8 Beautiful Bioluminescent Creatures From the Sea

While a handful of land animals can create their own light, homemade luminescence is the rule rather than the exception in the open ocean's dark waters.

Researchers estimate that between 80 and 90 percent of deep-dwelling animals are bioluminous, creating light by mixing the pigment luciferin with luciferase, the enzyme that makes it glow. The light tends to green and blue, colors that travel far in seawater. Glowing helps attract mates, lure prey or confound predators.

Many of these animals live thousands of meters deep and are difficult for scientists to find and study. Here are some of the prettiest — and strangest — glowing creatures of the seas.

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Why First Impressions Are So Persistent

ScienceDaily (Jan. 18, 2011) — New research by a team of psychologists from Canada, Belgium, and the United States shows there is more than a literal truth to the saying that 'you never get a second chance to make a first impression'. The findings suggest that new experiences that contradict a first impression become 'bound' to the context in which they were made. As a result, the new experiences influence people's reactions only in that particular context, whereas first impressions still dominate in other contexts.

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Chrysler announces battery-free hydraulic hybrid tech, compresses gas to make power

By Tim Stevens  posted Jan 20th 2011 7:35AM

Think of a traditional hybrid and you probably think of a Toyota Prius. Then, after you've woken from your nap, you probably envision some complex system of batteries and electric motors and gears to capture power when braking and spit it back out when accelerating. Chrysler is now looking to deploy a different way, a seemingly much simpler way that's all based on hydraulics. The vehicle is outfitted with a low-pressure reservoir of hydraulic fluid and a high-pressure chamber filled with nitrogen gas. When braking, pumps move the fluid into the nitrogen chamber to compress it and then, when accelerating, that compressed gas is used to push the fluid and drive the wheels. It's a setup that was actually developed by the EPA and is currently in use by some commercial vehicles, most notably UPS trucks, but a hybrid Town & Country minivan could bring it to consumers -- though not until 2012 at the earliest. Now, there's a good chance the idea of a hybrid minivan is threatening to put you back to sleep, so we wish you pleasant dreams. 

Sharks Seen Swimming Down Australian Streets

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 19, @02:03AM 
from the we're-going-to-need-a-bigger-sidewalk dept.

shark

As if the flood waters weren't bad enough for the people of Queensland, it now appears that there are sharks swimming in the streets. Two bull sharks were spotted swimming past a McDonald’s in the city of Goodna, Butcher Steve Bateman saw another making its way past his shop on Williams street. Ipswich councillor for the Goodna region Paul Tully said: "It would have swam several kilometres in from the river, across Evan Marginson Park and the motorway. It’s definitely a first for Goodna, to have a shark in the main street."

Bad Science Writer Talks About the Placebo Effect *NSFW*

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday January 18, @01:15PM
from the I-want-to-believe dept.

Watch

The Guardian newspaper's Bad Science columnist Dr. Ben Goldacre does a stand-up routine about medicine, the placebo effect, and the mysteries of the human body at Nerdstock. From a scientific standpoint, I can't accurately say how funny it is because I was told it was great before I saw it.

  idle science medicine datacock story

Infants Not Exempt from Obesity Epidemic

ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2011) — Most people understand that children are part of the obesity epidemic. However, a revealing new study finds that obesity might begin in babies as young as nine months old.

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How Europe Will Lower Emissions — Self Driving Cars

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 18, @02:14AM
from the do-they-drive-themselves-to-the-recycling-station dept.

earth

transportation

technology

thecarchik writes"Scientists in Europe are working closely with industry and government as part of a new initiative called SARTRE (SAfe Road TRains for the Environment), which hopes to develop self-driving technology that will allow vehicles to drive autonomously in long road trains on the highway. The team behind SARTRE has now conducted its first real world test, using a sole Volvo S60 sedan that followed a lead truck around the automaker's test facility near Gothenburg, Sweden. In the video, the driver is free to take his eyes off the road and his hands off the wheel. In fact, he uses neither his hands nor feet during the test. Subsequent phases of the work will be carried out in 2011, and early 2012 will see the concept demonstrated on a five-vehicle road train with strategies handling interaction with other road users."

GE Venture Will Share Jet Technology With China

Posted by Soulskill on Monday January 17, @10:03PM
from the send-them-the-tsa-while-you're-at-it dept.

business

transportation

vbraga writes"This week, during the visit of Chinese president Hu Jintao to the United States, GE plans to sign a joint-venture agreement in commercial aviation that shows the tricky risk-and-reward calculations American corporations must increasingly make in their pursuit of lucrative markets in China. GE, in partnership with a state-owned Chinese company, will be sharing its most sophisticated airplane electronics (NYT reg. required, reg.-free alternative here), including some of the same technology used in Boeing's new state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliner."

Motorola Atrix: another look (video)

By Paul Miller  posted Jan 9th 2011 9:07PM

Preview

Every CES there's something so alluring that we can't help going back for seconds (or thirds). This year it happens to be the Motorola Atrix, which is undoubtedly our gadget of the show, and which Myriam already put together an in-depth hands-on for. We've been using every excuse we can to swing past Motorola's booth "on our way" to other stuff on the show floor, and we finally broke down and went in for another hands-on. Check out our video walkthrough after the break, which hopefully should help explain the transition the Atrix can make from phone to desktop to laptop to set-top box. And please excuse our enthusiasm.

Motorola Atrix: another look

Google Translate Android App Translates Real-Time Speech

By Gizmodo  

January 13, 2011  |  

8:38 am  |  

Categories: Cool Apps, Future Shock

A new feature built into Google Translate for Android, Conversation Mode is a little rough around the edges, but it’s basically your own personal Babel Fish. It does what Wordlens does but in real-time speech, translating English and Spanish.

It’s as easy as pressing a key when the language is being spoken—let’s say you’re trying to order some food in Spanish. It translates what you say into the phone on the fly, and then reads the Spanish version out loud, so the waiter can understand. They can then respond in Spanish, and the phone will convert it to English, speaking it out loud.

You can imagine how crucial this would be to travellers—and while it can only compute English and Spanish for now, I’m betting Google’s working on all manner of other languages. Check out a preview video of the app above, from a few months ago, or a user video below.

Android users with 2.1 or higher can download the new Google Translate now, which has a few other improvements built-in as well. [Google Blog]

Samsung's crazy CES 2011 keynote -- the highlight reel

By Nilay Patel  posted Jan 12th 2011 11:37AM

Feature

It's been nearly a week and we're still trying to figure out exactly what was going on during Samsung'swild CES 2011 keynote - even though we liveblogged it, talked about it on the showcast, and named itbest presser of CES, we're not sure you can fully understand the insanity of the dancers, the random moments, and a futureboy named Zoll unless you've seen it yourself. Samsung's put the whole thing up on YouTube in six segments (you can find the first below) but we cut together a little highlight reel you can watch above. Trust us -- it's worth it.

NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Its First Rocky Planet

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2011) — NASA's Kepler mission confirmed the discovery of its first rocky planet, named Kepler-10b. Measuring 1.4 times the size of Earth, it is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our solar system.

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Being Poor Can Suppress Children's Genetic Potentials, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2011) — Growing up poor can suppress a child's genetic potential to excel cognitively even before the age of 2, according to research from psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin.

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Google Goggles Solves Sudoku

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 11, @11:02AM
from the better-it-than-me dept.

google

news

mikejuk writes"Ever been frustrated when you can't solve a Sudoku? Well, now there's an app for that. It is just one more capability in the latest version of Google Goggles. All you have to do is point your phone's camera at a Sudoku puzzle, take a snapshot, and pattern recognition and a bit of game logic sorts out the answer. Have you ever had the feeling that AI is getting to be just a little too commonplace?"

Household Sewage: Not Waste, but a Vast New Energy Resource

ScienceDaily (Jan. 5, 2011) — In a finding that gives new meaning to the adage, "waste not, want not," scientists are reporting that household sewage has far more potential as an alternative energy source than previously thought. They say the discovery, which increases the estimated potential energy in wastewater by almost 20 percent, could spur efforts to extract methane, hydrogen and other fuels from this vast and, as yet, untapped resource.

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Found posted to the bulletin board in the mens room in my office

I have a hard time believing that someone is childish enough to care, brave enough to post something and yet no so brave as to actually confront the person.

Walking Slows Progression of Alzheimer's, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2010) — Walking may slow cognitive decline in adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease, as well as in healthy adults, according to a study presented November 29 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

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Thousands of Blackbirds Fall From Sky Dead

Posted by samzenpus on Monday January 03, @01:04AM
from the silent-spring dept.

science

idle

Dan East writes"In a fashion worthy of a King or Hitchcock novel, blackbirds began to fall from the sky dead in Arkansas yesterday. Somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 birds rained down on the small town of Beeb, Arkansas, with no visible trauma. Officials are making wild guesses as to what happened — lightning strike, high-altitude hail, or perhaps trauma from the sound of New Year's fireworks killed them."

IRS employee uses Outlook rules to intercept boss's e-mails, convicted of wiretapping

By Tim Stevens  posted Dec 15th 2010 12:52PM

Here's an interesting question for you: if you set up a rule in Microsoft Outlook to forward messages from one account to another, and you do it without the knowledge of the owner of the account you're forwarding from, are you intercepting or merely copying mail? It may seem like a moot point, but for David Szymuszkiewicz, a former IRS worker, it's an important distinction. David was afraid of being fired after his license was suspended for drunk driving (he needed to drive to the homes of delinquent taxpayers), so he secretly set up this rule on his boss's machine to see what the world was saying about him. The rule was discovered and, wouldn't you know it, he was in trouble. The only question now: whether to charge him under the Wiretap Act for intercepting messages or the Stored Communications Act for merely copying of them.

Atomic Weight Not So Constant

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday December 15, @05:22AM
from the thulium-and-thalium dept.

science

DangerousBeauty writes"Yahoo has a Canadian Press story up about new changes to the periodic table of elementsconcerning the weights of specific elements — it seems that the weights fluctuate based on where they are found in nature. Quoting: '"People are probably comfortable with having a single value for the atomic weight, but that is not the reality for our natural world," says University of Calgary associate professor Michael Wieser.' He is is secretary of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's Commission on Isotopic Abundances and Weights."

'Jeopardy!' To Pit Humans Against IBM Machine

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday December 14, @09:38AM
from the there-can-be-only-one dept.

ibm

tv

games

digitaldc writes"The game show Jeopardy! will pit man versus machine this winter in a competition that will show how successful scientists are in creating a computer that can mimic human intelligence. Two of the venerable game show's most successful champions — Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will play two games against 'Watson,' a computer program developed by IBM's artificial intelligence team. The matches will be spread over three days that will air Feb. 14-16, the game show said on Tuesday. The competition is reminiscent of when IBM developed a chess-playing computer to compete against chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997."

Nook Color getting Android 2.2 and Market in January, current hacks could make it blow up

By Tim Stevens  posted Dec 14th 2010 10:20AM

You had to know the hacking community was going to have a field day with the Nook Color -- a $249 Android Tablet hiding behind with a thin e-reader coating. Indeed it didn't take long to get rooted nor for Android 2.2 to get installed on there, but that particular hack comes with an interesting potential side-effect: small-scale thermonuclear explosions. Enabling FroYo requires disabling the device's battery monitoring process, the very one that would be responsible for shutting down the device before the cells start overheating and, ultimately, going critical. Yeah it's unlikely, but it could happen. Meanwhile, another hack has enabled the Android Market, but those instructions begin with a very daunting warning: "Very smart people have failed at this. If the following instructions confuse you, you might want to wait until an easier method has been developed."

And, thankfully, there is a much easier way coming, with Barnes & Noble confirming that Android 2.2 will be officially coming to the Nook Color in January. Yes, Android 2.3 is what's happening, but this is still an exciting upgrade as it will finally also allow access to a traditional Android home screen and even enable the Android Market. In other words, it should work just like an Android tablet, Kindle app and all.

Too Funny not to share the Dept of Navy STD vid from the 70's

All I can say is WOW!

Over Long Haul, Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness

ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2010) — A new collaborative paper by economist Richard Easterlin -- namesake of the "Easterlin Paradox" and founder of the field of happiness studies -- offers the broadest range of evidence to date demonstrating that a higher rate of economic growth does not result in a greater increase of happiness.

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New Evidence That Magnetism Is Driving Force Behind Superconductivity

ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2010) — European and U.S. physicists this week are offering up the strongest evidence yet that magnetism is the driving force behind unconventional superconductivity. The findings by researchers from Rice University, the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids (MPI-CPfS) in Dresden, Germany, and other institutions were published online December 13 inNature Physics.

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