Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers have lots of imagination. After developing plastic as solid as steel, other scientists from in Australia, Korea and in the U.S. have created a plastic which could cut CO2 emissions and purify water. Their new material mimics pores found in plants and is exceptionally efficient. As said one of the lead researchers, 'it can separate carbon dioxide from natural gas a few hundred times faster than current plastic membranes and its performance is four times better in terms of purity of the separated gas.' Now it remains to be seen if commercial companies are interested, either for water desalination or for natural gas processing plants."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
Geoffrey.landis writes "It was only a small news item four months ago: all three of the Russian computers that control the International Space Station failed shortly after the Space Shuttle brought up a new solar array. But why did they fail? James Oberg, writing in IEEE Spectrum, details the detective work that led to a diagnosis." The article has good insights into the role the ISS plays as a laboratoryfor US-Russian technology cooperation — something that is likely to be crucial in any manned Mars mission.Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
radioweather writes "The phrase sounds like an oxymoron, and maybe it is, but the sun is extremely quiet right now, so much in fact that the Solar Influences Data Center in Belgium issued an unusual 'All quiet alert' on October 5th. Since then the sunspot number has remained at zero — solar cycle 24 has not yet started. There are signs that the sun's activity is slowing. The solar wind has been decreasing in speed, and this is yet another indicator of a slowing in the sun's magnetic dynamo. There is talk of an extended solar minimum occurring. There are a number of theories and a couple of dozen predictions about the intensity solar cycle 24 which has yet to start. One paper by Penn & Livingstonin in 2006 concludes: 'If [trends] continue to decrease at the current rate then the number of sunspots in the next solar cycle (cycle 24) would be reduced by roughly half, and there would be very few sunspots visible on the disk during cycle 25.' We'll know more in about six months what the sun decides to do for cycle 24."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
mattnyc99 writes "Giant magnetoresistance got its day in the sun when it won the Nobel Prize in physics last week—and when Hitachi rode that spotlight by announcing they'd have a 4-terabyte desktop hard drive by 2011. It's about time says Glenn Derene over at Popular Mechanics, in what amounts to an ode to the rise and future of super hard drive capacity. From his great accompanying interview with data storage visionary and computer science legend Mark Kryder: 'To get to 10 Tbits per square inch will require a drastic change in recording technology ... Hitachi, Seagate, Western Digital and Samsung ... are currently working on this 10-terabits-per-square-inch goal, which would enable a 40-terabyte hard drive.'"Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
Genocaust writes "A stellar black hole much more massive than theory predicts is possible has astronomers puzzled. Stellar black holes form when stars with masses around 20 times that of the sun collapse under the weight of their own gravity at the ends of their lives. Most stellar black holes weigh in at around 10 solar masses when the smoke blows away, and computer models of star evolution have difficulty producing black holes more massive than this. The newly weighed black hole is 16 solar masses. It orbits a companion star in the spiral galaxy Messier 33, located 2.7 million light-years from Earth. Together they make up the system known as M33 X-7."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
University of Manchester researchers have transformed fat tissue stem cells into nerve cells -- and now plan to develop an artificial nerve that will bring damaged limbs and organs back to life. In a study published in October's Experimental Neurology, Dr Paul Kingham and his team at the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration (UKCTR) isolated the stem cells from the fat tissue of adult animals and differentiated them into nerve cells to be used for repair and regeneration of injured nerves. They are now about to start a trial extracting stem cells from fat tissue of volunteer adult patients, in order to compare in the laboratory human and animal stem cells.Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers at Arizona State University report that they have pushed back the date for the earliest modern humans to 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented. Paleoanthropologists now say that genetic and fossil evidence suggests that modern human species — Homo sapiens — evolved in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago and in seeking the "perfect site" to explore for remains of the earliest populations, researchers analyzed ocean currents, climate data, geological formations and other data to pin down a location. "The world was in a glacial stage 125,000 to 195,000 years ago, and much of Africa was dry to mostly desert; in many areas food would have been difficult to acquire. The paleoenvironmental data indicate there are only five or six places in all of Africa where humans could have survived these harsh conditions," said Curtis Marean, a professor in ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Photos from the cave at Pinnacle Point in South Africa show where the team found ochre, bladelets and evidence of shellfish — findings that reveal the earliest dated evidence of modern humans."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
daevux writes "CNN is reporting that French engineer Pascal Cotte has discovered interesting details of the history of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa from a 240-megapixel scan of the artwork in various frequencies. Cotte surmises that the painted figure's eyebrows and eyelashes probably disappeared due to poor cleaning at some point in the past. He believes he can reconstruct the painting's original skin tones."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
NJChopperMan writes "For all those of you that thought waves only existed in the ocean, Photos and video of undular bore waves were caught in Iowa last week." The story also touches on the role of undular bores in severe weather, but it's definitely second fiddle to the video of the waves.Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
redwoodtree writes "An article on the site for the Tri-City Herald sums it up perfectly: 'Contrary to popular belief, not a significant amount of research goes into cockroach radiation.' To test the old saw about 'the cockroaches being the only survivors of a nuclear war' Discovery Channel's Mythbusters are going out to Hanford Site, where plutonium was manufactured for the first nuclear bomb. It's the single most polluted nuclear waste site in the U.S. The Mythbusters are going to take cockroaches and other insects and apply successively higher doses of radiation in a controlled setting."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
Hugh Pickens writes "After the Genesis mission spent 27 months in space gathering tiny samples from different types of solar wind, Hollywood stunt pilots swooped in with a helicopter to catch the falling capsule when it returned to earth. Unfortunately the spacecraft's parachute did not open, and the spacecraft ploughed a hole into the desert. Now scientists are starting to recover data from the salvageable pieces of Genesis. Nature Magazine reports that an analysis of isotopes of neon and argon shows that the elements of main interest to the researchers have the same isotopic signature in the solar wind as in the Sun itself. Because dirt contains relatively little neon and argon, the current Science study wasn't affected too much by contamination and the the team remains hopeful that they will be able to get results on oxygen and nitrogen isotopes from the mission."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
Roland Piquepaille writes "If don't like the concept of 'Frankenfoods,' I have bad news for you. U.S. researchers have developed an artificial chromosome for corn plants. The Chicago Tribune reports that researchers can now make chromosomes to order. These artificial chromosomes are accepted as natural by the plants and passed through generations. As the Monsanto Company bought rights to use this mini-chromosome stacking technology in corn, cotton, soybeans, and canola, I guess we'll soon eat food made from permanently genetically modified organisms (PGMOs?)."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a ComputerWorld article about the ongoing saga of the Martian rovers. They've overcome amazing obstacles and they show no signs of shutting down any time soon. "'After more than three and a half years, Spirit and Opportunity are showing some signs of aging, but they are in good health and capable of conducting great science,' John Callas, rover project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement. Since landing, the rovers have had to surmount a host of technical issues. Just a few weeks after landing, the Spirit rover had an out-of-memory problem that almost ended its mission before it began, but scientists were able to get the rover back into operation. In April 2004, both needed software updates to correct problems and improve their performance."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
Hugh Pickens writes "The University of Saskatchewan's has the first place climb in the Second Annual Space Elevator Games being held this weekend at the Davis County Event Center in Salt Lake City. Teams are competing for $1,000,000 in NASA prize money. Although the idea ofa space elevator has been around for decades, the space technologies needed to support it have yet to be created. The non-profit Spaceward Foundation has hosted an annual competition since 2005 to build a super-strong tether, or get a robot to climb a suspended ribbon. In the robot climber competition, teams have to get their device to hurtle up a 100-metre-long ribbon, suspended from a crane, at an average speed of two metres per second. The climber must be powered from the ground: strategies include reflecting sunlight from huge mirrors on the ground to solar panels on the climber; shining lasers from the ground up to similar panels on the robot; or firing microwaves up at the climber. Qualifying rounds have been taking place all week, and although high winds and rain have caused delays, four out of eight teams have made it into the finals. There are no outdoor climbs today because of bad weather but some of the tether competitions will happen indoors later this afternoon."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.
