KentuckyFC writes "One of the biggest problems in nuclear proliferation is verifying that countries are not secretly transferring fissile material by taking it out of reactors and selling it. Now a group of US scientists say they've developed a machine that can remotely detect whether a reactor has been switched on and off by detecting the antineutrinos produced by nuclear reactions. The detector is about the size of a car engine and is designed to be left near a reactor to record data. The group has been testing a prototype at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Southern California and says it works well (abstract). Now it's up to the International Atomic Energy Authority in Vienna to decide whether to deploy the new machine."

A team of scientists from Observatoire Midi Pyrénées in Toulouse, France have been working with an unusual technique for focusing light. It takes advantage of diffraction - the bending of waves when they encounter an obstacle in their path - to focus light as it passes through a foil sheet with precise holes in it. The scientists suggest that an orbital 30-meter imager could resolve planets the size of Earth within 30 light-years. In addition, the foil is much lighter than traditional materials, and thus easier to transport. "A Fresnel imager with a sheet of a given size has vision just as sharp as a traditional telescope with a mirror of the same size, though it collects just 10% or so of the light. It can also observe in the ultraviolet and infrared, in addition to visible light. The imager can take very detailed images with high contrast, which is great for 'being able to see a very faint object in the close vicinity of a bright one.'"

eldavojohn writes "The watch-dog group Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) has set its sights on the rating of GTA IV, primarily because a player can drive drunk in the game. MADD released a statement saying that 'Drunk driving is not a game, and it is not a joke. Drunk driving is a choice, a violent crime and it is also 100 percent preventable.' MADD also is asking Rockstar Games to consider removing GTA IV from distribution 'out of respect for the millions of victims/survivors of drunk driving.' Rockstar replied to MADD by saying 'we have a great deal of respect for MADD's mission, but we believe the mature audience for "Grand Theft Auto IV" is more than sophisticated enough to understand the game's content.' As expected, Jack Thompson is making his usual attention-whoring remarks by comparing GTA IV to the polio virus."

Hugh Pickens writes "Nick Bostrom has an interesting interpretation on why the failure of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) for the past half-century is good news and why the discovery of life on Mars could foretell our doom. Bostrom postulates a 'Great Filter,' which can be thought of as a probability barrier and consists of one or more evolutionary transitions or steps that must be traversed at great odds in order for an Earth-like planet to produce a civilization capable of exploring distant solar systems."

Science Daily is reporting on the characterization of a population of ancient galaxies, formed less than 3 billion years after the Big Bang, that are as massive as some modern galaxies but are only 1/20 the size. Each of the 9 compact galaxies found is less than 5,000 light-years across, and could fit comfortably inside the Milky Way's central hub (if you moved the supermassive black hole out first). The stars in these galaxies were 1/2 to 1 billion years old when observed and at least one generation of massive stars had already exploded as supernovae.

The Globe and Mail is reporting that scientists claim to have found a DNA link between the frozen remains of an aboriginal man and 17 living people. "While the work on the human DNA project has opened new doors and work will continue on establishing a fuller family tree, Long Ago Person Found's descendants said they finally have the opportunity to give their ancestor a proper burial. Because his lineage had never been established, no memorial potlatch could be held. Of the 17 people linked through DNA, 15 self-identify with the Wolf Clan, meaning the young man was most likely Wolf as well."

Simon (S2) writes to mention that Europe's second Galileo navigation satellite reached orbit this past weekend. Galileo is promising to offer several technological advances in comparison to the US-based GPS system but no longer promises to be a guaranteed service. "The Galileo programme now seems certain to go ahead, after a prolonged and painful shift from partly-private financing of the construction to public funds taken from unspent EU farm subsidies. This money would normally have been returned to donor nations, with the UK, Germany and the Netherlands as the biggest three. London MPs have expressed doubt as to whether the UK will receive value for the money it will pay, but have acknowledged that the British government doesn't actually have any choice about Galileo under EU funding rules."

freakxx writes "India sets a world record after launching 10 satellites in one go using its workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). All the satellites were put into their respective orbits successfully. It was the core-alone version of the launch vehicle weighing 230 tonnes with a payload of 824 kg in total. Two of the satellites were Indian satellites, while the rest were from different countries. By this launch, the ISRO has proven its credibility and it is going to boost India's image in the attractive multi-billion commercial market of satellite launches. This was the 12th successful launch of the PSLV."

KentuckyFC writes "The first naturally occurring superheavy element has been found. An international team of scientists found several nuclei of unbibium in a sample of the naturally occurring heavy metal thorium. Unbibium has an atomic number of 122 and an atomic weight of 292. In general, very heavy elements tend to be unstable but scientists have long predicted that even heavier nuclei would be stable. The group that found unbibium in thorium say it has a half life in excess of 100 million years and an abundance of about 10^(-12) relative to thorium, which itself is about as abundant as lead." I'd also like it known that my spell checker did not know 'unbibium' before today, but it is now one word closer to encompassing all human knowledge.

Dr. Eggman writes "Ars Technica heralds the coming of the creature editor for the highly anticipated Spore. A previously promised downloadable demo of the creature editor from the game, due on September 7th, will be available June 17th. Furthermore, a full version of the creature editor will appear as a standalone product at the same time for $10. According to EA: 'The demo lets players shape, paint and play with an unlimited number of creatures, using 25 percent of the creature-making parts from Spore. Gamers can then share these creations with their friends, including seamless uploads to YouTube.'"

rbf writes "A girl I like at my university, a graduate student in mathematics, will be having a birthday next month. She had thought of throwing a nerd-themed party — show up with tape on your glasses, pants hiked up, etc. However, she decided against it because most of her friends are math nerds and wouldn't even have to dress up! So my question for the community is: What fun party ideas would appeal to a group of mostly math-major nerds?"

An anonymous reader points out an article up at Science News on a question that, remarkably, is still being debated after a few thousand years: is mathematics discovered, or is it invented? Those who answer "discovered" are the intellectual descendants of Plato; their number includes Roger Penrose. The article notes that one difficulty with the Platonic view: if mathematical ideas exist in some way independent of humans or minds, then human minds engaged in doing mathematics must somehow be able to connect with this non-physical state. The European Mathematical Society recently devoted space to the debate. One of the papers, Let Platonism die, can be found on page 24 of this PDF. The author believes that Platonism "has more in common with mystical religions than with modern science."

bippy writes "Five days, one game. The Rocky Mountain News has a write up of five days spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV recently in a San Francisco hotel. It ends: 'In Grand Theft Auto IV the story isn't just an amalgam of cut scenes and cleverly written dialogue, it's the experiences I create, too. It's now, watching Niko stand, his shoulders slumped, that the depth of this game finally hits me. Niko's journey, the one crafted by Rockstar, may have ended, but Niko's adventures in the story I am creating have just begun.'" The most anticipated game in a while, to be sure. I'm certainly looking forward to busting some heads and jumping ramps.

SpaceAdmiral writes "An experiment on the Space Shuttle Columbia has been analyzing your ice cream sundae. Or, rather, it looked at the phenomenon of 'shear thinning,' which explains why whipped cream comes out of the can like a liquid, but sits atop your sundae like a solid. The experiment actually involved shear thinning of xenon, a substance used in ion rocket engines, but whipped cream tastes better." I'm not sure it was cost effective to fly Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass into low earth orbit either, but hey, it's NASA — who am I to judge?

Roland Piquepaille writes "As you can guess, hardwired computer systems are much faster than general-purpose ones because they are designed to do a single task. But when they fail, they need to be totally reconfigured. This can be just a costly problem in a lab on Earth, but it can be vital in space. This is why a University of Arizona (UA) team is working with NASA to design self-healing computer systems for spacecraft. The UA engineers are working on hybrid hardware/software systems using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to develop these reconfigurable processing systems. As the lead researcher said, 'Our objective is to go beyond predicting a fault to using a self-healing system to fix the predicted fault before it occurs.'"