moonbuggy

`For 40 years it has been torched, vandalized, had its legs cut off and even been run over by a car. But officials in the Swedish city of Gavle are guaranteeing that this year’s giant straw Christmas goat – the victim of Sweden’s most violent yule tradition – will survive unscathed.

The 43-foot-high goat – a centuries-old yule symbol that preceded Santa Claus as the bringer of gifts to Swedish homes – has been burned down 22 times since it was first set up in Gavle’s square on Dec. 3, 1966.

But for its 40th anniversary Sunday, officials think they have finally outsmarted the resourceful vandals by dousing the battered ram with flame-resistant chemicals normally used on airplanes.’

`NASA has announced it plans to build a permanently occupied base on the moon, most likely at the lunar north pole.

The habitat will serve as a science outpost as well as a testbed for technologies needed for future travel to Mars and construction will follow a series of flights to the moon scheduled to begin by 2020.

NASA’s associate administrator for exploration, Scott “Doc” Horowitz, told reporters of the plans in a teleconference from the Johnson Space Centre in Houston on Monday.

“We’re going for a base on the moon,” he said.’

So, I did this test to kill some time. Apparently I’m introverted, intuitive, thinking and perceiving. INTP, for short. Detailed description [with the bits that make me chuckle in bold :)]:

`loner, more interested in intellectual pursuits than relationships or family, wrestles with the meaninglessness of existence, likes esoteric things, disorganized, messy, likes science fiction, can be lonely, observer, private, can’t describe feelings easily, detached, likes solitude, not revealing, unemotional, rule breaker, avoidant, familiar with the darkside, skeptical, acts without consulting others, does not think they are weird but others do, socially uncomfortable, abrupt, fantasy prone, does not like happy people, appreciates strangeness, frequently loses things, acts without planning, guarded, not punctual, more likely to support marijuana legalization, not prone to compromise, hard to persuade, relies on mind more than on others, calm‘

So, you cunts better not be happy around me. I’ll calmly kick you in the nuts or something if you are. :)

‘Back in the late 60’s this book, written for Children, was pulled from all public libraries and store shelves by the government. It was said that the experiments and information contained herein were too dangerous for the general public. [..]

This book is thoroughly interesting and is full of ideas and inspiration, it is the bible for any young chemist-in-training. Used copies on Amazon are rare and are currently priced between $237 and $690 for very used copies. However, because it was published in 1960, before the US copyright laws were rewritten, and because its original copyright was never renewed (yes, I checked myself), it’s legal for me to share with you online.’

This links to a 28.5meg, 114page PDF of the book. You can also see Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments at Amazon .. US$250.. Not cheap. :)

`Israel is using nanotechnology to try to create a robot no bigger than a hornet that would be able to chase, photograph and kill its targets, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.

The flying robot, nicknamed the “bionic hornet,” would be able to navigate its way down narrow alleyways to target otherwise unreachable enemies such as rocket launchers, the daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.

It is one of several weapons being developed by scientists to combat militants, it said. Others include super gloves that would give the user the strength of a “bionic man” and miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers.’

‘This is the engrossing story of Mary Toft, a young 18th-century Englishwoman who sought to make some money by inserting parts of rabbits into her vagina and pretending to expel them from her uterus. The case was celebrated at the time–popular poems appeared about it, bestsellers were written about it, the king of England ordered an investigation, her contemporaries considered her, as the title puts it, a medical mystery–and she became something of a freak-sensation. Pickover (Time: A Traveller’s Guide, etc.), carefully explores how 18th-century physicians were able to believe in such a medical marvel–even though they were scientifically in a position to have known better–and then finds in this history a cautionary tale appropriate for our own times.’

‘They filled a pool with a mix of cornstarch and water made on a concrete mixer truck. It becomes a non-newtonian fluid. When stress is applied to the liquid it exhibits properties of a solid.’

(9.5meg Flash video)

see it here »

`Smokers who believe they can avoid fatal disease by slashing the number of cigarettes they smoke each day are sorely mistaken, according to a new study which suggests the only safe way to escape the risk is to quit.

Long-term research conducted among more than 50,000 Norwegians found that men who halved their daily consumption of cigarettes were as likely to die of cardiovascular disease, reduced blood flow to the heart or cancer as heavy smokers.

And, remarkably, it found that women who cut back were in fact more likely to die prematurely than their heavy-smoking counterparts.’

`Cosmic Latte is the color of the universe, according to a team of astronomers from Johns Hopkins University. In 2001, Karl Glazebrook and Ivan Baldry determined that the color of the universe was a greenish white, but they soon corrected their analysis in “The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: constraints on cosmic star-formation history from the cosmic spectrum”, published in 2002. In this paper, they reported that their survey of the color of all light in the universe added up to a slightly beige white. The survey included more than 200,000 galaxies, and measured the spectral range of the light from a large volume of the universe. The hexadecimal RGB value for Cosmic Latte is #FFF8E7. ‘

`The wings of noisy cicada insects have been harnessed as nanoscale printing blocks. Chinese scientists say the synthetic wings could someday be used to make anti-reflective lens coatings and improved laser microscopes.

Cicada’s wings are covered with thousands of pillar-like protrusions. Each is 400 nanometres tall and tapers from 150 nm wide at the base to 80 nm at the tip. [..]

The technique, called “nanoimprint lithography”, involved pressing a wing into a layer of heated plastic to create an imprint, making a mould of the nanoscopic pattern found on each wing.’

`In a controversial study, researchers have resurrected a retrovirus that infected our ancestors millions of years ago and now sits frozen in the human genome. Published online by Genome Research this week, the study may shed new light on the history of these genomic intruders, as well as their role in tumors. Although this particular virus, dubbed Phoenix, is a wimpy one, some argue that resuscitating any ancient virus is inherently risky and that the study should have undergone stricter reviews.

Retroviruses have the ability to make DNA copies of their RNA genomes and incorporate these into the host’s genome. If this happens in a germ cell, the copy can be passed on to future generations. Indeed, the human genome is littered with the remnants of such human endogenous retroviruses [..]’

`Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war.

The Bush administration did so under pressure from congressional Republicans who said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say present a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.’

`Forget where you left your glasses? Did those keys go missing again? A virus may be to blame.

Viruses that cause a range of ills from the common cold to polio may be able to infect the brain and cause steady damage, a team at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota reports. [..]

“Our findings suggest that picornavirus infections throughout the lifetime of an individual may chip away at the cognitive reserve, increasing the likelihood of detectable cognitive impairment as the individual ages,” the researchers write.

“We hypothesise that mild memory and cognitive impairments of unknown aetiology may, in fact, be due to accumulative loss of hippocampus function caused by repeated infection with common and widespread neurovirulent picornaviruses.”‘

`Now on display is a 5,000-square-foot exhibit on excrement titled “The Scoop on Poop,” which invites visitors to explore the science of scat. The exhibit is filled with photos of animals in some of their most indelicate moments. Stool sample models abound: haylike football-sized balls (elephant), kidney-bean-looking pellets (porcupine) and coallike lumps coated with fur (black bear).

Beyond the “ick” factor, however, zoo officials and the exhibit’s creators say there is a lot of information being imparted. Visitors can smell the stench of flowers that mimic dung to attract flies for pollination. Videos include one of a hippo spreading its droppings around to mark its territory. Simple games include “Who Dung It?”’

`Elephants have been found to recognise themselves in a mirror, putting them in an exclusive club of self-awareness whose other members are great apes (including humans) and bottlenose dolphins. [..]

An 8ft mirror was put in the elephant enclosure at the Bronx zoo in New York and a watch kept on its three inhabitants. The first question was if they greeted their reflection as if meeting another individual – they did not make this mistake, and used the mirror to inspect themselves, for example, moving their trunks to look at the inside of their mouths.’

`A new nano-optical device can focus laser light tighter than traditional optics, which could lead to higher-density data storage.

A computer simulation of the optical nano antenna that Harvard researchers have fabricated. Consisting of two gold-coated nano rods separated by a 30-nanometer gap, the antenna can focus light from a commercial laser to a spot just 40 nanometers wide. It could be used to write terabytes, rather than gigabytes, of data to a CD or DVD.’

`To objectively test the flushing performance of six-litre toilets, Gauley first had to develop a “test specimen” that would better replicate human waste than past “non-realistic test media (sponges, plastic balls and beads, craft paper, etc.),” the current report says.

“For a long time someone would try something and say, `Hey, I found this Play-Doh’ and we’d sit around the boardroom table squishing it through our fingers,” Gauley recalls.

He and his team eventually found a material that eerily replicates the density, moisture content, and other properties of the real thing: a brownish soybean paste imported from Japan in 20-kilogram containers. It’s better known as miso.’

`A diet containing curry may help protect the aging brain, according a study of elderly Asians in which increased curry consumption was associated with better cognitive performance on standard tests.

Curcumin, found in the curry spice turmeric, possesses potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. [..]

After taking into account factors that could impact test results, they found that people who consumed curry “occasionally” and “often or very often” had significantly better MMSE scores than did those who “never or rarely” consumed curry.’

`Want to spend less at the pump? Lose some weight. That’s the implication of a new study that says Americans are burning nearly 1 billion more gallons of gasoline each year than they did in 1960 because of their expanding waistlines. Simply put, more weight in the car means lower gas mileage. [..]

“The bottom line is that our hunger for food and our hunger for oil are not independent. There is a relationship between the two,” said University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson, a study co-author.’

`Men who use mobile phones could be risking their fertility, warn researchers.

A new study shows a worrying link between poor sperm and the number of hours a day that a man uses his mobile phone.

Those who made calls on a mobile phone for more than four hours a day had the worst sperm counts and the poorest quality sperm, according to results released yest at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in New Orleans.’

`Workers at computer factories are at increased risk of dying of cancer. The largest study of its kind published today in the open access journal Environmental Health looks at over 30,000 deaths of workers who had been employed at IBM factories in the USA. The study reveals that IBM factory workers were more likely to have died of cancer, including brain, kidney or breast cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, than the rest of the population.

The author of the study cannot link these deaths to any specific chemicals or other toxic exposures. The current study confirms previous, smaller studies and highlights clear health risks for workers in computer factories across the world.’

‘It is bad for your blood pressure, knocks years off your life and is a strain on your heart. Now scientists have discovered that gaining weight lowers your intelligence. [..]

The researchers found that people with a Body Mass Index — a measure of body fat — of 20 or less could recall 56 per cent of words in a vocabulary test, while those who were obese, with a BMI of 30 or higher, could remember only 44 per cent.

The fatter subjects also showed a higher rate of cognitive decline when they were retested five years later: their recall dropped to 37.5 per cent, whereas those with a healthy weight retained their level of recall.’

`American and Russian scientists announced on Monday that they had discovered a superheavy element, known as 118, albeit one that has only existed in three different atoms lasting a fraction of a second over months of experiments. [..]

In the latest experiments, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, bombarded californium with calcium ions to create 118 — the heaviest ever created in such experiments. [..]

In the end the atoms of element 118 — also known as ununoctium — lasted 0.9 milliseconds, researchers said.’

`Prime Minister John Howard has given his strongest support yet to the use of nuclear power in Australia, backing the local development of the “clean” energy industry.

An expert taskforce is due to release a draft report next month on the merits of nuclear power and whether Australia should be thinking of value-adding options, such as enrichment, for its vast uranium stores.

But before the experts have even had their say, Mr Howard has indicated he believes nuclear power is an industry Australia should be developing.’

`Mixing antimatter and matter usually has predictably violent consequences – the two annihilate one another in a fierce burst of energy.

But physicists in Geneva have found a new way to make the two combine, at least briefly, into a single substance. This exceptionally unstable stuff, made of protons and antiprotons, is called protonium. [..]

Researchers led by Evandro Rizzini at Italy’s University of Brescia believe that some of the antiprotons reacted with ionised molecules of ordinary hydrogen, stealing away a proton. These proton-antiproton systems lasted microseconds at most, but that was long enough for many of them to drift away from the core of the experiment before exploding.’

`Mammalian species are known to last an average of 2.5 million years before being snuffed out, but nobody had been able to figure out why. The reason, it turns out, may be linked to regular wobbles in Earth’s orbit.

Jan van Dam from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and colleagues reached this conclusion after studying the fossil record of rodents from central Spain over a 22-million-year span. This showed a link between rodent extinction events and the climate record.’

`Not content with having them dotted all over the countryside, Sweden is now considering putting a little red cottage on the moon. The idea, first conjured up by the artist Mikael Genberg seven years ago, may become reality with the help of the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), according to N24.

The state agency SSC has carried out a technical study showing that it is indeed possible to put a little red cottage on the moon.
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“If we manage to do this Sweden will be the third country to occupy the moon”, said SSC’s Fredrik von Schéele.’

`Some participants still have not had a drink 40 years after the trials. For the past five years, Dr. Erika Dyck has been unearthing some intriguing facts related to a group of pioneering psychiatrists who worked in Saskatchewan, Canada in the ’50s and ’60s.

Among other things, the University of Alberta history of medicine professor has found records of the psychiatrists’ research that indicate a single dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, provided in a clinical, nurturing environment, can be an effective treatment for alcoholism.

Her findings are published this month in the journal Social History of Medicine.’

`A new study asserts that roughly 600,000 Iraqis have died from violence since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, a figure many times higher than any previous estimate.

[..] President Bush in December said “30,000, more or less” had died in Iraq during the invasion and in the violence since. [..]

This study, “The Human Cost of the War in Iraq,” puts civilian fatalities at 426,369 to 793,663, with a 95% certainty that the figure falls in that range, and the highest probability given to the figure of 601,027.’

`An enormous ring of superconducting magnets similar to a particle accelerator could fling satellites into space, or perhaps weapons around the world, suggest the findings of a new study funded by the US air force. [..]

The tunnel would direct the cone to a ramp angled at 30° to the horizon, where the cone would launch towards space at about 8 kilometres per second, or more than 23 times the speed of sound. A rocket at the back end of the cone would be used to adjust its trajectory and place it in a proper orbit.’