Science & TechnologyS


Nuke

Trouble comes in threes: New contamination incident at French nuclear site

Francois Murphy
Reuters
Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:58 UTC
Around 100 staff at a nuclear power plant in southern France were contaminated with a low dose of radiation on Wednesday, power firm EDF said, the latest incident there after a case of uranium spillage two weeks ago.

Unknown
©Unknown
The large Tricastin enrichment facility includes four nuclear reactors that provide over 3000 MWe power for the plant.
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Magnify

Planting Ideology

Reviewed by Anne Applebaum
Washington Post
Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:46 UTC
How Soviet leaders resisted the study of genetics and destroyed a great scientist.

Comment: Did you catch that last remark? Although the Soviet Union destroyed a great scientist, they saved his life's work. Strange that. It reminds one of article like this and this.

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Meteor

Small Satellite Designed to Spot Big Bad Asteroids

Jeremy Hsu
Space.com
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:43 UTC


small satellite
©Unknown

A tiny Canadian satellite is gearing up for a mission to hunt wayward space rocks that may pose a threat to Earth.

Only the size of a suitcase, the Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) has a 5.9-inch (15-cm) telescope and weighs about 143 pounds (65 kg). But it's designed to hunt for threatening space rocks from Earth orbit, where the telescope can avoid interference from the planet's atmosphere.
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Bulb

Study suggests human visual system could make powerful computer


Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:30 UTC
Since the idea of using DNA to create faster, smaller, and more powerful computers originated in 1994, scientists have been scrambling to develop successful ways to use genetic code for computation. Now, new research from a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute suggests that if we want to carry out artificial computations, all we have to do is literally look around.

Assistant Professor of Cognitive Science Mark Changizi has begun to develop a technique to turn our eyes and visual system into a programmable computer. His findings are reported in the latest issue of the journal Perception.

Harnessing the computing power of our visual system, according to Changizi, requires visually representing a computer program in such a way that when an individual views the representation, the visual system naturally carries out the computation and generates a perception.

Image
©Rensselaer/Changizi
To actually get your visual system to carry out this computation requires "perceptually walking through the circuit" from the inputs downward to the output.
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Bulb

New Technology Has End In Sight For Dreaded Dentist Drill


Science Daily
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:46 UTC
A new technology that spots tooth decay almost as soon as it's begun promises to reduce the need for drilling and filling. Drilling is one of the top dental phobias and puts thousands of people off visiting their dentist every year.

The new technology, which may be available in dental surgeries in five years from now, is based on Raman spectroscopy most commonly used to distinguish between different chemicals by identifying each molecule's unique fingerprint. It detects decay simply and painlessly by pointing a tiny optical fibre at the tooth to check on its health.

A preliminary study at King's College London, where the technique is being developed, found that chemical changes in the tooth could be detected by analysing how light is scattered when a laser is fired at the tooth. Researchers were able to tell healthy teeth from carious teeth because bacteria, responsible for the decay, scatter light in a different way to healthy teeth.
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Display

Potentially Serious Security Flaws Found In Most Bank Websites, Including Large Bank Sites


Science Daily
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:01 UTC
More than 75 percent of the bank Web sites surveyed in a University of Michigan study had at least one design flaw that could make customers vulnerable to cyber thieves after their money or even their identity.

Image
©iStockphoto/Angel Herrero De Frutos

Atul Prakash, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and doctoral students Laura Falk and Kevin Borders examined the Web sites of 214 financial institutions in 2006. They will present the findings for the first time at the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security meeting at Carnegie Mellon University July 25.
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Telescope

The 2008 Perseid Meteor Shower


Physorg.com
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:49 UTC


Perseid meteor shower
©Unknown

"The time to look is during the dark hours before dawn on Tuesday, August 12th," says Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "There should be plenty of meteors--perhaps one or two every minute."

The source of the shower is Comet Swift-Tuttle. Although the comet is far away, currently located beyond the orbit of Uranus, a trail of debris from the comet stretches all the way back to Earth. Crossing the trail in August, Earth will be pelted by specks of comet dust hitting the atmosphere at 132,000 mph. At that speed, even a flimsy speck of dust makes a vivid streak of light when it disintegrates--a meteor! Because, Swift-Tuttle's meteors streak out of the constellation Perseus, they are called "Perseids."
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Info

New Evidence Of Battle Between Humans And Ancient Virus


Science Daily
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:21 UTC
For millennia, humans and viruses have been locked in an evolutionary back-and-forth -- one changes to outsmart the other, prompting the second to change and outsmart the first. With retroviruses, which work by inserting themselves into their host's DNA, the evidence remains in our genes.

Last year, researchers at Rockefeller University and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center brought an ancient retrovirus back to life and showed it could reproduce and infect human cells. Now, the same scientists have looked at the human side of the story and found evidence that our ancestors fought back against that virus with a defense mechanism our bodies still use today.

"This is the first time that we've been able to take an ancient retrovirus and analyze how it interacts with host defense mechanisms in the laboratory in the present day," says Paul Bieniasz, who is an associate professor and head of the Laboratory of Retrovirology at Rockefeller and a scientist at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. Bieniasz and graduate student Youngnam Lee took their resurrected virus, called HERV-K, tested its strength against molecules involved in human antiviral defense.
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Info

Remains of vast Neolithic site found in south China


Reuters
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:03 UTC
Beijing - Thousands of ancient artifacts and wooden poles more than 3,000 years old have been unearthed in China's southern Yunnan province, possibly the world's largest site of a Neolithic community, local media reported on Tuesday.

The poles, found standing 4.6 meters underground, were used as part of building structures for an ancient community that may have covered an area of 4 square km, the China Daily reported, citing Min Rui, a researcher at Yunnan Archaeological Institute, who is leading the excavation team.

The site could be older than the Hemudu community in Yuyao, in Zhejiang province, which is among the most famous in China and is believed to be the birthplace of society around the Yangtze River.

An area of 1,350 sq m has already been uncovered and excavation is ongoing.

"I was shocked when I first saw the site. I have never seen such a big and orderly one," Yan Wenming, history professor at Peking University, was quoted as saying.
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Better Earth

Unique Fossil Discovery Shows Antarctic Was Once Much Warmer


Science Daily
Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:56 UTC
A new fossil discovery- the first of its kind from the whole of the Antarctic continent- provides scientists with new evidence to support the theory that the polar region was once much warmer.

Scientists made a new fossil discovery in the Dry Valleys of the East Antarctic region. The fossils (ostracods) come from an ancient lake - 14 million years old - and are exceptionally well preserved, with all of their soft anatomy in 3-dimensions.

Image
©Mark Williams, University of Leicester
Figure of the fossil ostracod from the Dry Valleys. The specimen is less than 1 mm long, but preserves an array of soft tissues including legs and mouth parts. The head end is to the right.

The discovery by an international team of scientists is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It involved researchers from the University of Leicester, North Dakota State University, the British Geological Survey, Queen Mary University of London, and Boston University.
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