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Communications

Squirrels use infrared signalling to scare snakes

Submitted by arneMan
arneMan writes "A recent article in PNAS reveals a novel mode of communication between ground squirrels and rattlesnakes. Apparantly, squirrels can scare off snakes by employing a technique called "tail flagging" — frenetic back and forth waving of the tail, "harassing" the snake. Using infrared cameras, scientist have discovered that when encountering infrared sensitive rattle snakes, the tail also heats up, putting even more fear into the snake. Experiments using a robotic squirrel (!) confirms this. Interestingly, the squirrel can discriminate between infrared sensitive and non-sensitive snakes, only heating up the tail if it encounters the former kind. Only the abstract is availabe for non-subscribers, but here is a summary of the article along with some nice pics and movies."
Power

Scientists closer to gamma-ray annihilation lasers->

Submitted by ErikTheRed
ErikTheRed writes "Scientists have finally created Di-positronium, a new form of matter combining an electron and a positron. The discovery, which according to this BBC article reported in the journal Nature, is a key step in the creation of ultrapowerful lasers known as gamma-ray annihilation lasers. These would be useful in starting fusion reactions. Now all we need are some friggin' sharks..."
Link to Original Source
Handhelds

China copies iPhone; makes it even better->

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "China duplicates a lot of well know products; now they are duplicating the iPhone. Yet apparently they are making it better. From the article "The miniOne looked just like Apple's iPhone, down to the slick no-button interface. But it was more. It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn't. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers." The cloned iPhone uses a Linux-based system. "The cloners hire a team of between 20 and 40 engineers to begin decoding the circuit boards. At the same time, coders start to develop an operating system for the phone with a similar feature set. (The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system.) ""
Link to Original Source
Space

'98 Quietly Loses Title as Warmest Year Ever in US 1

Submitted by
pln2bz
pln2bz writes "NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies is in the process of adjusting its United States temperature data, which could impact the worldwide temperature data. Four of the top 10 warmest years in the US are now from the 1930's: 1934, 1931, 1938 and 1939, while only three of the top 10 are from the last 10 years: 1998, 2006 and 1999. Somewhat alarmingly, there has so far not been any announcement of the change."
Media

Russia never went to the northpole?

Submitted by
Maomao
Maomao writes "We all know America was the first nation to set foot on the Moon. Some say it was with the help of Hollywood.
Now Russia seems to be following in the same footsteps, but this time beneath the north pole. Recently video images, broadcast by russian broadcasting company PTR, showed how one of the two submarines placed a russian flag at the bottom of the ocean, deep beaneath the Arctic ice. Another clip shows both submarines cruising through the dark and cold waters. This is where Hollywood comes in. According to this article in finish newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet PTR used a sequence from James Camerons blockbuster movie Titanic. This is troublesome on so many levels. Even if Russia did reach the bottom their credability is now severely damaged. And maybe this will be the first case where Hollywood sues a nation for copyright violation?


The article is in Swedish but here my translation of the article.

Russian newsphotage stolen from movie Titanic

It was a grand political show as the two Mir-submarines placed the russian flag at the bottom of the ocean beneath the north pole one week ago. One part of the show was even of Hollywood class.

The russian state controlled broadcasting company PTR used a sequence from James Camerons Academy Award winning blockbuster Titanic as "photo proof" for submarines Mir-1 and Mir-2 landing on 4261 meters depth beneath the North Pole. News photage was even distributed by reliable news bereau Reuters. The sequence showed how the two submarines were lowered into the sea by the northpole and was followed by a clip from Camerons movie. A reader tipped newspaper Ilta-Sanomat about the images similarity and Ilta-Sanomat could today reveal that it was in fact a stole image sequence.

The russian broadcasting company has not answered any requests.

On the image from the film both of the deep diving submarines are visible, silly enough, since there wasn't a third deep diving submarine where the camera should have been. Apart from that the theft wasn't too bad: James Cameron used made Mir-1 and Mir-2, made in Finland by Rauma-Repola Oceanics, when he filmed the wreck of Titanic in the mid 90's.

The false propaganda images are embarassing for Russia since the media circus around the expedition was part of the russian attempt to lay hands on the part of the arctic wich is located on the russian continetal shelf. It is supposed to contain large amounts of oil and gas. Link to article in Ilsa-Sanomat (In finish) http://www.iltasanomat.fi/uutiset/ulkomaat/uutinen .asp?id=1418793
Link to article in Hufvudstadsbladet (In swedish) http://www.hbl.fi/text/utrikes/2007/8/9/d4792.php"

Promptness is its own reward, if one lives by the clock instead of the sword.