New way of making glass

New way of making glass: A new way to make glass has been discovered using a method that controls how the atoms within a substance are arranged around each other.

Scientific explanation to why people perform better after receiving a compliment

Scientific explanation to why people perform better after receiving a compliment: Scientists have found scientific proof that people doing exercises appear to perform better when another person compliments them.

Motorcycle App Helps You Ride Faster, Turn Sharper, Brake Harder

Motorcycle App Helps You Ride Faster, Turn Sharper, Brake Harder:
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Alexander George writes about a new app that takes the data from a smartphone's accelerometers, GPS, and inclinometer to plot information for braking force, lean angles, speed, and on-track location onto Google Maps to shave precious milliseconds off each lap time in motorcycle races. Race Sense is designed to be a useful tool for someone who races for a living and a very fun toy for those who just like to brag about what lean angle they got at their ride day, and what top speed they reached down the main straight. Australian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer Anthony West provided much of the R&D that went into tweaking the app. 'With sponsorship's so hard to find and I need another way to survive. I spent some of my own money developing it with an Italian guy who also likes to ride himself, and who writes programs,' says West who designed Race Sense to fulfill the needs of a genuine MotoGP racer. 'Sometimes it's one second [separating] 20 people. If you adjust one little thing thinking about something in one corner you can lose four places.'"

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Habitable planet: New super-Earth in six-planet system may be just right to support life

Habitable planet: New super-Earth in six-planet system may be just right to support life: A new super-Earth planet that may have an Earth-like climate and be just right to support life has been discovered around a nearby star by an international team of astronomers.

Knife Fight: 8 Chef's Knives Tested and Rated

Knife Fight: 8 Chef's Knives Tested and Rated: The chef's knife is the indispensable multi-tool of the kitchen. The design has remained relatively unchanged for hundreds of years, but we tested eight knives -- big names and small names alike -- to find today's best blades.

How Store Shelves Stay Stocked Even After a Sandy-Sized Disaster

How Store Shelves Stay Stocked Even After a Sandy-Sized Disaster: The data-driven supply chains perfected by some of the world's biggest companies in the pursuit of profits have become so resilient that even a cataclysm like Sandy registers as little more than a logistical hiccup.

Star Trek: TNG S2 Blu-ray detailed ahead of December 4th release

Star Trek: TNG S2 Blu-ray detailed ahead of December 4th release:

The step-by-step restoration and high-def re-release of Star Trek: The Next Generation continues, and next month Season Two will arrive on Blu-ray. We already got a peek at its trailer during Comic-Con and heard about some of the special features that were on the way but now we have the full list. If you're not waiting 'til Season 3 hits the streets, you can enjoy more than two hours of new special features including a documentary on the making of season two. There's also a couple o different cuts of The Measure of a Man episode, including HD extras you haven't seen before, and a 1988 Reading Rainbow segment featuring our good friend Levar Burton. Check the press release and the trailer after the break for all the details, you can snag the season two set on Amazon for $115 or so.
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Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

Star Trek: TNG S2 Blu-ray detailed ahead of December 4th release originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Nov 2012 06:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Green tea found to reduce rate of some GI cancers

Green tea found to reduce rate of some GI cancers: Women who drink green tea may lower their risk of developing some digestive system cancers, especially cancers of the stomach/esophagus and colorectum, according to a new study.

Are schizophrenia and autism close relations?

Are schizophrenia and autism close relations?: Medical researchers studied extensive genetic databases to discover that autism and schizophrenia had a genetic link, representing a heightened risk within families. People who have a schizophrenic sibling were 12 times more likely to have autism than those with no schizophrenia in the family.

Perfect pitch: Knowing the note may be in your genes

Perfect pitch: Knowing the note may be in your genes: People with perfect pitch seem to possess their own inner pitch pipe, allowing them to sing a specific note without first hearing a reference tone. This skill has long been associated with early and extensive musical training, but new research suggests that perfect pitch may have as much to do with genetics as it does with learning an instrument or studying voice.

Summer babies less likely to be CEOs

Summer babies less likely to be CEOs: A person's date of birth can affect their climb up the corporate ladder, new research suggests.

The Generation X report: How many Gen Xers know their cosmic address?

The Generation X report: How many Gen Xers know their cosmic address?: Less than half of Generation X adults can identify our home in the universe, a spiral galaxy, according to a new report.

New finding could pave way to faster, smaller electronics

New finding could pave way to faster, smaller electronics: Researchers for the first time have looked inside gallium manganese arsenide, a type of material known as a "dilute magnetic semiconductor" that could open up an entirely new class of faster, smaller devices based on an emerging field known as "spintronics."

How to Create Fuel out of Thin Air

How to Create Fuel out of Thin Air: A small British company has developed a process that uses air and electricity to create synthetic fuel. Yes, it's slightly more complicated than that, but the result is what Air Fuel Synthesis is calling "carbon-neutral" gasoline.

NASA Satellite Sees Black Hole Belching Out Hundred-Million-Degree X-rays

NASA Satellite Sees Black Hole Belching Out Hundred-Million-Degree X-rays:
The Bad Astronomer writes "NASA's NuSTAR satellite, designed to detect cosmic X-rays, detected a flare of high-energy emission coming from the Milky Way galaxy's central supermassive black hole. The X-rays were the dying gasp of a small gas cloud being torn apart, heated to a hundred million degrees, and then falling into the black hole itself. Events like this are relatively uncommon, so it's fortunate NuSTAR happened to be observing the black hole when it flared."

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Grandmas made humans live longer: Chimp lifespan evolves into human longevity, computer simulation shows

Grandmas made humans live longer: Chimp lifespan evolves into human longevity, computer simulation shows: Computer simulations provide new mathematical support for the "grandmother hypothesis" -- a famous theory that humans evolved longer adult lifespans than apes because grandmothers helped feed their grandchildren.

Turbo switch of calcium pump in biological cells discovered

Turbo switch of calcium pump in biological cells discovered: Scientists have discovered a turbo switch in the vital calcium pump in our body's cells. Researchers discovered that the on-off switch of the pump has a previously unknown third position, which switches the pump into a turbo gear.

How Patent Trolls Harm the Economy

How Patent Trolls Harm the Economy:



WebMink writes "It used to just be speculation, but the numbers are now in — patent trolls are costing America jobs and economic growth. Newly-published research using data commissioned by Congress shows big rises in patent troll activity over the last five years — from 22% to 40% of all patent suits filed, with 4 out of five litigants being patent trolls. Other papers show that jobs are being lost and startups threatened, while VC money is just making things worse by making startups waste money filing more patents. Worst of all, it's clear this is just the tip of the iceberg; there's evidence that unseen pre-lawsuit settlements with patent trolls represent a much larger threat than anything the research can easily measure."

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Brain scans predict children's reading ability

Brain scans predict children's reading ability: New research can identify the neural structures associated with poor reading skills in young children, and could lead to an early warning system for struggling students.

Air Force Lab Test Out "Aircraft Surfing" Technique To Save Fuel

Air Force Lab Test Out "Aircraft Surfing" Technique To Save Fuel:



coondoggie writes "It's not a totally new concept, but the Air Force is testing the idea of flying gas-guzzling cargo aircraft inline allowing the trailing aircraft to utilize the cyclonic energy coming off the lead plane — a concept known as vortex surfing — over long distances to save large amounts of fuel. According to an Air force release, a series of recent test flights involving two aircraft at a time, let the trailing aircraft surf the vortex of the lead aircraft, positioning itself in the updraft to get additional lift without burning extra fuel."

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Google Maps Gets Massive Street View Update

Google Maps Gets Massive Street View Update:
SternisheFan writes "Google Maps has been updated with what's described as the 'biggest ever" increase in Street View photography, with more than 250,000 miles of road around the world gaining street-level imagery. Street View coverage has been boosted in eleven countries, with new 'special collections' of photography, giving more insight into particular landmarks. Google has also sent its cameras inside some landmarks, so you can now step into Kronborg castle in Denmark, for instance. The search giant uses a combination of Street View photography cars, bikes, and even individually-work camera backpacks to gather its footage. Support for viewing Street View on mobile devices has been contentious in recent weeks, with Apple's decision to oust Google Maps from iOS 6 and replace it with its own Apple Maps app. Google re-added access by updating its webapp, however, and has promised a native version of Google Maps for iOS by the end of the year."

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Roth Ceramic Subwoofer Drops That Bass

Roth Ceramic Subwoofer Drops That Bass: In an age of throw-away Ikea furniture, artist-branded headphones and smartphones with the shelf life of soft cheese, finding gadgets you'll cherish and pass down to your children is tough. Industrial designer Joey Roth is here to help.

Microsoft deliberately wasted energy at data center to avoid fine, says NY Times

Microsoft deliberately wasted energy at data center to avoid fine, says NY Times:

Microsoft's desire to avoid a fine combined with a power company's strict electricity usage rules resulted in the software giant deliberately wasting millions of watts of power, according to the New York Times. Redmond's Quincy data center, which houses Bing, Hotmail and other cloud-based servers, had an agreement in place with a Washington state utility containing clauses which imposed penalties for under-consumption of electricity. A $210,000 fine was levied last year, since the facility was well below its power-use target, which prompted Microsoft to deliberately burn $70,000 worth of electricity in three days "in a commercially unproductive manner" to avoid it, according to its own documents. The utility board capitulated and reduced the amend to $60k, but the messy situation seems a far cry from Redmond's pledge to become carbon neutral by this summer.
[Image credit: New York Times]
Filed under: Misc, Alt

Microsoft deliberately wasted energy at data center to avoid fine, says NY Times originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Climate is changing the Great Barrier Reef

Climate is changing the Great Barrier Reef: Satellite measurement of sea surface temperatures has yielded clear evidence of major changes taking place in the waters of Australia's Great Barrier Reef over the past 25 years, marine scientists have found.

Milky Way Is Surrounded By Halo of Hot Gas

Milky Way Is Surrounded By Halo of Hot Gas:
New submitter kelk1 writes "If the size and mass of this gas halo is confirmed, it also could be an explanation for what is known as the 'missing baryon' problem for the galaxy [...] a census of the baryons present in stars and gas in our galaxy and nearby galaxies shows at least half the baryons are unaccounted for [...] Although there are uncertainties, the work by Gupta and colleagues provides the best evidence yet that the galaxy's missing baryons have been hiding in a halo of million-kelvin gas that envelopes the galaxy."

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