LOTR Bloopers

NASA Shuttle Discovery Set To Buzz Washington, DC

NASA Shuttle Discovery Set To Buzz Washington, DC:



coondoggie writes "Barring bad weather, NASA said the space shuttle Discovery mounted atop the space agency's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft will make a series of low passes — 1,500 ft. — around parts of Washington DC on April 17 between 10-11 am eastern daylight time." Discovery will be on its way to the Smithsonian from Florida; this is a rare chance in the post-shuttle era for people to still see a shuttle in flight; I'm planning a marathon drive to reach the parking lot at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center for what NASA's calling Shuttle Fly-In Day, in hopes of catching a glimpse.

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Frequent dental X-rays linked to most common brain tumor

Frequent dental X-rays linked to most common brain tumor: People who received frequent dental x-rays in the past have an increased risk of developing the most commonly diagnosed primary brain tumor in the United States. Ionizing radiation is the primary environmental risk factor for developing meningioma, which is the most frequently diagnosed primary brain tumor in the United States. Dental x-rays are the most common artificial source of exposure to ionizing radiation for individuals living in the United States.

Born nice? Peoples' niceness may reside in their genes, study finds

Born nice? Peoples' niceness may reside in their genes, study finds: It turns out that the milk of human kindness is evoked by something besides mom's good example. Research by psychologists has found that at least part of the reason some people are kind and generous is that their genes nudge them toward it.

Could starving the heart make it resistant to damage?

Could starving the heart make it resistant to damage?: Heart cells starved of nutrients are less likely to be damaged during periods of decreased blood flow and sudden influxes of blood, known as ischemia and reperfusion, and are also less likely to get out of synch with their cellular neighbors, the damaging phenomenon called arrhythmia.

Fish thriving around wind farms

Fish thriving around wind farms: The first Danish study into how one of the worlds largest wind farms affects marine life is now completed. It shows that the wind turbines and the fish live quite happily together. Indeed some species of fish have actually increased in number.

Why are action stars more likely to be Republican?

Why are action stars more likely to be Republican?: Study explores how men's mental faculties continue to respond to their physical strength and fighting ability.

Antioxidant may disrupt Alzheimer's disease process

Antioxidant may disrupt Alzheimer's disease process: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is now the sixth leading cause of death among Americans, affecting nearly 1 in 8 people over the age of 65. There is currently no treatment that alters the course of this disease. However, an increasing amount of evidence suggests that changes in the way the body handles iron and other metals like copper and zinc may start years before the onset of AD symptoms. A new study shows that reducing iron levels in blood plasma may protect the brain from changes related to AD.

Brain-injury data used to map intelligence in the brain

Brain-injury data used to map intelligence in the brain: Scientists report that they have mapped the physical architecture of intelligence in the brain. This is one of the largest and most comprehensive analyses so far of the brain structures vital to general intelligence and to specific aspects of intellectual functioning, such as verbal comprehension and working memory.

Free MP3: Hear Tesla Boy's '80s-Inspired Synthpop Confection 'Spirit of the Night'

Free MP3: Hear Tesla Boy's '80s-Inspired Synthpop Confection 'Spirit of the Night': If the movie Mannequin were to get a new soundtrack made by current artists, Tesla Boy's "Spirit of the Night" would be a prime contender to soundtrack a hot musical montage. The track, with its shimmering synths and bouncing bass lines, is just the kind of thing to play as Andrew McCarthy rides off into the night on his motorcycle.

What triggers a mass extinction? Habitat loss and tropical cooling were once to blame

What triggers a mass extinction? Habitat loss and tropical cooling were once to blame: The second-largest mass extinction in Earth's history coincided with a short but intense ice age. Although it has long been agreed that the so-called Late Ordovician mass extinction was related to climate change, exactly how the change produced the extinction has not been known. Now, scientists have determined that the majority of extinctions were caused by habitat loss due to falling sea levels and cooling of the tropical oceans.

Eagle Scouts have positive, lasting influence on American society, study suggests

Eagle Scouts have positive, lasting influence on American society, study suggests: One hundred years after the first Eagle Scout Award was presented, new research has found the significant, positive impact Eagle Scouts have on society, from leadership to giving, voting to volunteering, protecting the environment and being prepared for emergencies.

Copper-Graphene Nanocomposite Cools Electronics Faster & Cheaper

Copper-Graphene Nanocomposite Cools Electronics Faster & Cheaper:
samazon writes "North Carolina State University researcher Jag Kasichainula has developed a 'heat spreader' to cool electronics more efficiently using a copper-graphene composite, which is attached using an indium-graphene interface film. According to Kasichainula, the technique will cool 25% faster than pure copper and will cost less to produce than the copper plate heat spreaders currently used by most electronics (abstract). Better performance at a lower cost? Let's hope so."

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Solar-Powered Tent Concept Makes Roughing It a Little Less Rough

Solar-Powered Tent Concept Makes Roughing It a Little Less Rough: Head into the great outdoors in style while keeping all your gadgets charged.

Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days

Best Buy Scans Drivers License For Returns — No More Allowed For 90 Days:



rullywowr writes "A customer with a defective Blu-Ray disc returns to the Best Buy store where he purchased it. After having his driver's license scanned into the system, he is now banned from returning/exchanging goods for 90 days. This is becoming one of the latest practices big-box stores are using to limit fraud and abuse of the return system — for example, the people who buy a giant TV before the big game and then return it on Monday. Opponents feel this return-limiting concept has this gone too far, including the harvesting of your personal data."

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Zip code as important as genetic code in childhood obesity

Zip code as important as genetic code in childhood obesity: Neighborhood supermarket and park proximity directly related to obesity, study finds.

Wolfram Alpha now does literary analysis, breaks down the Bard's work

Wolfram Alpha now does literary analysis, breaks down the Bard's work:

Literary geeks rejoice! Wolfram Alpha has given you the tools to examine the works of William Shakespeare in ways you've never cared to imagined. Ever wondered how many words are in the second act of Othello? Or what the longest word is in A Midsummer Night's Dream? The answers to such (largely unasked) queries are now mere keystrokes away, and not just for the Bard's writings, either. That's right, folks, computational analysis of the works from such luminaries as Melville, Dickens, and Twain are on tap, too. The folks at Wolfram Alpha are also looking to increase the number of supported titles, so head on down to the source link and let them know which ones you want to see.

Wolfram Alpha now does literary analysis, breaks down the Bard's work originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nine-Year-Old Creates Arcade From Cardboard Boxes

Nine-Year-Old Creates Arcade From Cardboard Boxes: When Jonathan Liu wrote about the five best toys of all time, he was sure to mention the cardboard box. Caine Monroy, a nine-year-old from Los Angeles decided to add some packing tape and take it a step further by creating an entire arcade from boxes and tape.

Statistical Analysis Raises Civil War Death Count By 20%

Statistical Analysis Raises Civil War Death Count By 20%:



Hugh Pickens writes "For more than a century, it has been accepted that about 620,000 Americans died in the the bloodiest, most devastating conflict in American history. But now, BBC reports that historian J. David Hacker has used sophisticated statistical software to determine the war's death toll and found that civil war dead may have been undercounted by as many as 130,000. Hacker began by taking digitized samples from the decennial census counts taken from 1850-1880. Using statistical package SPSS, Hacker counted the number of native-born white men of military age in 1860 and determined how many of that group were still alive in 1870 and compared that survival rate with the survival rates of the men of the same ages from 1850-1860, and from 1870-1880 — the 10-year census periods before and after the Civil War. The calculations yielded the number of 'excess' deaths of military-age men between 1860-1870 — the number who died in the war or in the five subsequent years from causes related to the war. Hacker's findings, published in the December 2011 issue of Civil War History, have been endorsed by some of the leading historians of the conflict. 'The difference between the two estimates is large enough to change the way we look at the war,' writes Hacker. 'The war touched more lives and communities more deeply than we thought, and thus shaped the course of the ensuing decades of American history in ways we have not yet fully grasped. True, the war was terrible in either case. But just how terrible, and just how extensive its consequences, can only be known when we have a better count of the Civil War dead.'"

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Titanic SUPER 3D!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJxj1mou03M&feature=g-all&context=G24f38fbFAAAAAAAABAA

Caloric moderation can reverse link between low birth weight and obesity, early study indicates

Caloric moderation can reverse link between low birth weight and obesity, early study indicates: Babies who are born small have a tendency to put on weight during childhood and adolescence if allowed free access to calories. However, a new animal model study found when small babies were placed on a diet of moderately regulated calories during infancy, the propensity of becoming obese decreased.

Confidentiality Expires For 1940 Census Records

Confidentiality Expires For 1940 Census Records:



Hugh Pickens writes writes "In spring of 1940, the Census Bureau sent out more than 120,000 fact-gatherers, known as 'enumerators,' to survey the nation's 33 million homes and 7 million farms. Now as the 72 years of confidentiality expires, the National Archives website buckled under the load as the 1940 census records were released and 1.9 million users hit the archives servers in the first four hours the data went public and at one point, the Archives said, its computers were receiving 100,000 requests per second. Data miners will have the opportunity to pick and chip through more than 3.8 million digital images of census schedules, maps and other sociological minutiae. What will we learn from this mother lode? The pivotal year 1940 'marked the beginnings of a shift from a depressed peacetime to a prosperous wartime,' says David E. Kyvig, author of Daily Life in the United States, 1920-1939. The vast data dump, Kyvig says, will allow historians 'to look closely at particular communities and how people within them were doing in terms of employment, income and material comforts.' The 1940 census was the first Census that looked deeper into the details of much of American life. 'As we see how the country evolved over the subsequent 20 years, where we have aggregate census data ... we ought to be able to see more clearly how government spending bettered everyday life, confirmed Keynesian economic theory and revealed that, before the war, the New Deal did too little, rather than too much, to stimulate the U.S. economy.""

Get all 18TB of it while it's hot.

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Bilingual children switch tasks faster than speakers of a single language

Bilingual children switch tasks faster than speakers of a single language: Children who grow up learning to speak two languages are better at switching between tasks than are children who learn to speak only one language, according to a study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. However, the study also found that bilinguals are slower to acquire vocabulary than are monolinguals, because bilinguals must divide their time between two languages while monolinguals focus on only one.

Early-life exposure to BPA affects adult learning, animal study suggests

Early-life exposure to BPA affects adult learning, animal study suggests: A new study is the first to identify a neurobehavioral effect of BPA using a zebrafish model exposed to concentrations comparable to what humans might encounter in the environment.

Self-sculpting 'smart sand' can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video)

Self-sculpting 'smart sand' can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video):

A new algorithm developed by the Distributed Robotics Laboratory at MIT's Computer Science could lead to an exciting fast prototyping tool, being dubbed "smart sand." Immerse an object in the sand, tiny cubes that send simple proximity messages to each other, which relay through the swarm and determine which blocks are adjacent to the object to be modeled, and those that aren't. Using this data, it's possible to create a map of the subject to be replicated. Initial tests were performed using 2D models, but has also been shown to work reliably with 3D shapes also. While true smart sand would need "grains" much smaller than currently possible, it's said that this isn't an "insurmountable obstacle." The paper will be presented at the IEEE conference in May, or keep going past the break for the explanatory video.
Continue reading Self-sculpting 'smart sand' can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video)

Self-sculpting 'smart sand' can assume any shape, create instant prototypes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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