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Submission + - study: Dinosaurs "Shrank" regularly to become birds

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A new study suggests that large dinosaurs shrunk to small birds to survive over a period of around 50 million years. Aside from a few large species, most modern birds are predominantly tiny and look nothing at all like their prehistoric meat-eating ancestors. The evolutionary process that governed this transformation has not been well understood, but now researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia have put together a detailed family tree mapping the evolution of therapod dinosaurs to the agile flying birds we see today. Their results indicated that meat-eating dinosaurs underwent several distinct periods of miniaturization over the last 50 million years which took them down from an average weight of 163kg to just 0.8kg before finally becoming modern birds.
Science

Pumpkin Pie increases Male Sex Drive 173

Posted by samzenpus from the we're-going-to-need-more-whipped-cream dept.
Dr. Alan Hirsch, Director of Chicago's Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Center, says the key to a man's heart, and other parts, is pumpkin pie. Out of the 40 odors tested in Hirsch's study, a mixture of lavender and pumpkin pie got the biggest rise out of men ages 18 to 64. That particular fragrance was found to increase penile blood flow by an average of 40%. "Maybe the odors acted to reduce anxiety. By reducing anxiety, it acted to remove inhibitions," said Hirsch.
Television

How High-Tech Gadget Trends Differ By US Region 51

Posted by kdawson from the you-say-potato dept.
Ant writes in with news of a study revealing differences in gadget preferences by US region. The survey is not rigorous, based as it was on 7,500 online questionnaires submitted to Retrevo, a website for tech shoppers. The company plans to run the survey annually. "...in the smartphone category, the state of Maryland came out on top with 48 percent more households owning at least one such handset than elsewhere in the country. ... In iPad use, the state of New York took top honors. According to the survey, 52 percent more households have at least one iPad in the Empire State. ... Massachusetts beat out the rest of the nation in e-reader adoption..."
Science

Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot 398

Posted by timothy from the more-guns-less-crime dept.
cremeglace writes "Have you ever noticed that the first cowboy to draw his gun in a Hollywood Western is invariably the one to get shot? Nobel-winning physicist Niels Bohr did, once arranging mock duels to test the validity of this cinematic curiosity. Researchers have now confirmed that people indeed move faster if they are reacting, rather than acting first."
Space

Herschel Spectroscopy of Future Supernova 21

Posted by Soulskill from the that's-a-big-star dept.
davecl writes "ESA's Herschel Space Telescope has released its first spectroscopic results. These include observations of VYCMa, a star 50 times as massive as the sun and soon to become a supernova, as well as a nearby galaxy, more distant colliding starburst galaxies and a comet in our own solar system. The spectra show more lines than have ever been seen in these objects in the far-infrared and will allow astronomers to work out the detailed chemistry and physics behind star and planet formation as well as the last stages of stellar evolution before VYCMa's eventual collapse into a supernova. More coverage is available at the Herschel Mission Blog, which I run."

Submission + - Proton beams sent around the LHC (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by feldhaus
feldhaus writes: The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday.

Submission + - smartphones are a goldmine for thieves (smh.com.au)

Submitted by st0lenm0ments
st0lenm0ments writes: Sydney Morning Herald writes:

While many mobile-phone SIM cards might contain contacts and texts deleted from years ago, experts agree that it is the vastly improved data and storage capacity of the new generation of smartphones that presents the most potent risk to their owners, especially if they are lost, stolen, or disposed of carelessly.

It may not be what's recoverable from the phone that is valuable but what can be further discovered online, or by ringing around.With geospatial mapping capabilities now becoming commonplace in smartphones, photos often also contain the GPS co-ordinates of the phone as well as date and time stamp.

Although most criminals do not have ready access to the tools required to reveal this data, experts agree that times are changing. Low-end analysis devices are already available on the open market and hackers are busy creating viruses to exploit holes in the security of smartphone operating systems.

For those concerned about data security issues, getting rid of a phone or SIM at the end of its life can represent quite a dilemma. It is recommended to destroy the SIM card (taking care to cut through the chip) and remove memory cards before disposing of the phone, and handing them over only to highly reputable recyclers.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/the-secrets-on-your-smartphone-20091120-ipw6.html

Submission + - Who's Killing The Electric Car Again? (gas2.org)

Submitted by Rei
Rei writes: Aptera Motors is an manufacturer of safe, hyper-efficient, highway-speed electric three-wheelers. Funded by Idealab, Google, and a variety of other sources, they have been working towards making (take your pick): A) one of the ugliest, or B) one of the most beautiful vehicles ever to be mass produced. When they started accepting pre-orders, over 4,000 people from California alone came running with $500 deposits. However, in recent days, the company seems to be imploding, where in the middle of wave after wave of layoffs, disastrous information keeps leaking out. Among the examples: the company's CFO, Laura Marion, was cited by the SEC in 2006 for running an Enron-style accounting scam at Delphi.
Microsoft

Submission + - Dell: High Linux netbook returns a myth (linuxfordevices.com)

Submitted by
Michiel Roos
Michiel Roos writes: "At this week's OpenSource World, a Dell executive reportedly said the company's Linux netbook returns are roughly equivalent to those for Windows-based netbooks. The remarks were in response to Microsoft's COO Kevin Turner, who gave a recent speech claiming Linux netbook returns were four or five times higher."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Reflectivity Reaches a New Low

Submitted by
sporkme
sporkme writes: "A new nanocoating material developed by a team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has the lowest level of reflectivity ever seen, or not seen in this case. The amount of light reflected by the composite of silica nanorods and aluminum nitride is almost the same amount reflected by air. From the article:

Schubert and his coworkers have created a material with a refractive index of 1.05, which is extremely close to the refractive index of air and the lowest ever reported. Window glass, for comparison, has a refractive index of about 1.45.
. . .
Using a technique called oblique angle deposition, the researchers deposited silica nanorods at an angle of precisely 45 degrees on top of a thin film of aluminum nitride, which is a semiconducting material used in advanced light-emitting diodes (LEDs). From the side, the films look much like the cross section of a piece of lawn turf with the blades slightly flattened.
Suggested applications include increased efficiency in solar cells, more energy-efficient lighting and advances in quantum mechanics. No word yet on invisibility cloaks."
Mars

Submission + - Martian Global Warming?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Russian scientist believes that global warming on Earth may be caused by the Sun and cites warming on Mars as evidence:

Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of the St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, says the Mars data is evidence that the current global warming on Earth is being caused by changes in the sun. "The long-term increase in solar irradiance is heating both Earth and Mars," he said.
User Journal

Journal Journal: An(other) Inconvenient Truth 2

Journal by corbettw

In case this doesn't get accepted, here's a submission I just put into the queue:
From the National Geographic Society comes a(nother) report that Mars is warming at a similar pace as the earth, pointing to a solar, not a human, cause of both. Obviously, the Society is pandering to Big Oil....

Space

Submission + - Mars Melt Hints at Solar Cause for Warming

Submitted by
corbettw
corbettw writes: "From the National Geographic Society comes a(nother) report that Mars is warming at a similar pace as the earth, pointing to a solar, not a human, cause of both. Obviously, the Society is pandering to Big Oil...."
Media

Submission + - Introduction to the MythTV Distributions

Submitted by
peterdaly
peterdaly writes: "MythTV is open source media center software that runs on Linux. Although it's powerful, it can be very difficult to install yourself. KnoppMyth and MythDora are Linux distributions that aim to automate the installation of linux and MythTV. Here are screencasts of the KnoppMyth and MythDora install process. There have been claims that the current version of KnoppMyth can be installed on fast hardware in as little as 10 minutes. MythTV is an excellent open source alternative to the DVRs offered by cable companies, Windows Media Center, or Tivo."

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