Science & TechnologyS


Laptop

Legal ruckus over Kindle 2's text-to-speech feature


Yahoo! Tech
Fri, 13 Feb 2009 03:35 UTC
It was hardly the most interesting or earth-shaking part of Jeff Bezos's introduction of the Kindle 2 on Monday, but one small, experimental feature in the device is already causing a minor uproar. Specifically: The Kindle 2's text-to-speech function, which will use a computerized voice to read aloud anything displayed on the device's screen. The problem? The Authors Guild says that that's against the law.

The challenge revolves around audiobooks, which are treated separately from printed material from a copyright standpoint. A retailer can't record a copy of a book on a CD and sell it or bundle it along with a novel without paying a separate fee, just as buying a copy of an audiobook doesn't entitle you to a free copy of the printed version.
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X

Neanderthals 'distinct from us'

James Morgan
BBC News
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:51 UTC
Scientists studying the DNA of Neanderthals say they can find no evidence that this ancient species ever interbred with modern humans.

Neanderthals - Sapiens
© SPLThe DNA will tease out the differences between Neanderthals (l) and us (r)
But our closest ancestors may well have been able to speak as well as us, said Prof Svante Paabo from Germany's Max Planck Institute.

He was speaking in Chicago, US, where he announced the "first draft" of a complete Neanderthal genome.

The genetics information has been gleaned from fossils found in Croatia.

Prof Svante Paabo confirmed that Neanderthals shared the FOXP2 gene associated with speech and language in modern humans.

A total of three billion "letters", covering 60% of the Neanderthal genome, have been sequenced by scientists from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and 454 Life Sciences Corporation, in Branford, Connecticut.
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Info

United States tweaks Internet privacy guidelines

Diane Bartz
Reuters
Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:29 UTC
Washington - Federal regulators tweaked recommendations for how websites should collect, save and share information about users, extending them to Internet service providers and mobile users.

The Federal Trade Commission issued new guidance on Thursday for the self-regulated industry that urges websites to tell consumers that data is being collected during their searches and to allow them to opt out.
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Satellite

Satellite collision could pose space threat - Crash creates debris; slight risk to space station, minor impact on Iridium


msnbc.com
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:27 UTC
Russian and U.S. experts say the first-ever collision between two satellites has created clouds of debris that could threaten other unmanned spacecraft.

Russia's Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin says there is little risk to the international space station with three crew members aboard.

Lyndin said Thursday that officials would monitor the debris from Tuesday's collision to make sure no fragments get near the station. He said the station's orbit was adjusted in the past to avoid debris.
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Sherlock

Neanderthals Could Walk Again After Discovery of Genetic Code

Fiona Macrae
The Daily Mail
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 20:00 UTC
Neanderthals
© UnknownBack from the dead?: Scientists could potentially revive man's closest relative.
Neanderthals are a step closer to walking on Earth again.

Scientists have unravelled the genetic code of man's closest cousin using fragments of bone found across Europe.

The blueprint could provide information on the Neanderthal's looks, intelligence, health and habits, as well as what makes us human.

It also raises the intriguing possibility of bringing our ancient relatives, who died out around 30,000 years ago, back from the dead.

Researcher Professor Jean-Jacques Hublin said: 'Studying the Neanderthals and studying the Neanderthal genome will tell us what makes modern humans really human, why we are alone, why we have these amazing capabilities that allowed our ancestors to draw paintings, to create complex symbols.'
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Telescope

Ultra Compact Dwarf Galaxies Once Crowded with Stars

Anne Minard
Universe Today
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:00 UTC
Astronomers think they've found a way to explain why Ultra Compact Dwarf Galaxies, oddball creations from the early universe, contain so much more mass than their luminosity would explain.

Pavel Kroupa, an astronomer at the University of Bonn in Germany, led a research team that's proposing the unexplained density may actually be a relic of stars that were once packed together a million times more closely than in the solar neighbourhood. The new paper appears in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

UCDs were discovered in 1999. At about 60 light years across, they are less than 1/1000th the diameter of the Milky Way - but much more dense. Astronomers have proposed they formed billions of years ago from collisions between normal galaxies. Until now, exotic dark matter has been suggested to explain the 'missing mass.'
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Einstein

On his 200th Birthday, Darwin's Theory Still in Controversy

Gregory Katz
The Associated Press
Sun, 08 Feb 2009 10:58 UTC
It's well known that Charles Darwin's groundbreaking theory of evolution made many people furious because it contradicted the Biblical view of creation. But few know that it also created problems for Darwin at home with his deeply religious wife, Emma.

Darwin held back the book to avoid offending his wife, said Ruth Padel, the naturalist's great-great-granddaughter. "She said he seemed to be putting God further and further off," Padel said in her north London home. "But they talked it through, and she said, "Don't change any of your ideas for fear of hurting me.'"

The 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species changed scientific thought forever - and generated opposition that continues to this day. It is this elegant explanation of how species evolve through natural selection that makes Darwin's 200th birthday on Feb. 12 such a major event.
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Magnify

UK Research Will Help Revive 'Dead' Manx Language


The University of Liverpool
Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:00 UTC
Liverpool, UK - A researcher at the University of Liverpool has produced the first modern, comprehensive handbook on Manx Gaelic, a language thought to have died out in the mid 19th Century.

As records detailing the grammatical construction of the language are rare, expert Jennifer Kewley Draskau, at the University's Centre for Manx Studies, used texts dating back to the 15th Century as well as unstructured, informal conversations between fluent native speakers on the Isle on Man. She also studied the 18th Century Manx Bible and modern poetry to produce the handbook, called Practical Manx, a guide to the grammar and morphology of the language.

Manx Gaelic - an off-shoot of Old Irish - virtually died out as community speech when English became the language of trade in the 19th Century. Manx is experiencing a revival and more than 600 people now claim to speak the language. The new study is the first attempt to record and describe the language, and the first time in more than a century that a grammar of Manx has been produced.
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Magnify

Scientists Discover Material Harder Than Diamond

Lisa Zyga
PhysOrg
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:00 UTC
Currently, diamond is regarded to be the hardest known material in the world. But by considering large compressive pressures under indenters, scientists have calculated that a material called wurtzite boron nitride (w-BN) has a greater indentation strength than diamond. The scientists also calculated that another material, lonsdaleite (also called hexagonal diamond, since it's made of carbon and is similar to diamond), is even stronger than w-BN and 58 percent stronger than diamond, setting a new record.

This analysis marks the first case where a material exceeds diamond in strength under the same loading conditions, explain the study's authors, who are from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The study is published in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.
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Telescope

Zoom In on New, Stunning Image of the Carina Nebula

Nancy Atkinson
Universe Today
Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:00 UTC
In today's 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, two astronomers from the University of Minnesota discuss Eta Carina, a relatively close enigmatic star in the Carina Nebula. In a sense of great timing, new images also released today from the ESO (European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere) reveal amazing detail in the intricate structures of the Carina Nebula, one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky. In addition to the gorgeous picture above, enjoy a pan-able image and a video that zooms in on this nebula (also known as NGC 3372), where strong winds and powerful radiation from an armada of massive stars are creating havoc in the large cloud of dust and gas from which the stars were born.

The Carina Nebula is located about 7,500 light-years away in the constellation of the same name (Carina; the Keel). Spanning about 100 light-years, it is four times larger than the famous Orion Nebula and far brighter. It is an intensive star-forming region with dark lanes of cool dust splitting up the glowing nebula gas that surrounds its many clusters of stars.
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