Science & Technology
DUNCAN MANSFIELD
AP
Fri, 31 Aug 2007 04:52 CDT
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. - The $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source facility, though still powering up, has established a new mark as the world's most powerful accelerator-based source of neutrons for scientific research.
The Oak Ridge National Laboratory announced Thursday that the SNS's neutron beam reached 183 kilowatts on Aug. 11, surpassing the 163-kilowatt record held by the ISIS facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England.
The University of Exeter
Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:10 CDT
Female beetles mate to quench their thirst according to new research by a scientist from the University of Exeter's School of Biosciences. The males of some insect species, including certain types of beetles, moths and crickets, produce unusually large ejaculates, which in some cases can account for around 10% of their body weight. The study shows that dehydrated females can accept sexual invitations simply to get hold of the water in the seminal fluid.
CLAUDIA DREIFUS
The New York Times
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:29 CDT
Two years ago, when Malcolm Gladwell published his best-selling "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," readers throughout the world were introduced to the ideas of Gerd Gigerenzer, a German social psychologist.
Dr. Gigerenzer, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, is known in social science circles for his breakthrough studies on the nature of intuitive thinking. Before his research, this was a topic often dismissed as crazed superstition. Dr. Gigerenzer, 59, was able to show how aspects of intuition work and how ordinary people successfully use it in modern life.
Nat Worden
TheStreet
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:29 CDT
News Corp. and General Electric planted a flag in cyberspace Wednesday in their bid to steal YouTube's thunder with a rival video site, now called
Hulu.
Having
announced the partnership in March, the media giants have finally put a homepage up on the Web, though no videos are available yet.
Space Daily
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 07:06 CDT
Scientists hope to learn more about climate changes here on Earth by studying Venus. A prototype balloon could eventually study the planet's surface and examine its atmosphere and the bizarre winds and chemistry within it. A team of JPL, ILC Dover and NASA Wallops Flight Facility engineers designed, fabricated and tested the balloon.
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| ©ESA
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| Scientists believe the Venus balloons could also help us learn more about climate changes here on Earth. "Venus is a place where global warming has gone amuck," Hall said. "It's about the same size as our planet, but the surface is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit, and we want to find out why."
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Slightly smaller than Earth, Venus is often regarded as Earth's sister planet. Both have similar densities, chemical compositions and gravities. However, its atmosphere is nearly 100 times thicker than Earth's, which causes blazing temperatures at the surface. By flying in the cool skies above Venus, the balloons would avoid that environment.
Mason Inman
National Geographic
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:57 CDT
Bacteria can survive in deep freeze for hundreds of thousands of years by staying just alive enough to keep their DNA in good repair, a new study says.
In earlier work, researchers had found ancient bacteria in permafrost and in deep ice cores from Antarctica.
Meredith F. Small
Live Science
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 06:41 CDT
I am lying on hot slab of rock on the coast of Maine. Fifty feet down to my right, the Atlantic Ocean crashes against a cliff face. I watch as the water spews upward and across a pile of boulders, leaving tide pools in its wake.
I am completely mesmerized. The waves come and they go and I stare and stare, my mind totally blank.
But then I realize it's not so much blank as content, mentally at rest, and that it's been a while since I've felt this good. The water has apparently washed away any thoughts of stuff I need to do for work, or personal troubles that days before were weighing me down.
I'm on vacation, I say to myself, and that's why happiness has taken over my brain.
Justin Pope
AP Education Writer
Tue, 28 Aug 2007 21:13 CDT
Combined math and reading SAT scores for the high school class of 2007 were the lowest in eight years - a trend the College Board attributed largely to the good news that a more diverse pool of students is taking the exam.
ANI
Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:03 CDT
British and Iranian archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a 200 kilometre long wall, the second longest wall in Asia after the Great Wall of China, in northern Iran.
Experts believe the Gorgan Great Wall in northern Iran's Golestan Province was built at about the same time as the 'Great Wall' and was used as a defence system against the invasions of the Ephthalites, a nomadic people who once lived in Central Asia.
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| ©Unknown
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| A view of Gorgan's Defensive Wall.
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international.news.bg
Tue, 28 Aug 2007 18:37 CDT
The Center for small objects in the Solar system in Harvard, USA, acknowledged the three new asteroids found last week by Bulgarian astronomers in the Capricorn constellation.
This announced the University center on space research and technologies at the Physics faculty of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", cited by Darik radio.
The objects are temporarily labeled as 2007 PN28, 2007 PQ2 и 2007 QD2 and are situated in the main asteroid zone. They circle between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter with periods respectively 4.7, 3.6 and 5.4 years.
