Feed New Scientist: Bizarre comet-like tail found behind star (pheedo.com)
A glowing trail of gas and dust has been discovered behind a star for the first time - it could shed light on the star's past
Submission + - Comet Explosion Killed The Clovis Culture. 1
Haikuist_For_Hire writes: The NSF has released a study that strongly implicates a comet explosion over North America roughly 13000 years ago. Researchers at the University of Californina at Santa Barbara with the help of a National Science Foundation grant visited many Clovis sites around North America. The abrupt cooling trend of that time is known as the Younger Dryas or 'big freeze' and the collapse of the Clovis has been the subject of much debate over recent years. Samples from 12 Clovis period sites yielded high concentrations of Iridium, nano-diamonds, and buckyballs (fullerenes) that contain gases which indicate extraterrestrial origins.
From the article: 'The team concluded that the impact of the comet likely destabilized a large portion of the Laurentide ice sheet, causing a high volume of freshwater to flow into the north Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.'
Submission + - Map Places, People, & Relationships in a Build
LinucksGirl writes: Google and MapQuest do a great job of creating maps of the outside world on the fly. But what about our workspaces? This article shows how to define and map places and people inside a building. Search, track, and plot individual cubicles, rooms, employees, or assets. Graph the location of individuals or groups of employees based on job function, or track unused office space visually.
Submission + - Wow! Its been 30 years.... (wikipedia.org) 1
Richard_at_work writes: "Thirty years ago today, the Big Ear radio telescope recorded a 72 second long signal that perfectly matched the expected signature of a signal that was not of local origin. This became known world wide as the 'Wow!' signal after the comment its discoverer, Dr. Jerry R. Ehman of SETI, scribbled in the margin of the print out, and while it has never been detected since, it has fueled arguments on both sides as to the existence of extraterrestrial life ever since."
Submission + - How Far Can Confrence Attendies Go? 1
bmore writes: Dave Winer is known for being outspoken, but some think he has recently taken it too far. The first incident occurred publicly at Gnomedex when Winer openly heckled Jason Calicanis during a presentation about Mahalo. Wired reports that this feud led to Winer's resignation form the TechCrunch20 conference. Winer's second recent feud happened when he turned the name of a student that heckled him into a domain name. In light of Winer's recent actions I think it is time to ask how far conference attendees in general can go. It also brings the idea that participants should be able to question speakers back to the forefront.
Feed Engadget: Extreme PS3 "stress test" garners praise from Sony (engadget.com)
Filed under: Gaming
Clearly due to the current heat on Microsoft concerning the Xbox 360 RROD, disk scratching, and overheating scandals, Sony's Dave Karraker is mooning on the company's official blog over a recent PS3 Vault "stress test" called "How to kill a PS3 console" which showed the company's game system to be surprisingly resilient in the face of extreme conditions. "A lot of noise has been made recently about the reliability issues of one of our competitor's systems," Karraker said, then went on to kick some sand in Redmond's eye by adding "Did it fail? Nope. Like the Energizer Bunny, it kept going and going and going." Admittedly, the tests -- which included running games and Blu-ray movies for 108 hours in a typical "living room" environment, placing the console in a freezer van then lowering the temperature from 50 degrees to zero, and powering the PS3 in a sauna where heat increased from 100 degrees to 120 degrees over a nearly three-day session -- were quite extreme. In the end, however, the testers say besides being "extremely hot" after coming out of the sauna, the system is running fine and back in regular use. Microsoft, the ball's in your court.[Via DailyTech]
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Submission + - Going green now helps save companies money sooner (networkworld.com)
coondoggie writes: "Going green now is more cost effective than waiting for the next great discovery. That seems to be the point of two news items this week. The first, an item from the Philadelphia Inquirer, notes that PNC Bank, the nation's 20th largest bank, has opened 43 environmentally friendly, or "green," branches since 2002 with many more on the way. PNC officials would not say how much they spend on green branches, but said it had spent $100,000 less than an unspecified competitor spends on conventional branches.Meanwhile a data center energy meeting in Boston this week attended by a variety of large users and vendors such as IBM, EMC, AMD and HP said data center designers and operators often fail to take advantage of existing technology and design principles that could greatly reduce power consumption. The average data center probably uses three times more air conditioning and cooling than is needed.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/18444"
Submission + - Allofmp3.com owner acquitted (cnn.com)
192939495969798999 writes: "CNN reports that Denis Kvasov was acquitted of copyright infringement, prosecuted on pressure from EMI Group Plc, NBC Universal and Time Warner Inc. From the article: "The prosecution did not succeed in presenting persuasive evidence of his involvement in infringing copyright law". Is this a lucky break or another sign of the traditional distribution model collapsing permanently?"
Journal Journal: AIDS interferes with stem cells in the brain
A prominent problem in AIDS is a form of dementia that robs one's ability to concentrate and perform normal movements. Scientists at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have discovered how HIV/AIDS disrupts the normal replication of stem cells in the adult brain, preventing new nerve cells from forming. Drs. Stuart Lipton, Marcus Kaul, Shu-ichi Okamoto and their colleagues uncovered a novel molecular mechanism that
MIT Team Creates Cancer Stem Cells 124
MIT scientists and colleagues have found a way in the lab to create large amounts of cancer stem cells, the cells that can initiate tumors. The work, reported in the August 13 issue of Cancer Cell, could be a boon to researchers who study these elusive cells. Labs could easily grow them for use in experiments.
Submission + - DirecTV Announces Broadband over Power Line Deal (internetnews.com)
Feed Science Daily: Air Pollution Linked To Cardiovascular Risk Indices In Healthy Young Adults (sciencedaily.com)
Researchers in Taiwan have demonstrated for the first time that urban air pollution simultaneously affects key indicators of cardiovascular risk in young adults: inflammation, oxidative stress, coagulation and autonomic dysfunction.
Feed Science Daily: High Pollution Linked To Poor Lung Function Growth In Children In Mexico City (sciencedaily.com)
Children who are chronically exposed to higher levels of air pollution show marked deficiencies in lung growth and function, and not just short-term breathing problems, according to researchers in Mexico.
Feed Science Daily: Ambulatory Oxygen Rarely A Benefit In COPD Patients Without Resting Hypoxemia (sciencedaily.com)
Prescribing ambulatory oxygen in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease improves exercise performance, but not the quality of their daily life unless they have resting hypoxemia, according to researchers.
Feed Science Daily: Freshwater Supplies Threatened In Central Pacific (sciencedaily.com)
Researchers are studying the impacts of natural and human-induced changes on groundwater in the central Pacific nation of Kiribati. According to their work, Pacific island nations face some of the most critical freshwater supply and sanitation problems in the world.
