Science & TechnologyS


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On Your Last Nerve: Researchers Advance Understanding of Stem Cells


ScienceDaily
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00 UTC
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© North Carolina State UniversityThis is a high-resolution image of the surface of the adult stem cell niche in a mouse brain with a genetic label that makes FoxJ1+ cells green.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have identified a gene that tells embryonic stem cells in the brain when to stop producing nerve cells called neurons. The research is a significant advance in understanding the development of the nervous system, which is essential to addressing conditions such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders.

The bulk of neuron production in the central nervous system takes place before birth, and comes to a halt by birth. But scientists have identified specific regions in the core of the brain that retain stem cells into adulthood and continue to produce new neurons.

NC State researchers, investigating the subventricular zone, one of the regions that retains stem cells, have identified a gene that acts as a switch -- transforming some embryonic stem cells into adult cells that can no longer produce new neurons. The research was done using mice. These cells form a layer of cells that support adult stem cells. The gene, called FoxJ1, increases its activity near the time of birth, when neural development slows down. However, the FoxJ1 gene is not activated in most of the stem cells in the subventricular zone -- where new neurons continue to be produced into adulthood.
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Telescope

Watching a Cannibal Galaxy Dine


ScienceDaily
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00 UTC
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© ESOthe central parts of Centaurus A reveals The parallelogram-shaped remains of a smaller galaxy that was gulped down about 200 to 700 million years ago.
A new technique using near-infrared images, obtained with ESO's 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope (NTT), allows astronomers to see through the opaque dust lanes of the giant cannibal galaxy Centaurus A, unveiling its "last meal" in unprecedented detail -- a smaller spiral galaxy, currently twisted and warped. This amazing image also shows thousands of star clusters, strewn like glittering gems, churning inside Centaurus A.

Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is the nearest giant, elliptical galaxy, at a distance of about 11 million light-years. One of the most studied objects in the southern sky, by 1847 the unique appearance of this galaxy had already caught the attention of the famous British astronomer John Herschel, who catalogued the southern skies and made a comprehensive list of nebulae.

Herschel could not know, however, that this beautiful and spectacular appearance is due to an opaque dust lane that covers the central part of the galaxy. This dust is thought to be the remains of a cosmic merger between a giant elliptical galaxy and a smaller spiral galaxy full of dust.

Between 200 and 700 million years ago, this galaxy is indeed believed to have consumed a smaller spiral, gas-rich galaxy -- the contents of which appear to be churning inside Centaurus A's core, likely triggering new generations of stars.
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Bulb

Geologists uncover the truth about the origin of valuable mineral

Alexandra Irena Eremia
The Varsity
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:47 UTC
A recent study has revealed that "earthly" minerals such as rhodium and platinum did not originate from our beloved blue planet. University of Toronto geology professor James Brenan collaborated with William McDonough at the University of Maryland to outline a new theory explaining the existence of certain metals in the Earth's crust.

Brenan and McDonough simulated the extreme temperature conditions that occurred during the Earth's formation. This allowed them to measure the proportion of metals that would have remained after the Earth's temperature cooled. Through their intensive research, they demonstrated that metals such as platinum, rhodium, and iridium (from the platinum metal group) should have been completely eliminated from the Earth's outermost layer as a result of high temperatures.
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Satellite

Boeing: Laser Systems Destroys Unmanned Aerial Vehicles


Boeing
Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:44 UTC
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Image available for use by news media.
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] in May demonstrated the ability of mobile laser weapon systems to perform a unique mission: track and destroy small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

During the U.S. Air Force-sponsored tests at the Naval Air Warfare Center in China Lake, Calif., the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated experiments (MATRIX), which was developed by Boeing under contract to the Air Force Research Laboratory, used a single, high-brightness laser beam to shoot down five UAVs at various ranges. Laser Avenger, a Boeing-funded initiative, also shot down a UAV. Representatives of the Air Force and Army observed the tests.

"The Air Force and Boeing achieved a directed-energy breakthrough with these tests," said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing Missile Defense Systems' Directed Energy Systems unit. "MATRIX's performance is especially noteworthy because it demonstrated unprecedented, ultra-precise and lethal acquisition, pointing and tracking at long ranges using relatively low laser power."
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Question

The Giant Steps Back on Two GMO's. Why?


Green Planet.net
Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:44 UTC
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Monsanto has abandoned its ambitious plans for two types of a so-called "second generation GM crop" rather than accede to a request from European regulators for additional research and safety data.

Monsanto has informed the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that it no longer wishes to pursue its application for approval of GM maize LY038 and the stacked variety LY038 x MON810. Both of these varieties were designed to accelerate the growth rate of animals. Two letters were sent to EFSA from the Monsanto subsidiary company Renessen at the end of April this year confirming the withdrawal of its applications originally submitted in 2005 and 2006. The letters cite "decreased commercial value worldwide" and state that the high-lysene varieties "will no longer be a part of the Renessen business strategy in the near future." There has been no announcement of these decisions on the Monsanto web site, and there are no mentions on EFSA or European Commission web sites either.
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Laptop

Twitter urges Murdoch to be open

Jonathan Fildes
BBC News
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:57 UTC
Newspapers should become "radically open" if they want to make money in the online world, the co-founder of social networking site Twitter has said.

Biz Stone said that he would "love to see what happens" if newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch went ahead with plans to block Google from his websites.

"The future is in openness not [being] closed," he told the BBC.

Mr Murdoch recently said that search engines could not legally use material such as headlines in search results.

Earlier this year, he said his News Corp business would start charging customers for access to its websites.
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Sherlock

Archaeologists to Recover Pieces of USS Westfield


MyFox
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:27 UTC
The resting place of the USS Westfield is being disturbed to retrieve what's left of the Civil War-era vessel from a Texas ship channel.

Archaeologists seek to recover the remains to allow deepening of the Texas City channel by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Experts say a cannon is believed to be the largest remnant of the USS Westfield, a Union ship scuttled by the crew to avoid capture during the 1863 Battle of Galveston.

The cannon search began Wednesday as part of the $71 million ship channel upgrade.

The artifacts will go to the Texas A&M Conservation Research Laboratory, in an effort that could land some items at museums.
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Sherlock

New Fossils Reveal a World Full of Crocodiles


Reuters
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:27 UTC
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© Reuters/Mike HettwerPancakeCroc (above) and its fossil lower jaw. PancakeCroc was a fish eater with a 3-foot-long, pancake-flat skull. It likely rested motionless for hours, its open jaws waiting for prey.
New fossils unearthed in what is now the Sahara desert reveal a once-swampy world divided up among a half-dozen species of unusual and perhaps intelligent crocodiles, researchers reported Thursday.

They have given some of the new species snappy names -- BoarCroc, RatCroc, DogCroc, DuckCroc and PancakeCroc -- but say their findings help build an understanding of how crocodilians were and remain such a successful life form.

They lived during the Cretaceous period 145 million to 65 million years ago, when the continents were closer together and the world warmer and wetter than it is now.

"We were surprised to find so many species from the same time in the same place," said paleontologist Hans Larsson of McGill University in Montreal who worked on the study.

"Each of the crocs apparently had different diets, different behaviors. It appears they had divided up the ecosystem, each species taking advantage of it in its own way."
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Laptop

IBM Reports Progress in Creating Brain-Like Computer


Xinhua
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:43 UTC
International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) on Wednesday announced that its researchers have made significant progress toward creating a computer system that simulates the way the brain works.

Reporting their results at a supercomputing conference being held in Portland in the U.S. state of Oregon, IBM researchers said they have achieved a simulation with 1 billion neurons and 10 billion synapses using a supercomputer that has 147,456 processors.

Neurons are the key functional elements of the brain and synapses are the connections between them.

The advancement represents the first near real-time simulation of the brain that exceeds the scale of a cat's cerebral cortex, a structure within the brain that plays a key role in memory, attention and thought.

The results indicate the feasibility of building a cognitive computing chip, Dharmendra Modha, one of the researchers, wrote in a blog posting.
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Cloud Lightning

Venezuelan government to 'seed' clouds with rain

Frank Jack Daniel
Reuters
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:30 UTC
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© Unknown
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez says he will join a team of Cuban scientists on flights to "bomb clouds" to create rain amid a severe drought that has aroused public anger due to water and electricity rationing.

Chavez, who has asked Venezuelans to take three-minute showers to save water, said the Cubans had arrived in Venezuela and were preparing to fly specially equipped aircraft above the Orinoco river.

"I'm going in a plane; any cloud that crosses me, I'll zap it so that it rains," Chavez said at a ceremony late on Saturday with family members of five Cubans convicted of spying in the United States.

Many countries have programs aimed at altering weather patterns, commonly known as cloud seeding, although the effectiveness of such techniques is disputed.

Firing silver iodine at clouds is one common method. China uses rockets loaded with the chemical to spur rainfall in arid regions. Chavez did not say what technology the Cubans will use.
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