moonbuggy

‘Scientists working with the Defense Department have found evidence that a low-level exposure to sarin nerve gas — the kind experienced by more than 100,000 American troops in the Persian Gulf war of 1991 — could have caused lasting brain deficits in former service members.

Though the results are preliminary, the study is notable for being financed by the federal government and for being the first to make use of a detailed analysis of sarin exposure performed by the Pentagon, based on wind patterns and plume size.

The report, to be published in the June issue of the journal NeuroToxicology, found apparent changes in the brain’s connective tissue — its so-called white matter — in soldiers exposed to the gas. The extent of the brain changes — less white matter and slightly larger brain cavities — corresponded to the extent of exposure, the study found.’

‘These days, data get stored on disks, computer chips, hard drives and good old-fashioned paper.

Scientists in Japan see something far smaller but more durable – bacteria.

The four characters – T, C, A and G – that represent the genetic coding in DNA work much like digital data.

Character combinations can stand for specific letters and symbols – so codes in genomes can be translated, or read, to produce music, text, video and other content.

While ink may fade and computers may crash, bacterial information lasts as long as a species stays alive – possibly a mind-boggling million years – according to Professor Masaru Tomita, who heads the team of researchers at Keio University.’

‘Ned Kelly, the legendary Australian bushranger who evaded police for two years before being captured and hanged in 1880, has gone missing again. His bones have vanished from a mass prison grave in Melbourne where they were believed to be buried. [..]

Pentridge closed in 1997 and the site is being redeveloped for housing, with the state conservation body, Heritage Victoria, overseeing the work. Archaeological tests were recently carried out at the mass burial site, but no human remains were found.

Archaeologists discovered evidence that the soil had been disturbed about 50 years ago, probably during major drainage works.

Ray Tonkin, the head of Heritage Victoria, said yesterday: “We now believe these remains were probably removed in the 1950s or 1960s, as part of the installation of large service pipes that took place at the prison at the time.” The remains of about 32 criminals are believed to have been lost, possibly dumped in a quarry.’

‘Twin brothers Raymon and Richard Miller are the father and uncle to a 3-year-old little girl. The problem is, they don’t know which is which. Or who is who.

The identical Missouri twins say they were unknowingly having sex with the same woman. And according to the woman’s testimony, she had sex with each man on the same day. Within hours of each other.

When the woman in question, Holly Marie Adams, got pregnant, she named Raymon the father, but he contested and demanded a paternity test, bringing his own brother Richard to court.

But a paternity test in this case could not help. The test showed that both brothers have over a 99.9 percent probability of being the daddy — and neither one wants to pay the child support.’

‘An artificial lake in El Salvador brimming with sewage and industrial waste is mystifying scientists by attracting thousands of migratory and sea birds.

Built in 1974 to drive El Salvador’s biggest hydroelectric project, the 33,360-acre (13,500- hectare) Cerron Grande reservoir collects some 3,800 metric tons of excrement each year from the sewage pipes, as well as factory run-off and traces of heavy metals like chromium and lead, the government estimates.

So scientists are puzzling over the fact that some 150,000 seabirds from more than 130 species have chosen to make the reservoir their home. At least 90 of the species are migratory birds arriving from as far away as Alaska.’

‘According to the caller, the mysteries had actually been solved by Joseph Davidovits, Director of the Geopolymer Institute in St. Quentin, France, more than two decades ago. Davidovits claimed that the stones of the pyramids were actually made of a very early form of concrete created using a mixture of limestone, clay, lime, and water. [..]

A year and a half later, after extensive scanning electron microscope (SEM) observations and other testing, Barsoum and his research group finally began to draw some conclusions about the pyramids. They found that the tiniest structures within the inner and outer casing stones were indeed consistent with a reconstituted limestone. The cement binding the limestone aggregate was either silicon dioxide (the building block of quartz) or a calcium and magnesium-rich silicate mineral.

The stones also had a high water content-unusual for the normally dry, natural limestone found on the Giza plateau-and the cementing phases, in both the inner and outer casing stones, were amorphous, in other words, their atoms were not arranged in a regular and periodic array. Sedimentary rocks such as limestone are seldom, if ever, amorphous.

The sample chemistries the researchers found do not exist anywhere in nature. “Therefore,” says Barsoum, “it’s very improbable that the outer and inner casing stones that we examined were chiseled from a natural limestone block.”‘

‘The world is now on track to experience more catastrophic damages from climate change than in the worst-case scenario forecast by international experts, scientists have warned.

The research, published in a prestigious US science journal, shows that between 2000 and 2004 the rate of increase in global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels was three times greater than in the 1990s. [..]

The climbing emissions mean that average global temperatures are now on track to rise by more than four degrees this century – enough to thaw vast areas of arctic permafrost and leave about 3 billion people suffering from water shortages, including in Australia.’

‘In animal markets, some parts and products are not what they are labeled. One of the most difficult products to identify has been genuine dried tiger penises. The reason for this is the rarity of the real thing and a long tradition of the production of “lesser tiger” or tiger substitute, that is, any other large mammal that can be promoted as a replacement for tiger. When rehydrated and consumed in a soup of tea, this product is believed to serve as an aphrodisiac or restorative tisane. To date, no dried penis from an actual tiger has been seen in the Lab as evidence in a wildlife case.’

‘The first part of this Foundry Note describes a technique for using a domestic microwave oven to melt and cast, to accurate shape, small quantities (up to a quarter of a kilo) of bronze, silver, white metal or iron. The technique has been used to cast pieces from ceramic shell moulds up to about 18cm high, and is an accessible alternative to other small-scale melting set-ups, for example the flask casting of jewellery.

The second part of the note describes thoughts and tests which led to the procedure. It offers guidance and some warnings, to anyone making investigations into metal heating by microwave.’

‘French workers are the world’s biggest whiners, according to a study published Monday which said the Irish complain least about their lot.

Britons come second to their Gallic cousins in the moaning stakes, followed by Sweden, the United States and Australia. Japanese workers have the lowest morale, but don’t complain so much.

The lowest levels of whining were found in the Netherlands, Thailand and Ireland, according to the study by the FDS research group.

“It is interesting to note that after France, Britain and Sweden, the world’s biggest workplace whingers are Americans, despite their having by far the highest levels of income,” said FDS chief Charlotte Cornish.’

‘The way was cleared on Thursday for scientists to conduct experiments using hybrid animal-human embryos after the government bowed to a storm of protest from researchers who said a proposed ban could hurt British science.

The Department of Health said it would accept a recommendation from the Commons Science and Technology Committee that inter-species embryos could be created for research.

Scientists want to use the hybrid embryos to find cures for illnesses such as Parkinson’s, stroke and Alzheimer’s.’

‘Until recently, I had never heard of cluster headaches, and neither had my friend Bob, which isn’t his name for reasons that will soon be evident.

Bob was in his late 40s with no medical problems.

Out of nowhere he began having headaches. These were not the two-aspirin kind, or even migraines. They were monsters. I realized this one night at his house. For an hour he lay on the floor, screaming. We’re not talking moaning and grousing. Screaming.

Clueless, he went to the Web and discovered cluster headaches. They are hideous. His symptoms were par for the course. [..]

From Neurology, the magazine of the American Academy of Neurology: “The authors interviewed 53 cluster headache patients who had used psilocybin or lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to treat their condition.

“Twenty-two of 26 psilocybin users reported that psilocybin aborted attacks; 25 of 48 psilocybin users and seven of eight LSD users reported cluster period termination …”‘

There’s a video of what a cluster headache does to a person here. Doesn’t look fun at all.

(7.6meg Windows media)

‘Culture is a huge factor in determining whether we look someone in the eye or the kisser to interpret facial expressions, according to a new study.

For instance, in Japan, people tend to look to the eyes for emotional cues, whereas Americans tend to look to the mouth, says researcher Masaki Yuki, a behavioral scientist at Hokkaido University in Japan. [..]

So when Yuki entered graduate school and began communicating with American scholars over e-mail, he was often confused by their use of emoticons such as smiley faces :) and sad faces, or :(.

“It took some time before I finally understood that they were faces,” he wrote in an e-mail. In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face (^_^) and the sad face (;_;). “After seeing the difference between American and Japanese emoticons, it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical American and Japanese smiles,” he said.’

I didn’t read most of this page, ’cause I couldn’t be fucked. But, right at the top is the following quote, which suggests the rest of the page may also be amusing:

‘To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.’

It’s funny because it’s true. :)

‘Since the fluid is a continuous medium, a traveling disturbance will result. In the earth’s atmosphere, gravity waves are important for transferring momentum from the troposphere to the mesosphere. Gravity waves are generated in the troposphere by frontal systems or by airflow over mountains. At first waves propagate through the atmosphere without affecting its mean velocity. But as the waves reach more rarefied air at higher altitudes, their amplitude increases, and nonlinear effects cause the waves to break, transferring their momentum to the mean flow.’

(1.0meg Flash video)

see it here »

‘iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday.

The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient’s chest for 5 to 10 seconds.

The study did not examine any portable music devices other than iPods, which are made by Apple Inc.

In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart’s pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.’

This is a review of nuclear criticality accidents made in 2000 by the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

There’s 158 pages of cool technical stuff.

(3.7meg PDF)

‘If it seems Canadians weigh less than their American neighbours, they do – but not for the reasons you might think. A large swath of Canada actually boasts lower gravity than its surroundings.

Researchers have puzzled for years over whether this was due to the crust there rebounding slowly after the end of the last ice age or a deeper issue involving convection in the Earth’s mantle – or some combination of the two.

Now, ultra-precise measurements taken over four years by a pair of satellites known as GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) reveal that each effect is equally responsible for Canada’s low gravity. The work could shed light on how continents form and evolve over time.’

‘Texas State University’s plan to build the nation’s largest “body farm” of cadavers is on hold after the school scrapped its proposed site amid concerns that buzzards could endanger nearby planes.

The university will now scout a new location for what will be only the third body farm in the nation. The school had hoped to begin burying bodies later this year.

By burying cadavers and studying human decomposition, researchers aim to help police better solve questions like time and manner of death at crime scenes.’

‘Cold fusion, the ability to generate nuclear power at room temperatures, has proven to be a highly elusive feat. In fact, it is considered by many experts to be a mere pipe dream — a potentially unlimited source of clean energy that remains tantalizing, but so far unattainable.

However, a recently published academic paper from the Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego throws cold water on skeptics of cold fusion. Appearing in the respected journal Naturwissenschaften, which counts Albert Einstein among its distinguished authors, the article claims that Spawar scientists Stanislaw Szpak and Pamela Mosier-Boss have achieved a low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) that can be replicated and verified by the scientific community.’

‘A rare cancer in the back of the throat is “strongly associated” with a virus transmitted during oral sex, US researchers believe.

A study of 100 women diagnosed with cancers at the back of the throat, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, has linked human papillomavirus (HPV) with throat cancer. It concluded oral HPV infection was associated with oropharyngeal cancer among people with or without the other risk factors of tobacco and alcohol use.

Infection with sexually transmitted HPV is a cause of virtually all cervical cancers.’

‘Spreading honey on a diabetic ulcer could prevent the need to amputate an infected foot, researchers say.

A doctor at the University of Wisconsin who helped about half a dozen of her diabetic patients avoid amputation has launched a controlled trial to promote the widespread use of honey therapy.

The therapy involves squeezing a thick layer of honey onto the wound after dead skin and bacteria have been removed.

The honey kills bacteria because it is acidic and avoids the complication of bacterial resistance found with standard antibiotics, Jennifer Eddy, a professor at the University’s School of Medicine and Public Health, told AFP.

“This is a tremendously important issue for world health,” Eddy said.’

‘In October 1957, after several years of successful operation, the workers at Windscale noticed some curious readings from their temperature monitoring equipment as they carried out standard maintenance. The reactor temperature was slowly rising during a time that they expected it to be falling. The remote detection equipment seemed to be malfunctioning, so two plant workers donned protective equipment and hiked to the reactor to inspect it in person. When they arrived, they were alarmed to discover that the interior of the uranium-filled reactor was ablaze.’

‘The pursuit of science in President Vladimir Putin’s Russia is driven by profit alone and there was less government interference even under Josef Stalin, a Russian Nobel Prize winner said in a interview.

Vitaly Ginzburg’s comments to the Sunday Telegraph newspaper are likely to put Russia’s scientists back on a collision course with the Kremlin.

In March, Russia’s Academy of Sciences, founded by Tsar Peter the Great, spurned a government plan to establish a new supervisory council that would control the body’s finances and include officials from the presidential administration.’

‘The international and Hong Kong authorities said Monday that they had received little information from mainland Chinese officials about a mysterious ailment killing pigs in southeastern China or about Chinese wheat gluten contaminated with plastic scrap, raising questions again about whether Beijing is willing to share data on global health issues.

The Chinese government, and particularly the government of Guangdong Province, next to Hong Kong, suffered heavy criticism in 2003 after concealing the SARS virus for the first four months after it first emerged in Foshan, 150 kilometers, or 95 miles, northwest of Hong Kong. After SARS spread to Hong Kong and around the world, top Chinese officials promised to improve disclosure.

But officials in Hong Kong as well as at the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday that they had received practically no information about the latest pig deaths and limited details about wheat gluten contamination.’

‘On January 16, 2007, a dazzling blue flame blasted across the sands of the Mojave desert. In many respects, it looked like an ordinary rocket engine test, but this was different. While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, “we were testing a methane engine,” says project manager Terri Tramel of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). [..]

The main engine, built and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystems/XCOR Aerospace, is still in an early stage of development and isn’t ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.

Methane (CH4), the principal component of natural gas, is abundant in the outer solar system. It can be harvested from Mars, Titan, Jupiter, and many other planets and moons. With fuel waiting at the destination, a rocket leaving Earth wouldn’t have to carry so much propellant, reducing the cost of a mission.’

Check out the video.

(3.3meg Windows media)

‘Voyager 1 and 2 both carry with them a golden record that contains pictures and sounds of Earth, along with symbolic directions for playing the record and data detailing the location of Earth. The record is intended as a combination time capsule and interstellar message to any civilization, alien or far-future human, that recovers either of the Voyager craft. The contents of this record were selected by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan.

The following is a selection of pictures electronically placed on the phonograph records which are carried onboard the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft.’

‘An environmental consulting firm and other developers here have come up with a non-perishable food pack that creates steaming hot rice with the simple addition of cold water.

The group has recently introduced the product, named “Hotto! Raisu,” to the market.

By subjecting rice to 4,000 times normal atmospheric pressure, the developers were able to preserve rice for long periods in a soft form that holds moisture. When water is poured over an exothermic agent in the pack, steam warms the rice contained within, and after about 15 minutes, the dish is piping hot.’

There’s some graphs showing the change in light levels that indicate the planet is there. Also a graph of light from a binary start system.

‘Scientists believe they have for the first time identified an ancient graveyard for gladiators.

Analysis of their bones and injuries has given new insight into how they lived, fought and died. [..]

“I’ve looked at quite a few hundred Roman skeletons. I’ve seen examples of head injuries, healed and unhealed. I’ve seen evidence of decapitations,” she says.

“But this (new find) is extremely significant; there’s nothing been found in the world at all like it. They’ve really dispelled quite a lot of myths about gladiators and how they fought.”‘