Posted in Interesting Theories, Technology
Posted by Abeo August 30, 2010 at 8:22 am
“People used to go on holiday to unplug. Now they’re demanding to be plugged in. That secluded, desert island-type getaway may soon be as dated as the post-vacation slide show as more travelers use e-mails, Facebook and Twitter to nurture the ties that bind even while they get away from it all.
“For many travelers figuring out how to stay connected is as integral to the travel process as packing sun lotion and swimwear,” said Amelie Hurst of travel website TripAdvisor. “In times gone by this just wasn’t an option. Traveling went hand in hand with being disconnected,” she said. Hurst said clients planning their trips routinely factor in the best means of staying in contact. “Travelers ask the quality of cell phone service, international data plans. Staying connected can offer travelers a real comfort,” she explained.
A recent survey of 2000 travelers by American Express found that 77 per cent of Americans intend to stay connected while on vacation via Internet, phone, social media and other channels. The motivation is social, not business. Only 14 per cent said they would stay connected for work. “Eighty-nine percent of people want to talk to family and friends, to be very connected in real time,” said Audrey Hendley of American Express Travel. “Even five years ago that wasn’t the case.”
Connectivity means more than just checking e-mail. “Sharing information, sharing photos, it’s a change in lifestyle, it’s ‘Now I want to tell you about me,’” she said. The poll revealed that 20 percent updated their social media sites while on vacation.”
Read more at Reuters (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
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Posted in Funny Ha Ha
Posted by Abeo August 29, 2010 at 9:14 am
“A dairy farmer has supplied his herd with waterbeds to encourage them to produce better quality milk. Cows at Brue Valley Farms, in Glastonbury, Somerset, are also treated to classical music in the milking shed. The cattle can spend up to 18 hours a day lounging on their specially-designed rubber beds, which are cleaned and filled with 50 litres of fresh water every day.
Bosses at the farm, which has been producing Farmhouse Cheddar for half a century, say their unusual methods have helped to produce a better quality product.
Robert Clapp, Director of Herds, said: “In order to make the best possible cheese you need to be completely ‘cow centric.’ “It’s not about what is best for the farmer, but about what is best for the cow. “Our herds enjoy top quality treatment and in return they create delicious, creamy milk that goes into producing the best quality Farmhouse Cheddar.” The 35-year-old added: “We treat our cows as individuals and care for every aspect of their lives including socialising and comfort as well as obvious needs such as food and health care.”
To celebrate fifty years of cheesemaking, the team at Brue Valley Farms has developed an extra-mature Farmhouse Cheddar. The new recipe will be sold exclusively in Marks and Spencer’s supermarkets.”
Read more at The Telegraph
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Posted in Freaky Deaky, Funny Ha Ha
Posted by Abeo August 29, 2010 at 9:04 am
“Burger King is set to launch the Pizza Burger – a two-in-one dish that contains more than 2,500 calories and is four times the size of the chain’s Whoppers.
The meal will delight fast-food fans when it is exclusively introduced at Burger King’s Whopper Bar in Times Square, New York, next month. Besides the beef and a 9.5-inch sesame bun, the Pizza Burger is topped with pepperoni, mozzarella, Tuscan pesto and marinara sauce. It also comes in six slices, just like a pizza.
According to blogger Me So Hungry, it is the perfect mix between a pizza and a burger. “The visual highlight was the New York Pizza Burger… it’s not bad. Tastes kinda like pizza, but also like a burger,” the blogger said. It has been dubbed the “fat bomb” because, for $13 (£8.40), customers can bite into 2,520 calories – the recommended daily intake is 2,500 calories for men and 2,000 for women.
One Pizza Burger contains 144g of fat – 59g of which is saturated. It also has 3,780mg of salt, which is more than double the daily limit for adults. John Schaufelberger, Burger King’s vice president of global marketing, insisted the Pizza Burger is “intended to be shared”. But he also admitted that it “demonstrates the type of menu offerings our guests can expect”. According to Mr Schaufelberger, the Pizza Burger is a homage to New York, the home of Burger King.”
Read more at Sky News (Thanks Liam R)
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Posted in Interesting Theories
Posted by Abeo August 29, 2010 at 8:53 am
“The dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago by at least two meteorite impacts, rather than a single strike, a new study suggests. Previously, scientists had identified a huge impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico as the event that spelled doom for the dinosaurs. Now evidence for a second impact in Ukraine has been uncovered. This raises the possibility that the Earth may have been bombarded by a whole shower of meteorites.
The new findings are published in the journal Geology by a team lead by Professor David Jolley of Aberdeen University. When first proposed in 1980, the idea that a meteorite impact had killed the dinosaurs proved hugely controversial. Later, the discovery of the Chicxulub Crater in the Gulf of Mexico, US, was hailed as “the smoking gun” that confirmed the theory. The discovery of a second impact crater suggests that the dinosaurs were driven to extinction by a “double whammy” rather than a single strike.
The Boltysh Crater in Ukraine was first reported in 2002. However, until now it was uncertain exactly how the timing of this event related to the Chicxulub impact. In the current study, scientists examined the “pollen and spores” of fossil plants in the layers of mud that infilled the crater. They found that immediately after the impact, ferns quickly colonised the devastated landscape. Ferns have an amazing ability to bounce back after catastrophe. Layers full of fern spores – dubbed “fern spikes” – are considered to be a good “markers” of past impact events. However, there was an unexpected discovery in store for the scientists. They located a second “fern spike” in a layer one metre above the first, suggesting another later impact event.”
Read more at BBC News (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
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Posted in Amazing, Interesting Theories, Technology
Posted by Abeo August 28, 2010 at 9:08 am
“Tiny charges gathered directly from humid air could be harnessed to generate electricity, researchers say. Dr Fernando Galembeck told the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston that the technique exploited a little-known atmospheric effect. Tests had shown that metals could be used to gather the charges, he said, opening up a potential energy source in humid climates. However, experts disagree about the mechanism and the scale of the effect.
“The basic idea is that when you have any solid or liquid in a humid environment, you have absorption of water at the surface,” Dr Galembeck, from the University of Campinas in Brazil, told BBC News. “The work I’m presenting here shows that metals placed under a wet environment actually become charged.”
Dr Galembeck and his colleagues isolated various metals and pairs of metals separated by a non-conducting separator – a capacitor, in effect – and allowed nitrogen gas with varying amounts of water vapour to pass over them. What the team found was that charge built up on the metals – in varying amounts, and either positive or negative. Such charge could be connected to a circuit periodically to create useful electricity. The effect is incredibly small – gathering an amount of charge 100 million times smaller over a given area than a solar cell produces – but seems to represent a means of charge accumulation that has been overlooked until now.
Dr Galembeck suggests that with further development, the principle could be extended to become a renewable energy resource in humid parts of the world, such as the tropics.”
Read more at BBC News (Thanks @UKgnome)
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Posted in Interesting Theories, Technology
Posted by Abeo August 28, 2010 at 8:37 am
“”Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits,” Thomas Edison once said. But is hustling all it takes? Is progress always deliberate? Sometimes genius arrives not by choice—but by chance.” Head to the PopSci to view their ten favorite serendipitous innovations.
“In 1943, Navy engineer Richard James was trying to figure out how to use springs to keep the sensitive instruments aboard ships from rocking themselves to death, when he knocked one of his prototypes over. Instead of crashing to the floor, it gracefully sprang downward, and then righted itself. So pointless—so nimble—so slinky. The spring became a goofy toy of many childhoods—that is before every kid inevitably gets theirs all twisted up and ruins it. 300 million sold worldwide!”
See more at PopSci (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
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Posted in Amazing, Technology
Posted by Abeo August 28, 2010 at 8:06 am
“European astronomers on Tuesday said they had found a distant star orbited by at least five planets in the biggest discovery of so-called exoplanets since the first was logged 15 years ago.
The star is similar to our sun and its planetary lineup has an intriguing parallel with own solar system, although no clue has so far been found to suggest it could be a home from home, they said.
The star they studied, HD 10180, is located 127 light-years away in the southern constellation of Hydrus, the male water snake, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) said in a press release.
The planets were detected over six years using the world’s most powerful spectograph, an instrument to capture and analyze light signatures, at ESO’s telescope at La Silla, Chile.
The method consists of observing a star and seeing how the light that reaches Earth “wobbles” as a result of the gravitational pull of a passing planet.
The tiny fluctuation in light can then be used as a telltale to calculate the mass of the transiting planet.
The five detected planets are big, being the size of Neptune, although they orbit at a far closer range than our own gas giant, with a “year” ranging from between six and 600 days.
The astronomers also found tantalizing evidence that two other candidate planets are out there.
One would be a very large planet, the size of our Saturn, orbiting in 2,200 days.
The other would be 1.4 times the mass of Earth, making it the smallest exoplanet yet to be discovered. It orbits HD 10180 at a scorchingly close range, taking a mere 1.18 Earth days to zip around the star.”
Read more at Discovery (Thanks IndyAdvant)
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Posted in Interesting Theories, Technology
Posted by Abeo August 27, 2010 at 9:13 am
“Computers controlled by the mind are going a step further with Intel’s development of mind-controlled computers. Existing computers operated by brain power require the user to mentally move a cursor on the screen, but the new computers will be designed to directly read the words thought by the user.
Intel scientists are currently mapping out brain activity produced when people think of particular words, by measuring activity at about 20,000 locations in the brain. The devices being used to do the mapping at the moment are expensive and bulky MRI scanners, similar to those used in hospitals, but senior researcher at Intel, Dean Pomerlau, said smaller gadgets that could be worn on the head are being developed. Once the brain activity is mapped out the computer will be able to determine what words are being thought by identifying similar brain patterns and differences between them.
Pomerlau said words produce activity in parts of the brain associated with what the word represents. So thinking of a word for a type of food, such as apple, results in activity in the parts of the brain associated with hunger, while a word with a physical association such as spade produces activity in the areas of the motor cortex related to making the physical movements of digging. In this way the computer can infer attributes of a word to narrow it down and identify it quickly.
A working prototype can already detect words like house, screwdriver and barn, but as brain scanning becomes more advanced the computer’s ability to understand thoughts will improve.
If the plans are successful users will be able to surf the Internet, write emails and carry out a host of other activities on the computer simply by thinking about them. Director of Intel Laboratories, Justin Ratner, said it is clear humans are no longer restricted to using a keyboard and mouse, and mind reading is the “ultimate user interface.” He said he is confident any concerns about privacy will be overcome.
While many able-bodied computer users may hesitate to adopt a technology that operates a computer by reading their minds, people who are unable to use a keyboard or a mouse through disability should find the new technology gives them much more freedom and opportunities for communicating.”
Read more at Physorg (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
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Posted in Interesting Theories, Technology
Posted by Abeo August 27, 2010 at 8:50 am
“The substance resembles powdered sugar and is expected to make a big commercial splash. Each particle of dry water contains a water droplet surrounded by a sandy silica coating. In fact, 95% of dry water is “wet” water. One of its key properties is a powerful ability to absorb gases.
Scientists believe dry water could be used to combat global warming by soaking up and trapping the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Tests show that it is more than three times better at absorbing carbon dioxide as ordinary water. Dry water may also prove useful for storing methane and expanding the energy source potential of the natural gas.
Dr Ben Carter, from the University of Liverpool, presented his research on dry water at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston. He said: “There’s nothing else quite like it. Hopefully, we may see dry water making waves in the future.”
Another application demonstrated by Dr Carter’s team was using dry water as a catalyst to speed up reactions between hydrogen and maleic acid. This produces succinic acid, a key raw material widely used to make drugs, food ingredients, and consumer products.
Usually hydrogen and maleic acid have to be stirred together to make succinic acid. But this is not necessary when using dry water particles containing maleic acid, making the process greener and more energy efficient.
“If you can remove the need to stir your reactions, then potentially you’re making considerable energy savings,” said Dr Carter.
The technology could be adapted to create “dry” powder emulsions, mixtures of two or more unblendable liquids such as oil and water, the researchers believe. Dry emulsions could make it safer and easier to store and transport potentially harmful liquids.”
Read more at Yahoo News (Thanks @XxLadyClaireXx)
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Posted in Amazing, Freaky Deaky
Posted by Abeo August 27, 2010 at 8:04 am
Scientists have discovered the Old World’s smallest species of frog living inside pitcher plants in the jungles of Southeast Asia’s Borneo.
The micro frogs, named Microhyla nepenthicola, grow to only 0.4 to 0.5 inches long — about the size of a pea. It was discovered living along the edge of a road in Kubah National Park in Borneo by a team of scientists searching for the world’s lost amphibians, species considered to be extinct that may still have remnant populations.
“I saw some specimens in museum collections that are over 100 years old,” biologist Indraneil Das, one of frog discovers, said in a press release. “Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly-discovered micro species.”
Read more at Wired (Thanks @UKgnome and @XxLadyClaireXx)
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