SerpensV passes along the news that German scientists have found direct evidence that the spinal cord is involved in the placebo effect (whose diminishing over time we discussed a bitearlier). "The researchers who made the discovery scanned the spinal cords of volunteers while applying painful heat to one arm. Then they rubbed a cream onto the arm and told the volunteers that it contained a painkiller, but in fact it had no active ingredient. Even so, the cream made spinal-cord neural activity linked to pain vanish. 'This type of mechanism has been envisioned for over 40 years for placebo analgesia,' says Donald Price, a neuroscientist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, who was not involved in the new study. 'This study provides the most direct test of this mechanism to date.'"Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  Scientific American has a piece on speculation that dark matter may be behind diffuse radiation in the galactic center. Beginning in 2003, researchers led by Douglas Finkbeiner noticed a curious excess of microwave radiation in the WMAP data, after all known sources of such radiation were accounted for. Data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope resulted in a similar anomoly in gamma rays. "A paper posted to the physics preprint Web site arXiv.org on October 26 and submitted to the Astrophysical Journal points to a possible signature of dark matter in the Milky Way, although the study's authors are careful to keep their observations empirical and table such speculation... In the new paper [the researchers] describe the Fermi gamma-ray haze and make the claim that it confirms the synchrotron origin of the WMAP microwave haze. And as with the microwave haze, the authors argue that the electrons responsible for the gamma-ray haze appear to originate from an unknown astrophysical process. ... 'We are absolutely in the process of exploring the Fermi haze in the context of dark matter physics,' [one of them] says."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  CNETNate writes "With its own file server for uploaded Hollywood blockbusters, a 10Mbps Internet connection to Earth, and around a hundred IBM ThinkPad notebooks, the consumer technology aboard the $150 billion International Space Station is impressive. It's the responsibility of just two guys to maintain the uptime of the Space Station's IT, and they have given CNET an in-depth interview to explain what tech's aboard, how it works, and whether Windows viruses are a threat to the astronauts. In a related feature, the Space Station's internal network (which operates over bandwidth of just 1Mbps) and its connected array of Lenovo notebooks is explained, along with the tech we could see in the future."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  coondoggie writes "NASA said it will this week award $1.65 million in prize money to a pair of aerospace companies that successfully simulated landing a spacecraft on the moon and lifting off again. NASA's Centennial Challenges program, which was managed by the X Prize Foundation, will give a $1 million first prize to Masten Space Systems and a $500,000 second prize to Armadillo Aerospace for successfully completing the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  destinyland writes "Scientists have engineered a more intelligent rat, with three times the memory length of today's smartest rats. Reseachers bred transgenic over-expression of the NR2B gene, which increased communication between the rat's memory synapses. Activating a crucial brain receptor for just a fraction of a second longer produces a dramatic effect on memory, as proven by the rat's longer memories of the path through a maze."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  Hugh Pickens writes "Researchers at the University of Rochester believe that a 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean in a million years or so, connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Using newly gathered seismic data, researchers have reconstructed how the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began 'unzipping' the rift in both directions. 'We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this,' says Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester. The results show that highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of in bits, as the leading theory had previously held. The sudden large-scale events pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  MikeChino writes to mention that the European Space Agency has launched a pair of satellites, one that will pinpoint accurately the future location and intensity of floods and droughts, and the other aimed at testing new tech. Launched on a Russian rocket launcher from the Plesestk cosmodrome, the SMOS probe will measure soil moisture, plant growth, and ocean salt levels across the globe. The measurements gathered by the SMOS probe can be used to track ocean circulation patterns and soil moisture — data that can be used to predict quickly drought and flood risk in certain areas, as well as the intricacies of the planet's climate cycle. The other satellite, a smaller demonstration probe dubbed Proba 2, will test 17 new technologies ranging from a new wide-angle view camera to a xenon-fed resistojet thruster.Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  coondoggie writes to tell us that NASA has started down the road to reinvention with the addition of four new committees to the external advisory group that drives the agency's direction. "The four new committees include Commercial Space, Education and Public Outreach, Information Technology Infrastructure, and Technology Innovation. The council's members provide advice and make recommendations to the NASA administrator about agency programs, policies, plans, financial controls and other matters pertinent to NASA's responsibilities. In the realm of commercial space, NASA has been pushed by outside experts to leave low Earth orbit flights to other aerospace firms. The Review of United States Human Space Flight Plan Committee report recently took that a step further in recommending: A new competition with adequate incentives to perform this service should be open to all US aerospace companies. This would let NASA focus on more challenging roles, including human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit based on the continued development of the current or modified NASA Orion spacecraft."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  sciencehabit writes "Researchers at Guangdong Entomological Institute in Guangzhou, China, have observed oral sex for the first time in a non-primate. During intercourse, female short-nosed fruit bats lick the genitals of their partner, a possible ploy to increase copulation time. The discovery suggests there may be a biological advantage to fellatio."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  Dagondanum writes "Multiple missions have been sent to Mars with the hopes of testing the surface of the planet for life — or the conditions that could create life. The question of whether life in the form of bacteria (or something even more exotic) exists on Mars is hotly debated, and still lacks a definitive yes or no. Experiments done right here on Earth that simulate the conditions on Mars and their effects on terrestrial bacteria show that it is entirely possible for certain strains of bacteria to weather the harsh environment of Mars." Perhaps this is something that will be tested further in a few years by the Mars Science Lab, also known as "Curiosity" and (as reader Nova1021 points out) "the Mars Action Hero."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  An anonymous reader writes "My girlfriend is training to be a speech and language therapist here in the UK (speech pathologist in the US). A number of clients are guys who enjoy playing computer games, and for a variety of reasons some have no incentive to try and improve their speech. The issue is, this can obviously inhibit options for jobs and/or other aspects of life. I was trying to think of fun computer-based activities for those with speech and language difficulties that encourage individuals to speak, and furthermore to speak with greater clarity. Or games/activities that might encourage them to do more speech work. The first options that sprang to mind were the online games with team-speak / team-talk for those with mild difficulties. The sampling / accent issue might force them to speak with greater clarity or wish to have that ability. Obviously, they can just type. Any thoughts?"Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  Hugh Pickens writes "Yale University researchers believe that if evolutionary pressures of sexual selection and reproductive fitness continue for another 10 generations, the trends detected in their study may mean that the average woman in 2409 AD will be 2 cm shorter, 1 kg heavier, will bear her first child five months earlier, and enter menopause 10 months later. 'There is this idea that because medicine has been so good at reducing mortality rates, that means that natural selection is no longer operating in humans,' says Stephen Stearns of Yale University. 'That's just plain false.' Stearns and his team studied the medical histories of 14,000 residents of the Massachusetts town of Framingham, using medical data from a study going back to 1948 spanning three generations, and found that shorter, heavier women had more children than lighter, taller ones. Women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol were also more likely to have large families as were women who gave birth early or had a late menopause. More importantly, these traits are then passed on to their daughters, who also, on average, had more children. The study has not determined why these factors are linked to reproductive success, but it is likely that they indicate genetic, rather than environmental, effects. 'The evolution that's going on in the Framingham women is like average rates of evolution measured in other plants and animals,' says Stearns. 'These results place humans in the medium-to-slow end of the range of rates observed for other living things.'"Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  OzPeter writes "A wheat farmer in Australia has eliminated adding fertilizer to his crop by the simple process of injecting the cooled diesel exhaust of his modified tractor into the ground when the wheat is being sown. In doing so he eliminates releasing carbon into the atmosphere and at the same time saves himself up to $500,000 (AUD) that would have been required to fertilize his 3,900 hectares in the traditional way. Yet his crop yields over the last two years have been at least on par with his best yields since 2001. The technique was developed by a Canadian, Gary Lewis of Bio Agtive, and is currently in trial at 100 farms around the world."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.

  avishere writes "Student teams designed and built robotic power-lifters to excavate simulated lunar soil (a.k.a. 'regolith') earlier this month, with $750,000 in prizes up for grabs. Excavating regolith, according to NASA, will be an important part of any construction projects or processing of natural resources on the Moon. Interestingly, regolith is especially difficult to dig because its dust particles want to stick together. The whole robotic system has to be sturdy enough to scoop moon dirt and powerful enough to move through the dust while still meeting the weight requirements. The winning excavator, from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, lifted 1,103 pounds within the allotted time, and got its creators a sweet $500,000 for their troubles."Read more of this storyat Slashdot.