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Space

Submission + - Smallest Exoplanet Yet Discovered

Submitted by Snowblindeye
Snowblindeye writes: Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, "e", in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of our Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist.

Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ("the Scales") — in just 3.15 days. "With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet", says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory.

Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. From previous observations this star was known to harbour a system with a Neptune-sized planet and two super-Earths. With the discovery of Gliese 581 e, the planetary system now has four known planets, with masses of about 1.9 (planet e), 16 (planet b), 5 (planet c), and 7 Earth-masses (planet d). The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. "Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star," says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. "'d' could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious 'water world' candidate," continued Udry.
Announcements

Submission + - Atomic clock accuracy significantly boosted

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The competition to increase the accuracy of atomic clocks got a boost recently when the National Instititute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released details about its new atomic clock candidate. By switching to strontium-based timekeeper, the new atomic clock would loose or gain only one second ever 300 million years, compared to every 80 million years for the current cesium standard. Last year, a quantum clock that looses or gains one second every billion years was demonstrated at NIST, but the complex scheme coupled the quantum states of the aluminum ions with a nearby beryllium atoms. The new strontium approach needs no indirect measurements. The Consultative Committee for Time and Frequency at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (Paris) will decide which of several candidates becomes the new standard.
Google

Submission + - Angry villagers run Google out of town (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
Barence
Barence writes: "A Google Street View car has been chased out of a British village by angry residents. The car was taking photographs of Broughton in Buckinghamshire for Google's when it was spotted by a local resident who warned the car not to enter the village then roused his neighbours, who surrounded the vehicle until the driver performed a U-turn and left. "This is an affluent area," protestor Paul Jacobs said. "We've already had three burglaries locally in the past six weeks. If our houses are plastered all over Google it's an invitation for more criminals to strike. I was determined to make a stand, so I called the police.""
Space

Submission + - What would it look like to fall into a black hole? (newscientist.com) 1

Submitted by
CNETNate
CNETNate writes: "A new video simulation developed by Andrew Hamilton and Gavin Polhemus of the University of Colorado, Boulder, on New Scientist today, shows what you might see on your way towards a black hole's crushing central singularity. Hamilton and Polhemus built a computer code based on the equations of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and the video produced allows the viewer to follow the fate of an imaginary observer on an orbit that swoops down into a giant black hole weighing 5 million times the mass of the sun, about the same size as the hole in the centre of our galaxy. The research could help physicists understand the apparently paradoxical fate of matter and energy in a black hole."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - CT scanner reveals gadgets' guts (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by
CNETNate
CNETNate writes: "It's called 'Radiology Art', and it involves photographing gadgets and technology with the same computed tomography (CT scan) equipment used to scan for tumours, brain injury and other medical issues. The CT scans of iPhones, iBooks, Palm devices, and cell phones, are the work of New York-based medical student Satre Stuelke. Stuelke processes the images with OsiriX software on an iMac, as well as in Adobe Photoshop. Colours are determined by the density of the materials in the scanned object, and apparently the iPhone survived the onslaught of X-rays and continued to operate afterwards. Non-technology scans include Big Macs and Barbies, and can be found on his Web site RadiologyArt.com."
Software

Submission + - Microsoft to kill off Encarta 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One Microsoft Way has discovered that Microsoft is planning to discontinue its Encarta line of products and web pages. "On October 31, 2009, MSN Encarta Web sites worldwide will be discontinued, with the exception of Encarta Japan, which will be discontinued on December 31, 2009. Additionally, Microsoft will cease to sell Microsoft Student and Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009."
The Matrix

Submission + - "The Matrix", 10 years

Submitted by os2man
os2man writes: It was on March 31st, but then years ago, in 1999, when The Matrix was first released on cinemas in the US.
Power

Submission + - Scientists convert body movements to iPod charge

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a nanogenerator that could replace batteries in five years' time. The generator is based on the piezoelectric properties of zinc oxide nanowires, which can be woven into clothes, shoes and even muscles to charge iPods, cell phones and other portable devices.

The same group of researcher demonstrated harvesting energy from hamsters last month.
Wii

Submission + - Wii System Menu 4.0 Released (nintendo.com)

Submitted by dougisfunny
dougisfunny writes: The Wii System Menu 4.0 has been released. It adds a number of features that people have been waiting for, the ability to use SDHC cards, as well as the ability to download and play things directly off of the SD/SDHC card rather than the internal memory. This was announced at GDC09 by Nintendo's President Saturo Iwata in his keynote. More information can be found at Nintendo's website http://www.nintendo.com/wii/menuupdate
Networking

Submission + - .CA registrar trying to pre-empt conficker (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by clover kicker
clover kicker writes: The CBC reports that the group managing Canada's .ca internet domain is working to foil an internet worm set to attack starting April Fool's Day.

"This is the first virus that's really focused on domain names as part of propagating the virus itself." said Byron Holland, CEO of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, a non-profit organization that represents those who hold a .ca domain.

CIRA's strategy includes pre-emptively registering and isolating previously unregistered .ca domain names that Conficker C is expected to try and generate, said a news release issued by the group.

That would make those names unavailable for anyone to register in order to set up a website to host the worm's "command and control" file. A list of the names has been predicted by security experts based on the worm's code.

In addition, CIRA is investigating and monitoring activity at names on the list that have already been registered and will "take appropriate action if suspicious activity is detected."
Businesses

Submission + - Apple not paying the developers (techcrunch.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Are iPhone app developers getting paid on time from Apple? Not all of them. On this iPhone developer forum, there are numerous threads from developers who are complaining about delays in payments for January and not being paid the amount of money the developers are in fact due from sales. And we've received one complaint directly from an iPhone app developer that Apple is late on its payments for January. Apple's contract, which is embedded below, says that payment will be made to developers within 45 days of the end of the month. That would have been a week ago. Developers are expressing a number of gripes with Apple that extend beyond just being paid on time. We also hear (and read) that reaching Apple by phone is a complete nightmare. Emails to Apple go unanswered and customer service reps put developers on hold for 30 minutes to an hour and sometimes hang up on callers after they've waited to speak to an agent.
Space

Submission + - Observed the largest exploding star yet seen (phenomenica.com)

Submitted by goran72
goran72 writes: Scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science and San Diego State University have observed the largest exploding star yet seen, which is the size of 50 suns. Until now, none of the supernovae stars that scientists had managed to measure had exceeded a mass of 20 suns. http://www.phenomenica.com/2009/03/largest-exploding-star.html
Data Storage

Submission + - Carbonite loses data, sues vendor (goodgearguide.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Online backup service provider Carbonite is suing storage vendor Promise Technology, saying repeated failures of Promise gear have caused "significant data loss" at Carbonite. In the lawsuit, Carbonite said it bought more than US$3 million worth of Promise VTrak Raid products beginning in 2006. In several incidents starting in January 2007, the service provider suffered data loss because the Promise gear failed to support recovery from physical drive errors and array errors."
Robotics

Submission + - Artificial muscles of Aerogel and Carbon Nanotubes (cnn.com)

Submitted by AWESOM-O
AWESOM-O writes: Aerogel and Carbon nano tubes makes artificial muscles capable of operating in temperatures above the melting point of iron (1,538 degrees Celsius) and below the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees Celsius).

These artificial muscles are capable of providing 30 times the force and contracting 1,000 times faster than human skeletal muscles.

Story:
http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/19/creating-artificial-muscles/

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As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein

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