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NASA

NASA Lets Us Watch the Sun Spin For 3 Years In 4 Minute Video 34

Posted by Soulskill from the great-balls-of-fire dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Back in February 2010 NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory–a 3-axis stabilized satellite and fully redundant spacecraft. The aim of the SDO is to monitor solar activity and see how that impacts space weather. As part of its observations, the SDO captures an image of the Sun every 12 seconds using the onboard Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, but varies those shots across 10 different wavelengths. NASA has now collected three years worth of image data from the SDO and has put together a video letting us see the Sun spin in all its glory." If you watch closely, you can see individual frames containing the Moon and Venus.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Amazon to release its own set-top box: Report - NBCNews.com (google.com)

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Christian Science Monitor
Amazon to release its own set-top box: Report
NBCNews.com
Amazon plans to put out a set-top box to compete with the likes of Roku, Apple TV, and other streaming devices, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. No price or timeline was mentioned, except that it would appear sometime in 2013. The Seattle-based company ...
Report: Amazon Plans Set-Top Streaming BoxPC Magazine
Amazon Said to Plan TV Set-Top Box for Streaming VideoBloomberg
Here Comes Amazon's Kindle TV Set-Top BoxBusinessweek
Christian Science Monitor-The Atlantic Wire-CNET
all 52 news articles

Submission + - NASA lets us watch the Sun spin for 3 years in 4 minute video (geek.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in February 2010 NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory–a 3-axis stabilized satellite and fully redundant spacecraft. The aim of the SDO is to monitor solar activity and see how that impacts space weather.

As part of its observations, the SDO captures an image of the Sun every 12 seconds using the onboard Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, but varies those shots across 10 different wavelengths. NASA has now collected 3 year’s worth of image data from the SDO and has put together a video letting us see the Sun spin in all its glory.
Power

Researchers Report Super-Powered Battery Breakthrough 244

Posted by Soulskill from the when-will-they-be-in-my-phone dept.
another random user writes with news that researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are reporting a breakthrough in battery technology. They say: "With currently available power sources, users have had to choose between power and energy. For applications that need a lot of power, like broadcasting a radio signal over a long distance, capacitors can release energy very quickly but can only store a small amount. For applications that need a lot of energy, like playing a radio for a long time, fuel cells and batteries can hold a lot of energy but release it or recharge slowly. ... The new microbatteries offer both power and energy, and by tweaking the structure a bit, the researchers can tune them over a wide range on the power-versus-energy scale (abstract). The batteries owe their high performance to their internal three-dimensional microstructure. Batteries have two key components: the anode (minus side) and cathode (plus side). Building on a novel fast-charging cathode design by materials science and engineering professor Paul Braun’s group, King and Pikul developed a matching anode and then developed a new way to integrate the two components at the microscale to make a complete battery with superior performance. With so much power, the batteries could enable sensors or radio signals that broadcast 30 times farther, or devices 30 times smaller. The batteries are rechargeable and can charge 1,000 times faster than competing technologies – imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. In addition to consumer electronics, medical devices, lasers, sensors and other applications could see leaps forward in technology with such power sources available."
Power

Big Advance In Hydrogen Production Could Change Alternative Energy Landscape 340

Posted by Soulskill from the or-we-could-keep-burning-dead-dinosaurs dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Virginia Tech say they've had a genuine breakthrough in alternative energy production that could shake up the world's energy structure. Specifically, they've hit on a way to derive large amounts of hydrogen from any plant source. The method uses renewable natural resources, releases almost no greenhouse gasses, and needs no costly or heavy metals. The key is using xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was attainable only in theory."
Space

Listening To the Big Bang – In High Fidelity 85

Posted by samzenpus from the big-bang-music dept.
First time accepted submitter vinces99 writes "A decade ago, spurred by a question for a fifth-grade science project, University of Washington physicist John Cramer devised an audio recreation of the Big Bang that started our universe nearly 14 billion years ago. Now, armed with more sophisticated data from a satellite mission observing the cosmic microwave background – a faint glow in the universe that acts as sort of a fossilized fingerprint of the Big Bang – Cramer has produced new recordings that fill in higher frequencies to create a fuller and richer sound."
Books

Remote Island Adopts Dothraki Language 65

Posted by samzenpus from the it-is-known dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The tiny island of Tristan da Cunha is officially the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world with few connections to the outside and access only by sea when the notoriously stormy south Atlantic co-operates which is not often. Entertainment options are limited and LARPing in Game of Thrones style has become massively popular, so much so that the islanders have declared Dothraki to be an official language, alongside English."
Transportation

Virgin Launches Glass-Bottomed Plane 91

Posted by samzenpus from the every-seat-is-a-window-seat dept.
Em Adespoton writes "Virgin has recently created the technology required to produce the world's first glass-bottomed plane. This technological innovation coincides with the start of Virgin Atlantic Airways' first ever domestic service to Scotland. They hope to trial the glass bottom technology with other Virgin airlines in time and have asked other Virgin companies to support this innovative trial and launch their new domestic Scottish route."
Science

CERN Gives Away Higgs Boson Particles To 10 Lucky Winners 71

Posted by samzenpus from the you-get-a-particle-and-you-get-one-and-you-get-one dept.
redletterdave writes "In an unprecedented move sure to shake up the world of particle physics, CERN announced on Monday that it will give away its newly-discovered Higgs boson particles in a lottery. But given the rarity of Higgs boson particles – only one particle is created out of one million million collisions – CERN will only be able to reward 10 lucky winners. 'At CERN, we have always believed in sharing the results of our research, and the time has come to make that tangible,' said CERN director of research Sergio Bertolucci. 'This is our way of saying thanks for the incredible level of enthusiasm that has greeted this discovery.'"
Science

New Director Chosen At Fermilab 52

Posted by samzenpus from the every-planet-has-a-north dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Fermilab has chosen a a new director. They refuse to release the name of the new director, only referring to him as 'The Doctor'. Citing their primary reasons for choosing him: 'It was his extensive experience, as well as his vague yet somehow still impressive educational background, that tipped the scales in the Doctor's favor, members of the committee said. This despite the fact that none of the members could determine with any certainty exactly what the new lab director's doctorate is in. "After facing down Daleks, Cybermen and the Master, I can't think of anyone more qualified to take on a congressional budget committee," outgoing director Pier Oddonesaid said. "I think the Doctor is a perfect choice."'"
Science

Ask Slashdot: How Do I Explain That Humans Didn't Ride Dinosaurs? 278

Posted by samzenpus from the but-they-probably-did dept.
p00kiethebear writes "I have a wonderful and beautiful girlfriend who treats me right in every way. We've been together for almost a year now and everything seemed to be going perfectly until this morning. Over breakfast we were discussing dinosaurs and she told me a story about how her grandfather, fifty years ago, dated footprints of a dinosaurs and a man that were right next to each other to be within the same epoch of history. I laughed when she said this and then realized that she wasn't joking. She believes dinosaurs and humans walked at the same time together. The odd thing is that she's not religious, it's just what her archaeologist grandfather taught her. More important than just backing up evidence to the contrary, how do I explain this to her without crushing her childhood dreams? Is it even worth discussing it further with her?"
Technology

Radio Shack TRS-80 Vs. Commodore 64: Battle of the Titans 135

Posted by samzenpus from the winners-and-losers dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes "The one and only Jeff Cogswell is back with a new article comparing the two biggest competitors in the home-computing business: the Commodore 64 and the Radio Shack TRS-80. What does he have to say about these absolutely cutting-edge machines? The TRS-80 simply can't stand up to the awe-inspiring Commodore 64, which features the latest processor from MOS Technology, the 6510. Best of all, the C-64s graphics processor can display up to 16 colors simultaneously, and it can create a full screen made up of 320 x 200 'dots.' But the TRS-80 has some good points, as well, including a whopping 512 K of memory (not that you'll ever use that much, anyway). As Cogswell writes: 'Let's cover these two bad boys and provide a totally unbiased review unencumbered by any alleged kickbacks (including a brand new daisy wheel printer and a case of Schiltz Beer) from Commodore, the maker of the awesome machine known as the Commodore 64.'"
Image

YouTube's Ready To Select a Winner Screenshot-sm 74

Posted by samzenpus from the this-is-it dept.
Proudrooster writes "From YouTube. 'Thanks for all your great entries. YouTube finally has enough videos to begin selecting a winner. We've been thrilled with all of the diverse, creative entries we've seen so far, and we can't wait to begin the process of selecting the best video (video). We'll be announcing the winner in 10 years. All videos will be deleted within the next 24 hours. What do you think is the #bestvideo on YouTube?"
News

Ask Slashdot: Which Comic Books To Start My 3-Year-Old With? 372

Posted by samzenpus from the a-little-lite-reading dept.
JeepFanatic writes "I've never been one to read comic books, but I've always enjoyed superheroes. My 3-year-old son is really into superheroes (especially Spider-man) and I thought it would be a fun thing to do together to start reading comics to him. Any suggestions on comics that would be more appropriate to start him out with?"

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