fights fire with sound and electricity, hopes 'ionic wind' could save lives in the field

DARPA fights fire with sound and electricity, hopes 'ionic wind' could save lives in the field:

Fire, frenemy of humanity since time immemorial. Typical extinguishing methods have involved water, chemicals and even blankets, but DARPA wanted to see if there was another, more pragmatic way. Starting with the understanding of fire actually being a cold plasma, DARPA then explored fire's electromagnetic and acoustic qualities, and discovered two potential ways to quell the flame, one using electrons, the other, sound. The electron technique creates an oscillating field that separates the fire and fuel dubbed "ionic wind," the other method creates an acoustic field that increases the air velocity (thinning the the flame boundary) and causes the flames to widen and drop in temperature, dispersing the fire's energy. The concepts have been proven, but scaling these up to real world solutions is a whole different matter. Light up the videos after the break to see them in action.
Continue reading DARPA fights fire with sound and electricity, hopes 'ionic wind' could save lives in the field
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DARPA fights fire with sound and electricity, hopes 'ionic wind' could save lives in the field originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Weight loss today keeps the doctor away

Weight loss today keeps the doctor away: Obese individuals visit the doctor more frequently than regular smokers who are at a healthy weight.