Did we?? Neither this nor the previous version seem accessible...

Liquid crystal molecules (e.g., the cyanobiphenyls with aliphatic tails which form E7) have lengths of ca. 2 nm. These definitely respond to external electric or magnetic fields to spin and reorient (otherwise, you'd likely be looking at a fairly boring screen right now...)

The novelty here is that the researchers have formed a pivot about which the structure rotates. Further, they seem to have overcome any electrostatic attraction to the surface which would act to lock the molecule in place.

Interesting stuff.

Browsing further, the Science article seems to address this and indicates that they were fully viviparous (like us, I guess). Just reading the abstract now, unfortunately - though interested if anyone can chime in on the science?

Very interesting. I suppose it makes logical sense that sea living creature would find it difficult to safeguard eggs, and with its size these would be very noticeable (and nutritious!). I guess it is similar to whale sharks nowadays, which are ovoviviparous in their reproduction (wikipedia link as below): the "embryos develop inside eggs that are retained within the mother's body until they are ready to hatch. Ovoviviparous animals are similar to viviparous species in that there is internal fertilization and the young are born live, but differ in that there is no placental connection and the unborn young are nourished by egg yolk; the mother's body does provide gas exchange (respiration), but that is largely necessary for oviparous animals as well."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_shark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovoviviparity

However, the comment about single young is even more interesting - as whale sharks are even bearing very many (live) young. Maybe different again? (no expert here, just curious!)

I've just been over at the Met Eireann website, and stumbled across this interesting service recording lightning strikes each day. If I am reading it right, it seems there about 11 near Dublin over that day. Indeed, quite targeted to hit Amazon! Someone has been irritating Greek deities...

http://www.met.ie/climate/lightning.asp?ReportDate=06/08/2011

Yep, and from what I am reading this happened on Sunday (amazon.co.uk's accounts section was down then too, I guess it was related). We had surprisingly good weather yesterday - considering the forecast. No giant electrical discharges from the sky that I saw!

I live in Dublin, and that was some seriously targeted lightning. No sign of storms here, that I saw...

With regard it Irak/Iraq, I assume this is a phonetic transcription in the Latin alphabet from Arabic, and thus an approximation of the sound (Mumbai/Bombay; Baltimore/Baile na ti mor ("town of the big house")).

Although the current received spelling, this: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Iraq suggests that "Irak" has been a previously acceptable spelling too.

I know what I'm asking Santa for this Christmas...

"...the 2012 budget still has to be voted on my the House and Senate"

Should be:

"...the 2012 budget still has to be voted on by the House and Senate"

Unless the author owns them, which would be awesome.

The real question is: have they also inhibited their ability to migrate to other planets using the Tandoka Scale?

29 years, almost 6,000 flights... that's about 207 flights a year - or approaching one flight per day for 2/3 of his last 29 years.

Assuming they are talking about the circumference of the earth - that is about 16 million kilometers, or 10 million miles.

[Brief Google searching to: http://www.carbonindependent.org/sources_aviation.htm%5D

Given a a Boeing 737-400 jet (short international flights, likely a significant underestimation if most of his travel was inside the country), this gives a fuel use of 36.6 g/passenger km: so he has personally required used ca. 585,600 kg of fuel.

CO2 emissions? 101 g/passenger km: 1,616,000 kg of gas personally generated.

At sea level pressure / 25 degC, 1kg of CO2 gas = 556 L volume. So, we are talking 898 million liters of CO2 gas.

Or, the equivalent of a cube with sides of about 100 m, about the length of a football field.

Caveat emptor - these are all back of the envelope calculations - and likely gross underestimations.

Well, at least he didn't try to trade it.

Just wait, soon there will be Watson powered answering machines.

And soon after, we'll have these AI cold-callers interacting with same AI answering machines...

And what conversations will they have, on phones unmonitored by humans?