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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 377 declined, 89 accepted (466 total, 19.10% accepted)

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Submission + - 'Ebola coffee cup' puts plane on lockdown at Dublin Airport (rt.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Nowadays 'Ebola' has become such a powerful bogeyman any mention of 'Ebola' will sure to cause a massive panic

For example: An unidentified man who scribbled an Ebola warning on a cup of coffee caused quite a stir on a Dublin-bound flight. After putting the plane on lockdown for nearly an hour in the Irish capital, authorities determined that it was all a hoax

The incident occurred on Air Lingus Flight EI 433, which had set off from Milan on Thursday. Upon arriving in Dublin, passengers were held onboard for roughly 50 minutes until paramedics were able to investigate the matter

"As a precaution, the incident was fully investigated before passengers and crew disembarked as normal. The incident is now a matter for the gardai (police).” According to the Irish Mirror, a passenger who was on the flight got in touch with their daughter to say a man had written "Be careful, Ebola" on a coffee cup

Submission + - Iconic photo shots of Moon and Earth by Chang'e 5 T1 (planetary.org)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: China's Chang'e 5 T1 space mission has sent back iconic photos of the Moon and Planet Earth

In the photo, The Earth hangs like a white and blue bauble in the black of space, distant and heart-achingly beautiful. You can see it here — http://planetary.s3.amazonaws....

The spacecraft's trajectory will carry it back to Earth at about 21:30 UT on October 31. Happy Halloween!

Submission + - The two winners of the Gamergate (digitimes.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The saga of Gamergate has ended up with a whole lot of lowers, but two entities may be potentially BIG WINNERS

Digitimes has an interesting commentary on the Gamergate, something that at least, to me, toe the neutral line, with arguments that are at least logical

According to the commentary, the two potential big winners are

Google and Amazon


Submission + - Whales survive only after huge sharks died out (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Millions of years ago there were sharks as big as WW2 submarines. According to researchers from University of Zuric those gigantic sharks, or Megalodon, died out some 2.8 million years ago

The mega-shark was no lightweight. At 110 tonnes, it was about 30 times as heavy as a Great White and is thought to have had the most powerful bite of any animal in the Earth's history. With those humongous size sharks, whales don't get any fighting chance

It was such a ravenous predator, that its extinction may have allowed whales — today's heftiest seagoing fatties — to grow to the sizes we see nowadays. “When we calculated the time of Megalodon’s extinction, we noticed that the modern function and gigantic sizes of filter feeder whales became established around that time. Future research will investigate if Megalodon’s extinction played a part in the evolution of these new classes of whales,” said Catalina Pimiento of the University of Florida

Submission + - More babies died in US than in Japan, New Zealand, Korea, Finland or Israel (politicalblindspot.com) 1

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Of the 29 OECD countries the United States ranked the 26th in term of infant mortality, behind behind most European countries as well as Japan, Korea, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand

This means that in the United States, more babies die before reaching the age of one year than in the vast majority of OECD countries

The United States had the highest rate of death in the 37 week or later birth bracket. While the full term for a pregnancy is 40 weeks, at 37 weeks babies are sufficiently close to full term as to have the highest likelihood of survival. While the CDC report found that America did better than three of the 29 OECD countries, a report prepared by Save the Children in 2013 found that the United States at the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world.

A chart is available @ http://politicalblindspot.com/...


Submission + - High speed evolution (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Normally the 'evolution conjures up an image of "super-long time frame" but at least in the case of lizards on Florida islands the evolution seems to have shifted to the fifth gear

Sientists working on islands in Florida have documented the rapid evolution of a native lizard species — in as little as 15 years — as a result of pressure from an invading lizard species, introduced from Cuba. After contact with the invasive species, the native lizards began perching higher in trees, and, generation after generation, their feet evolved to become better at gripping the thinner, smoother branches found higher up

The change occurred at an astonishing pace: Within a few months, native lizards had begun shifting to higher perches, and over the course of 15 years and 20 generations, their toe pads had become larger, with more sticky scales on their feet. "We did predict that we'd see a change, but the degree and quickness with which they evolved was surprising," said Yoel Stuart, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin and lead author of the study

"To put this shift in perspective, if human height were evolving as fast as these lizards' toes, the height of an average American man would increase from about 5 foot 9 inches today to about 6 foot 4 inches within 20 generations — an increase that would make the average U.S. male the height of an NBA shooting guard," said Stuart. "Although humans live longer than lizards, this rate of change would still be rapid in evolutionary terms"

This latest study is one of only a few well-documented examples of what evolutionary biologists call "character displacement," in which similar species competing with each other evolve differences to take advantage of different ecological niches. A classic example comes from the finches studied by Charles Darwin. Two species of finch in the Galápagos Islands diverged in beak shape as they adapted to different food sources. The researchers speculate that the competition between brown and green anoles for the same food and space may be driving the adaptations of the green anoles. Stuart also noted that the adults of both species are known to eat the hatchlings of the other species

"So it may be that if you're a hatchling, you need to move up into the trees quickly or you'll get eaten," said Stuart. "Maybe if you have bigger toe pads, you'll do that better than if you don't"

Submission + - Ocean could turn acidic (bbc.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The oceans absorb about a third of the CO2 that’s being produced by industrial society, and this is changing the chemistry of seawater. CO2 reacts with the sea water to form carbonic acid. UK's chief scientist, Sir Mark Walport warns that the acidity of the oceans has increased by about 25% since the industrial revolution, mainly thanks to manmade emissions

The consequences of acidification are likely to be made worse by the warming of the ocean expected with climate change, a process which is also driven by CO2. Until now studies have identified species with calcium-based shells as most in danger from changing chemistry. But researchers in Exeter have found that other creatures will also be affected because as acidity increases it creates conditions for animals to take up more coastal pollutants like copper

The angler’s favourite bait – the humble lugworm – suffers DNA damage as a result of the extra copper. The pollutant harms their sperm, and their offspring don’t develop properly. “It’s a bit of a shock, frankly,” said biologist Ceri Lewis from Exeter University, one of the report’s authors. “It means the effects of ocean acidification may be even more serious than we previously thought. We need to look with new eyes at things which we thought were not vulnerable”

The lugworm study was published in Environmental Science and Technology. Another study from Dr Lewis not yet peer-reviewed suggests that sea urchins are also harmed by uptake of copper. This adds to the damage they will suffer from increasing acidity as it takes them more and more energy to calcify their shells and spines. This is significant because sea urchins, which can live up to 100 years, are a keystone species — grazing algae off rocks that would otherwise be covered in green slime

“Our work means we are under-estimating effects of acidification for coastal invertebrates. We are now realizing there are many indirect impacts of ocean acidification on other processes. It could be that we are facing a lot more surprises ahead”

Submission + - The Queen sends her first tweet (bbc.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes:

"It is a pleasure to open the Information Age exhibition today at the @ScienceMuseum and I hope people will enjoy visiting. Elizabeth R."

That was the Queen's first tweet — sent through the @BritishMonarchy account — heralding the launch of a major new exhibition at London's Science Museum

The Information Age gallery, opened by the Queen this morning, takes visitors on a journey through the history of modern communications from the telegraph to the smartphone

Baroness Martha Lane Fox, who has campaigned for better access to and understanding of the internet, welcomes the new gallery: "It's an amazing opportunity for people young and old to come and see the extraordinary developments in technology over the last hundred years or so. It really reminds me of the scale of ambition that people have had to change things"

She hopes too that visitors will learn of the great contribution made by Britain to the development of communications — from Ada Lovelace, the woman who conceived the idea of computer programming in the 1830s, through to the 1950s when Lyons Corner Houses introduced the first business computer Leo, and on to Sir Tim Berners-Lee: "I hope that people who visit will have their ambition and excitement lit so we can continue to be world leaders in this field because it's so important"

The gallery certainly does show off the role Britain has played, and a number of British companies including BT and the chip designer ARM Holdings have sponsored the Information Age and supplied exhibits. But, as they wander past early computers like the ACE, designed by Alan Turing, visitors may begin to ask themselves a question


Submission + - Copulation happened in Scotland, 385 million years ago! (bbc.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Boffins are claiming that they have found the evidence of animals equipped with "copulation tools" as far back as 385 million years ago

An international team of researchers says a fish called Microbrachius dicki is the first-known animal to stop reproducing by spawning and instead mate by having sex. The primitive bony fish, which was about 8cm long, lived in ancient lakes about 385 million years ago in what is now Scotland

Lead author Prof John Long, from Flinders University in Australia, said: "We have defined the very point in evolution where the origin of internal fertilisation in all animals began"

Prof Long added that the discovery was made as he was looking through a box of ancient fish fossils. He noticed that one of the M. dicki specimens had an odd L-shaped appendage

Further investigation revealed that this was the male fish's genitals. "The male has large bony claspers. These are the grooves that they use to transfer sperm into the female" explained Prof Long. Microbrachius dicki fossils are common — but nobody noticed the sexual organs until now. The female fish, on the other hand, had a small bony structure at their rear that locked the male organ into place

Constrained by their anatomy, the fish probably had to mate side by side."They couldn't have done it in a 'missionary position'" said Prof Long. "The very first act of copulation was done sideways, square-dance style "

Submission + - Cellphones, Ebola, and Big Data (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The ebola crisis in West Africa has killed more than 4,500 people, and the number keeps on rising

Medical researchers are frantically trying to find way to slow down the spread of ebola and so far the medical route seems to be not able to stop ebola in its tracks

On the other hand, researchers from IT backgrounds think they might be able to track the movement of people by means of cellphone data and that there is a possibility that by analyzing the big data generated by the cellphone companies they could better predict the spread of ebola and hence offer advises to relevant authorities to take actions before the deadly contagious disease becomes out of control

Links to the efforts are available at http://www.ibtimes.com/pulse/e... and http://www.geektime.com/2014/1... and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/busi...

Submission + - Scientific explanation of why men wasted together (time.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Men seem to like getting drunk together more than women do and now a group of boffins think they know why

Smiles are contagious in a group of men sitting around drinking alcohol, according to a study announced Tuesday in the journal Clinical Psychological Science. This suggests that booze serves as a social lubricant for men, making them more sensitive to social behaviors, like smiling, and freeing them to connect with one another in a way that a soda can’t

Lest that strike you as laughably obvious, consider this: the effect does not hold if there are any women in the group, according to the study authors

A site note of the research points to the fact that genuine smiles are perfectly contagious among sober women, just not sober men

The authors don’t posit a guess as to why the presence of a woman keeps drunk men from catching smiles from one another, except to say that booze seems to disrupt "processes that would normally prevent them from responding to another person’s smile"

Submission + - People willing to give up first born child for free Wifi (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A new report shows that people in London are willing to give up their first-born child or most beloved pet just to get access to a free Wi-Fi network, highlighting the huge security risks associated with their open networks

The experiment was conducted on the streets of London and claims that "consumers carelessly use public Wi-Fi without regard for their personal privacy." Researchers set up a number of public hotspots in locations around London, including Canary Wharf and Westminster, to see who would log onto the network and what information they were freely making available to those in control. In a 30 minute period, 250 devices connected to the hotspot, most of them probably automatically without their owner realizing it

For a short period during the experiment, a Terms & Conditions document was introduced which had to be agreed to in order to get access to the network. This included a so-called Herod Clause obligating the user " to give up their firstborn child or most beloved pet " in exchange for free access to the Wi-Fi network. In total, the researchers saw six people agreeing to the terms and conditions before the page was disabled

Of those who connected, 33 people actively sent internet traffic by carrying out web searches and sending data and email. The researchers captured 32MB of traffic and as part of their findings, the researchers found that the text of emails sent over a POP3 network could be read, as could the addresses of the sender and recipient, and even the password of the sender

Submission + - Aus government spending on R&D has reached 30-year low (smh.com.au)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The Australian government's investment in research and development has dropped to its lowest level in 30 years, an analysis of government figures shows. Science and innovation spending has fallen to 2.2 per cent of total budget expenditure this year, the lowest share since 1984-5

R&D investment has grown at less than half the rate of total budget expenditure over the past two decades. At an average annual rate of 2 per cent, real growth in science spending lags far behind transport (23.5 per cent), public safety (8.8 per cent) housing (6.6 per cent) and health (5.5 per cent). Total budget expenditure has increased 4.4 per cent in real terms since the mid-1990s. Budget figures also show science and innovation spending has fallen to its lowest share of GDP in 25 years. This year's expenditure of 0.56 per cent of GDP is the lowest since 1989-90

Australia ranked 18th out of 20 advanced economies — ahead of only Greece and the Slovak Republic — for government R&D spending as a share of GDP in 2013. In 2012, Australia ranked 24th out of 28 countries, according to OECD data

Submission + - Apple earns $84 more for selling iPhone 6 Plus (fiercewireless.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: The main difference in between the regular iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus is the screen size, with iPhone 6 Plus offering an additional 0.8 inch of screen space. For that, consumers who opted to purchase iPhone 6 Plus must pay $100 more

On the other hand, the difference in between the BoM (Bill of Material) for Apple for iPhone 6 and for iPhone 6 Plus is only a paltry $15.50, according to the Teardown Mobile Handsets Intelligence Service at IHS Technology

This BoM for the regular iPhone 6, including the production / assembling cost, $200.10, while for iPhone 6 Plus, it is $215.60

All these translate to Apple making an additional profit of over $84.00 per iPhone 6 Plus it sells

Submission + - LivingBox 'mini-farm' could help third world feeds itself (dogonews.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: A “mini-farm” that can grow vegetables anywhere with a self-sustaining “closed loop” of energy and nutrition and help feed a billion needy people has won a prize as the most promising project to help developing countries improve their economies

Data gathered by humanitarian organization, World Food Programme, indicates that every year over 847 million people worldwide, suffer from malnutrition and about 3.1 million children under the age of five, die from starvation. While eradicating world hunger is a top priority for both scientists and philanthropists, given the increasing global population and dwindling natural resources, it is not easy. But thanks to new innovations like the recently introduced 'LivingBox', there may be some hope

The brainchild of Israeli entrepreneurs and scientists, Nitzan Solan and Moti Cohen, LivingBox is an environmentally friendly urban-ecosystem made from modular boxes that connect to form a hydroponics mini-farm. This means that the vegetables are grown in nutrient-infused water, instead of soil

Project co-creator Nitzan Solan says the Livingbox “is the perfect system, because it lets anyone anywhere grow vegetables without the need for fertile soil, or running water and electricity, and with minimal farming skills. It could help feed people in the developing world, providing them with access to fresh, nutritious food, while helping them maintain a clean environment.” Once it’s set up, the system is self-sustaining

Livingbox is based on hydroponics — the science of growing vegetables in water. Vegetables can take root in water when the right nutrients are added. Livingbox’s system delivers those nutrients into a five square meter hydroponic growing bed, using organic waste from fish, leftover food, or even animal feces

The technology used by Livingbox isn’t new, what is new is its deployment as a method of supplying food for families in developing countries, bringing together the diverse technologies and growing methods to develop a system that requires nothing more than household waste

The system is called “Livingbox” because it comes to users as a modular set of boxes that, when unpacked, are attached in an array. Users fill up the growing bed with fresh water and place their seeds or seedlings inside. Then they attach one (or all) of the three growing mechanisms the system uses. The users can grow vegetables using three types of organic waste — from fish waste, with leftover organic waste like rotten vegetables or peels, and even using (animal) waste. All three systems generate the nitrogen plants need to thrive

The “fish method,” in which water where fish swim is filtered and recycled, is well known among fish farmers. The recycling process removes the nitrogen from the water, transferring it the growing bed. The fish get back clean, fresh water, while the plants get the nutrition they need. The fish are fed from leftover food added to their box

While professional farmers have been doing that for years, LivingBox is the first system built to extract nutrients from common household refuse: fish waste, leftover food, or even animal dung. Better yet, it can run without electricity and requires no farming skills to maintain. This means that urban shanty dwellers who may otherwise have no access to healthy produce, can use LivingBox to grow fresh vegetables

The setup is easy — All aspiring farmers have to do, is unpack the modular boxes, fill them with fresh water and add the required seeds. As soon as they they add one or all three types of organic waste, the system will self-generate the nitrogen needed for the plants to take root

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