Lawmakers working on next year's federal finances have taken the ax to the James Webb Space Telescope.

That's right, NASA's next-generation space telescope, the successor to Hubble and the space agency's biggest post-shuttle project, may be killed.

To be clear, there are many more steps in the budget process before this is final -- lawmakers are working on next year's budget despite a stalemate between the White House and Republican leadership, so a lot could change in the next couple weeks. And odds are decent that at least some lawmakers will fight to preserve this enormous technological marvel (and the jobs associated with its construction). But this is not good news for astronomy, to put it mildly.

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http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/06/house-subcommittees-budget-bill-puts-most-powerful-space-telescope-on-chopping/?test=faces

Lunar eclipse: Google doodle, photos document the rare red moon

Lunar eclipses are a rarity, but thanks to modern technology, there are a few ways to get in on the red-moon action for those who missed seeing the astronomical event as it happened.

Google.com's home page on Wednesday features a Google Doodle (as the tech giant likes to call the logo on its search engine site) that mimics the eclipse with photos of the actual event itself. A click and a push of the slider under the doodle moves the images from a white moon to red and back to white again, replicating the Earth's shadow passing by.

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http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/06/lunar-eclipse.html

Microsoft Head Announces Windows 8 Release

Microsoft leader Steve Ballmer announced that the next version of his company’s operating system – Windows 8 – will be available in 2012.

At the Microsoft Developer Forum in Tokyo on Monday, Ballmer said the software giant is hard at work producing Windows 8, which is also expected to hit tablet computers, PC Magazine reports.

Ballmer has yet to comment on rumors regarding the features of the new OS.

But he did hint that "there will be a day in the future where it will be hard to distinguish a phone from a slate, from a PC.”

Read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/05/23/microsoft-head-announces-windows-8-release/#ixzz1NFAm6Pxb

Microsoft to buy Skype for $8.5 billion

It could be the most expensive call Microsoft Corp. has ever made.

In acquiring Internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion, the technology giant is seeking new ways to make money as its core computer software business faces a growing threat from a new generation of powerful mobile devices.

But some analysts believe the Skype deal, Microsoft's largest ever, could become a multibillion-dollar dud, as it once was for EBay Inc. The online auction site acquired Skype for $3.1 billion in 2005 but then sold most of its stake in the phone service after failing to wring a profit from it.

"The question is, what's the point here?" said James E. Schrager, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. "They seem to be buying an interesting company to which Microsoft doesn't really add anything."

In explaining the purchase, Microsoft said it would weave Skype's Internet and video calling services into its Windows smartphone, Xbox gaming console, and Office e-mail and document software, allowing users to more easily call their friends and colleagues. Microsoft said it hopes to extract more revenue from Skype by showing users colorful advertising as they make calls.

Wall Street investors were not convinced, however, and Microsoft's stock lost about 1% in regular trading, falling to $25.67. The stock is down 8% so far this year, while the technology market overall is sharply higher.

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-microsoft-skype-20110511,0,5652246.story

25 million Sony gamers' details stolen in second security breach

CREDIT card details of another 25 million computer gamers have been hacked in a SECOND security breach at Sony.

Thieves plundered its database last month and stole details from more than 77million PlayStation Network users.

But officials revealed yesterday there was another attack – this time targeting 25 million users on the Sony Online Entertainment network, which hosts games played on PCs over the internet. The Japanese computer giant admitted credit card details, emails and other personal information had been taken from an “outdated database”.

The latest incident occurred on April 16 and 17 – earlier than the PlayStation break-in from April 17 to 19 – but was only revealed yesterday.

Sony told its customers: “We had believed that SOE customer data had not been obtained in the cyber-attacks on the company, but on May 1 we concluded that SOE account information may have been stolen and we are notifying you as soon as possible.”


Read more:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/05/04/25-million-sony-gamers-details-stolen-in-second-securty-breach-115875-23105509/#ixzz1LM5Rn8YZ

Ancient 'Nutcracker Man' ate more like a cow, it seems

The strong-jawed human relative nicknamed "Nutcracker Man" likely didn't crack nuts at all, preferring to graze on grass like a cow instead, scientists find.

These findings could dramatically alter conventional wisdom regarding what the earliest members of the human lineage and their relatives ate.

The extinct hominid, officially called Paranthropus boisei, ranged across East Africa 1.2 million to 2.3 million years ago, living side-by-side with the direct ancestors of humanity. It earned its nickname because of its massive jaw and huge molars.

"Nutcracker Man never has been used in the scientific literature, but that's the common name," said researcher Thure Cerling, a geochemist at the University of Utah.

It was long assumed that because of its powerful jaw, P.boisei lived up to its nickname and ate nuts, seeds and other hard items. Still, a recent study of its teeth did not turn up the kind of pitting one would expect from hard meals, hinting that it actually dined on softer fare.

Now scientists investigating carbon isotope ratios in Nutcracker Man's teeth found "it most likely was eating grass, and most definitely was not cracking nuts," Cerling said.

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42865408/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Amazon seller lists book at $23,698,655.93 -- plus shipping

Lots of normal people would pay $23 for a book.

But $23.7 million (plus $3.99 shipping) for a scientific book about flies!?

This unthinkable sticker price for "The Making of a Fly" on Amazon.com was spotted on April 18 by Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and blogger.

The market-blind book listing was not the result of uncontrollable demand for Peter Lawrence's "classic work in developmental biology," Eisen writes.

Instead, it appears it was sparked by a robot price war.

"What's fascinating about all this is both the seemingly endless possibilities for both chaos and mischief," writes Eisen, who works at the University of California at Berkeley and blogs at a site called "it is NOT junk." "It seems impossible that we stumbled onto the only example of this kind of upward pricing spiral."

Eisen watched the robot price war from April 8 to 18 and calculated that two booksellers were automatically adjusting their prices against each other.

One equation kept setting the price of the first book at 1.27059 times the price of the second book, according to Eisen's analysis, which is posted in detail on his blog.

The other equation automatically set its price at 0.9983 times the price of the other book. So the prices of the two books escalated in tandem into the millions, with the second book always selling for slightly less than the first. (Not that that matters much when you're selling a book about flies for millions of dollars).

The incident highlights a little-known fact about e-commerce sites such as Amazon: Often, people don't create and update prices; computer algorithms do.

Individual booksellers on Amazon and other sites pay third-party companies for algorithm services that automatically update prices. Some of these computer programs purportedly work very well, getting sellers up to 60% more sales because they underbid the competition automatically and repeatedly.

The advantages are clear: If you're managing dozens of sale items on Amazon or eBay, it's difficult if not impossible to keep up with all of them.

"If you have more than 100 items, then it's impossible for you to manually focus on the price," said Victor Rosenman, CEO of a company called Feedvisor, which sells algorithm services to people who use Amazon.

"It's pretty much like the stock exchange. What you see there is the prices changing all the time -- but they never change drastically. Sometimes it's a dollar here a dollar there -- maybe $10. For a book, it probably would be pennies."

These algorithms vary widely in quality, however, as the Amazon case shows.

Sellers easily can avoid the million-dollar-book situation if they set price ceilings and floors on their pricing algorithms, so that the competitive bidding shuts off at a certain dollar mark, Rosenman said.

"It's like you put on the gas and didn't have the handbrake," he said. "This is a very basic mistake. So I am very, very surprised this thing happened at all."

Some of these algorithm services give clients control over their equations, letting them edit them as they go. That doesn't always work out well, Rosenman said.

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http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/04/25/amazon.price.algorithm/

Facebook Could Block Content To Enter China

If Facebook is to gain entry into China and other countries, a representative of the social networking site thinks his company could wind up blocking certain content because it allows "too much, maybe, free speech" for some governments to handle.

"Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others," Facebook lobbyist Adam Conner told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday. "We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we're allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven't experienced it before."

Facebook is currently banned in China. Earlier this month, a reported deal on a joint social-networking Web site between Facebook and Chinese search engine company Baidu apparently fell through when the site was taken down by Chinese authorities.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's eagerness to gain access to China's 420 million Internet users is such that he recently claimed he's learning the language.

"It's kind of a personal challenge this year, I'm taking about an hour a day and I'm learning Chinese," Zuckerberg told an audience during a recent appearance at Stanford University. "I'm trying to understand the language, the culture, the mind set—it's just such an important part of the world. How can you connect the whole world if you leave out a billion people?"

Zuckerberg visited China last year with his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan.

The Chinese government is increasingly concerned about Western social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter given their effectiveness as organizing tools used by protesters in the wave of popular uprisings that have swept across parts of the Middle East in recent months, according to the Journal.

Like Facebook, Twitter is also banned in China.

Conner's comments came ahead of President Barack Obama's town hall meeting on the economy at Facebook's Silicon headquarters scheduled for later on Wednesday.

Obama's former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had reportedly been in talks with Facebook to take over the company's communications strategy, but those "have fallen apart," the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

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http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383878,00.asp

NASA: Final Launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour Set for April 29

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour is ready to launch on its final voyage April 29, top mission managers decided today (April 19).

Shuttle officials approved the launch plan after a day-long meeting called the Flight Readiness Review (FRR), which allowed mission managers to discuss Endeavour's mission plan in detail and consider any possible issues that might delay liftoff.

officials decided to move forward with the target date of April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT for Endeavour's final blast off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla

"The team was unanimous and we're ready to go fly," NASA's associate administrator for space operations, Bill Gerstenmaier, said during a press conference following the meeting.

Endeavour is slated to carry six astronauts, a cargo bay full of spare supplies, and a $2 billion astrophysics experiment to the International Space Station.

"The potential science that it can return to understand the dark matter that lives in the universe and understand these unique high-energy particles that are out there in space, it's going to be tremendously important," Gerstenmaier said. "This is a pretty unique mission to close out Endeavour's career."

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http://www.space.com/11432-nasa-space-shuttle-launch-date-endeavour.html

Facebook twins appeal settlement ruling

The Winklevoss twins want more money.

San Francisco - The twins who claim that Marc Zuckerberg stole their idea for Facebook lodged an appeal Monday against a court ruling enforcing the terms of their 65-million-dollar settlement with the social networking billionaire.

Lawyers for the Winklevoss brothers, who were portrayed heavily in the movie The Social Network, asked the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear their case with a full 11-judge panel, after the court's three-judge panel ruled last week that the original settlement should stand.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss had claimed that Zuckerberg lied about the value of Facebook when they reached the 2008 settlement over their claims that Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them while all were students at Harvard University. Their shares are now worth more than 160 million dollars.

Judge Alex Kozinski ruled last week that the brothers had no right to renegotiate that settlement.

'The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace,' Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for the three-judge panel. 'At some point, litigation must come to an end. That point has now been reached.'

But their lawyer, Jerome Falk Jr, insisted that the decision was flawed.

'Courts have wisely refused to enforce a settlement obtained by fraudulent means,' he claimed in the new petition. 'The panel's decision shut the courthouse door to a solid claim that Facebook obtained this settlement by committing securities fraud. Our petition asks the full Ninth Circuit to reopen that door.'

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http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1633835.php/Facebook-twins-appeal-settlement-ruling

Google Videos shutting down later this month

Google Videos, Google's answer to YouTube before it gave up and bought the video sharing service, is being shut down. The search giant has sent out an email warning to users who previously uploaded one or more videos to the service.

As of April 29, 2011, Google Videos will no longer let users watch any more videos. Users can, however, download their videos until May 13, 2011, and Google is encouraging them to re-upload their videos to YouTube.

We're a little surprised Google has taken so long to shut down Google Videos. We're even more shocked that Mountain View is not letting Google Videos users simply transfer their videos to a YouTube account. It's understandable that Google does not want to move all the content over (Google Videos still hosts millions of videos), but giving users the option would certainly be much more convenient and a smoother experience.

Google Videos was launched on January 25, 2005, but Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006. Google announced on June 13, 2007 that Google Videos search results would begin to include videos discovered by their search crawlers on other hosting services, including YouTube. In May 2009, Google Videos stopped accepting uploads. Although previously uploaded videos were still available, the service remained as a video search function, and now the search giant wants to finish the transformation by deleting all remaining videos.

Here is the full email sent to Google Videos users (if you didn't get it, but have videos on Google Videos, you should still try to save them before it's too late):

Dear Google Video User,

Later this month, hosted video content on Google Video will no longer be available for playback. Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009 and now we're removing the remaining hosted content. We've always maintained that the strength of Google Video is its ability to let people search videos from across the web, regardless of where those videos are hosted. And this move will enable us to focus on developing these technologies further to the benefit of searchers worldwide.

On April 29, 2011, videos that have been uploaded to Google Video will no longer be available for playback. We've added a Download button to the video status page, so you can download any video content you want to save. If you don't want to download your content, you don't need to do anything. (The Download feature will be disabled after May 13, 2011.)

We encourage you to move to your content to YouTube if you haven't done so already. YouTube offers many video hosting options including the ability to share your videos privately or in an unlisted manner.

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http://www.techspot.com/news/43345-google-videos-shutting-down-later-this-month.html

Millions of email addresses may have been taken in data breach

NEW YORK - With the possible theft of millions of email addresses from an advertising company, several large companies have started warning customers to expect fraudulent emails that try to coax account login information from them.

Companies behind brands such as Chase, Citi and Best Buy said over the weekend that hackers may have learned their email addresses because of a security breach at a Dallas-based company called Epsilon that manages email communications.

The email addresses could be used to target spam. It's also a standard tactic among online fraudsters to send emails to random people, purporting to be from a large bank and asking them to login in at a site that looks like the bank's site. Instead, the fraudulent site captures their login information and uses it to access the real account.

The data breach could make these so-called "phishing" attacks more efficient, by allowing the fraudsters to target people who actually have an account with the bank.

David Jevans, chairman and founder of the nonprofit Anti-Phishing Working Group, said criminals have been moving away from indiscriminate phishing toward more intelligent attacks known as "spear phishing," which rely on having more intimate knowledge of the victims.

"This data breach is going to facilitate that in a big way. Now they know which institution people bank with, they know their name and they have their email address," said Jevans, who is also the CEO of security company IronKey Inc.

"You're not going to see typical phishing where 90 percent of it ends up in spam traps and is easily detected. This is going to be highly targeted," he added.

Among the affected are financial-service companies such as Capital One Financial Corp., Barclays Bank, U.S. Bancorp, Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Ameriprise Financial Inc. and retailers including Best Buy Co., TiVo Inc., Walgreen Co. and Kroger Co.

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http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/apr/05/millions-of-emails-may-have-been-taken/

Google Said to Be Possible Target of U.S. FTC Antitrust Probe

Google Inc. (GOOG)’s dominance of the Internet-search industry is being considered for a broad antitrust investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, two people familiar with the matter said.

Before proceeding with any probe, the FTC is awaiting a decision by the Justice Department on whether it will challenge Google’s planned acquisition of ITA Software Inc. as a threat to competition in the travel-information search business, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter is still confidential.

An FTC investigation of Google, the world’s most popular search engine, “could be on par” with the scope of the Justice Department’s probe of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) a decade ago, said Keith Hylton, an antitrust law professor at Boston University School of Law. Google “could fight the FTC, but that’s going to cost a lot of money and time.”

The FTC and Justice Department share responsibility for oversight of antitrust enforcement, and the outcome of the ITA deal may determine whether the two agencies will vie for control of a broader probe of Google, the people said. The two agencies sometimes negotiate which will handle major antitrust investigations, with the decision turning on their respective expertise.

The Justice Department may soon announce its decision on Google’s purchase of ITA, said the people familiar with the matter.
Commissioner’s Support

FTC Commissioner Thomas Rosch said in an interview last month he supported a probe of the dominant players in the Internet-search industry, without specifying which companies. Rosch, one of two Republicans on the five-member commission, is the only commissioner to say publicly that such an investigation is in order.

The people familiar with the matter said any investigation of the search industry should concentrate on Mountain View, California-based Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine.

If consumers don’t like what the company is doing, they can switch to another search engine, said Adam Kovacevich, a Google spokesman.

“Since competition is one click away on the Internet, we work hard to put our users’ interests first and give them the best, most relevant answers to their queries,” he said in an e- mail. “We built Google for users, not websites.”

Cecelia Prewett, a spokeswoman at the FTC, and Gina Talamona, a Justice Department spokeswoman, declined to comment.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-05/google-said-to-be-possible-target-of-antitrust-probe-after-ita-acquisition.html

Microsoft should make Google the April Fool

Google has given Microsoft a great competitive opening, and it's one the software giant shouldn't let go. Opportunities like this just don't come `round often enough, or so rightly timed.

Twice in about a week, Google has cracked down on Android licensing. From one perspective, the search and information giant is asserting needed leadership. From another, Google is closing the door on so-called openness of its software. Either way, Microsoft has a hook to grab developers and encourage further OEM adoption of Windows Phone 7.

Quick recap: Last week, Google revealed that it wouldn't immediately release Android 3.0 as open source; there was no real time horizon given. My analysis "Honeycomb tests Google's 'Open Principles'" questions whether the search and information giant broke promises made to the open-source community. From the standpoint of controlling fragmentation, withholding Honeycomb makes business sense, however.

Something else: According to a report from Bloomberg Business Week, Google also is cracking down on which handset manufacturers get access to Android. They'll need Android chief Andy Rubin's blessing to get the newest operating system version, according to the report. For a mobile operating system that's supposed to be open, Android suddenly looks closed. Again, there is business justification -- Google trying to diminish Android fragmentation. However, handset manufacturers like HTC or Sony may find Google suddenly resistent to skinning Android with their own custom user interfaces. They use these skins to differentiate the experience between their phones from others running Android; perhaps no longer.

Google is between a rock and a hard place, and Microsoft should put on the squeeze.

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http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Microsoft-should-make-Google-the-April-Fool/1301690774

Autistic boy,12, with higher IQ than Einstein develops his own theory of relativity

A 12-year-old child prodigy has astounded university professors after grappling with some of the most advanced concepts in mathematics.

Jacob Barnett has an IQ of 170 - higher than Albert Einstein - and is now so far advanced in his Indiana university studies that professors are lining him up for a PHD research role.

The boy wonder, who taught himself calculus, algebra, geometry and Trigonometry Apps in a week, is now tutoring fellow college classmates after hours.

And now Jake has embarked on his most ambitious project yet - his own 'expanded version of Einstein's theory of relativity'.

His mother, not sure if her child was talking nonsense or genius, sent a video of his theory to the renowned Institute for Advanced Study near Princeton University.

According to the Indiana Star, Institute astrophysics professor Scott Tremaine -himself a world renowned expert - confirmed the authenticity of Jake's theory.

In an email to the family, Tremaine wrote: 'I'm impressed by his interest in physics and the amount that he has learned so far.

'The theory that he's working on involves several of the toughest problems in astrophysics and theoretical physics.

'Anyone who solves these will be in line for a Nobel Prize.'

But for his mother Kristine Barnett, 36, and the rest of the family, maths remains a tricky subject.

Speaking to the paper, Mrs Barnett said: 'I flunked math. I know this did not come from me.'

And it hasn't gone un-noticed by Jake, who added: 'Whenever I try talking about math with anyone in my family they just stare blankly.'

Jake was diagnosed with Aspergers syndrome, a mild form of autism, from an early age.

His parents were worried when he didn't talk until the age of two, suspecting he was educationally abnormal.

It was only as he began to grow up that they realised just how special his gift was.

He would fill up note pads of paper with drawings of complex geometrical shapes and calculations, before picking up felt tip pens and writing equations on windows.

By the age of three he was solving 5,000-piece puzzles and he even studied a state road map, reciting every highway and license plate prefix from memory.

By the age of eight he had left high school and was attending Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis advanced astrophysics classes.

Read more:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1369595/Jacob-Barnett-12-higher-IQ-Einstein-develops-theory-relativity.html#ixzz1I2p6FpHK

Jump through some hoops and get Angry Birds on your PC for free!

Angry Birds has taken the gaming world by storm, as you must have realized by now. I’m sure your relatives all play it, you probably play it, hell your dog probably plays it when you aren’t looking. The only problem about the strangely addicting animal abuse game is that you have to pay for it. Damn capitalism. There is good news on that front though, because you can get the game for your PC for free right now, according to Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

It’s fairly convoluted process, so pay attention! To get it, you have to download Intel’s AppUp Center, which is the equivalent of – you guessed it! The App Store. The catch is that you have to download it off Best Buy’s website (it’s free, no worries) and say that you are in the US. Yes, the offer is only for residents of the US of A, but fibbing works just as well, in case you aren’t. Then you have to make an account on the AppUp Center, and you’ll save yourself the annoying $4.99 fee it takes to get the game. Whew!

Already have the AppUp Center installed? Yes, you have to remove it and re-install it from Best Buy. Hey, anything to save money, right?

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http://mmomfg.com/2011/03/23/angry-birds-free-pc-0323/

Changes in Earth's rotation by Japan quake have no impact on human life: U.S. scientist

LOS ANGELES, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The changes in Earth's rotation and figure axis caused by Japan's 9-magnitude earthquake should not have any impacts on people's daily lives, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said on Monday.

"These changes in Earth's rotation are perfectly natural and happen all the time," JPL scientist Richard Gross said in a press release.

Using a U.S. Geological Survey estimate for how the fault responsible for the earthquake slipped, Gross applied a complex model to perform a preliminary theoretical calculation of how the Japan earthquake affected Earth's rotation, according to the release.

His calculations indicate that by changing the distribution of Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).

The calculations also show the Japan quake should have shifted the position of Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by about 17 centimeters (6.5 inches), towards 133 degrees east longitude, said JPL in Pasadena, Los Angeles.

This shift in Earth's figure axis will cause Earth to wobble a bit differently as it rotates, but it will not cause a shift of Earth's axis in space -- only external forces such as the gravitational attraction of the sun, moon and planets can do that, according to JPL.

Both calculations will likely change as data on the quake are further refined, JPL said.

"People shouldn't worry about them (the changes)," Gross said.

"Earth's rotation changes all the time as a result of not only earthquakes, but also the much larger effects of changes in atmospheric winds and oceanic currents," Gross said.

"Over the course of a year, the length of the day increases and decreases by about a millisecond, or about 550 times larger than the change caused by the Japanese earthquake. The position of Earth's figure axis also changes all the time, by about 1 meter (3.3 feet) over the course of a year, or about six times more than the change that should have been caused by the Japan quake."

Gross said that while scientists can measure the effects of the atmosphere and ocean on Earth's rotation, the effects of earthquakes, at least up until now, have been too small to measure.

The computed change in the length of day caused by earthquakes is much smaller than the accuracy with which scientists can currently measure changes in the length of the day, he said.

However, since the position of the figure axis can be measured to an accuracy of about 5 centimeters (2 inches), the estimated 17-centimeter shift in the figure axis from the Japan quake may actually be large enough to observe if scientists can adequately remove the larger effects of the atmosphere and ocean from the Earth rotation measurements, Gross added.

Read More

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2011-03/15/c_13779106.htm

Google Lets Users Block Websites in Search

Google announced yesterday it will begin letting users block certain websites on its search results. By clicking the “Block” link below a website’s label (see above), users will not see the website appear in any future search queries.

Users can also manage their blocked websites and choose whether to unblock it (see below). Blocked websites are part of a user’s Google account, so it will be transferable across devices.

Previously, this feature was only available as a Chrome extension, but Google has now rolled it out to Internet Explorer and Firefox users.

“We’re adding this feature because we believe giving you control over the results you find will provide an even more personalized and enjoyable experience on Google,” wrote Google’s Amay Champaneria and Beverly Yang

Read More

http://www.designtaxi.com/news/34250/Google-Lets-Users-Block-Websites-in-Search/?page=2

Catnap helps you live longer

A 45-minute catnap helps lower blood pressure, American researchers reported last week. They said a daytime snooze could improve heart health, particularly if you’re not getting as much sleep as you should at night. This follows a recent six-year Greek study which found that people who took a 30-minute siesta at least three times a week appeared to have a 37 per cent lower risk of heart-related death.

The theory is that napping, by encouraging you to relax, reduces blood pressure. It can also help your brain. A study by the University of California found that after a 90-minute daytime sleep, volunteers performed better in complicated written tests than those who were kept awake. The study leader, Dr Matthew Walker, says napping works over and beyond helping you catch up on lost sleep: ‘At a neuro-cognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap.’

This has been backed up by research on pilots which shows that a 26-minute in-flight nap (during which the plane is manned by a co-pilot) enhances performance by 34 per cent and overall alertness by 54 per cent.

The researchers suggest the brain uses this snatched extra sleep to help it process short-term memories (effectively moving them into a longer-term storage area in the brain), creating ‘space’ for new facts to be learned. But it’s not just enough to put your head down. Here, we show you the right way to nap.

Read More

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Entertainment/10-Mar-2011/Catnap-helps-you-live-longer/1

Discoverer of alien bacteria says life probably exists "everywhere"

NASA scientist Richard B. Hoover has sparked controversy with claims that he has identified bacterial microfossils in several meteorites. If proved correct, the implications are that life is common throughout the universe, and that life on Earth may have come from other planets.

Hoover's paper is set to be published in The Journal of Cosmology this week after the journal's editors took the unusual step of inviting 100 cosmologists and 5,000 scientists from various disciplines to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis. "No other paper in the history of science has undergone such a thorough analysis, and no other scientific journal in the history of science has made such a profoundly important paper available to the scientific community," crowed Dr. Rudy Schild, Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Cosmology.

Hoover is not the first scientist to claim to have found evidence of alien life in meteorites. In 1996, another NASA scientist, David McKay, argued for the existence of nanofossils in ALH84001, a meteorite found in Antarctica that originated from Mars. The announcement of possible extraterrestrial life caused considerable controversy at the time and even prompted president Bill Clinton to make a televised announcement to mark the event.

McKay's claims faced great scrutiny at the time and the arguments of his detractors centered on whether the nanofossils he had identified were in fact the remains of biological organisms or simply mineral deposits formed by crystallization. Such arguments have plagued the concept of nanobacteria generally, and there is no scientific consensus about whether plain old terrestrial nanobacteria exist, let alone extraterrestrial nanobacteria. In 2009, however, a NASA team reexamined McKay's samples using more advanced analytical instruments and concluded that there is "strong evidence that life may have existed on ancient Mars."

Hoover's new claims are unlikely to attract the same sorts of criticism that greeted McKay. This is chiefly because Hoover's microfossils are several orders of magnitude larger than McKay's nanofossils. Additionally, Hoover's fossils resemble well recognized Earth-bound trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes such as filamentous sulfur bacteria. The Achilles' heel of Hoover's work is demonstrating that the fossils were indigenous to the meteorite and not formed after the meteor crashed to Earth.

In compiling his paper, Hoover used Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy and Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy to investigate the internal surfaces of the meteorites. Images from these scans show large complex filaments that resemble known genera and species of trichomic cyanobacteria and other trichomic prokaryotes.

Additionally, Hoover also detected filaments that exhibited structures consistent with the specialized cells and structures used by cyanobacteria for reproduction, nitrogen fixation and attachment or motility.

To test whether the bacterial remains were truly indigenous to the meteorites, Hoover used energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to measure nitrogen content. He found that the nitrogen content of the meteorite filaments was almost always below the detection limit of the EDS detector. This is significant as EDS analysis of terrestrial minerals and biological materials indicate that nitrogen remains detectable for thousands of years. Since nitrogen is undetectable in the meteorite fossils, Hoover argues they are indeed indigenous, rather than modern terrestrial biological contaminants that entered the meteorites after arrival on Earth.

"This finding has direct implications to the distribution of life in the cosmos," Hoover concluded.


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