Science/Tech News Articles...

[boca]

http://www.natgeofreshwater.com/ - click to get a free copy of the Nat Geo special on Water.
[quote]This single-topic issue of National Geographic magazine highlights the challenges facing our most essential natural resource. "Water: Our Thirsty World" is available for free download starting on World Water Day, March 22, and extending through April 2, 2010. This interactive edition of National Geographic magazine presents complete content from the print edition, plus extra photo galleries, rollover graphics that animate features like maps and time lines, video profiles of photographers who contributed to the issue, and other interactive features. National Geographic's water issue is available in print on newsstands everywhere beginning March 30.[/quote]

[boca]

Do not miss it for life! :)

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/life/
Schedule

March 21, 8PM e/p Challenges of Life
March 21, 9PM e/p Reptiles and Amphibians
March 28, 8PM e/p Mammals
March 28, 9PM e/p Fish
April 4, 8PM e/p Birds
April 4, 9PM e/p Creatures of the Deep
April 11, 8PM e/p Hunters and Hunted
April 11, 9PM e/p Insects
April 18, 8PM e/p Plants
April 18, 9PM e/p Primates
April 18, 10PM e/p Making of Life

P.S.: Eagerly awaiting Hubble 3D on IMAX (http://www.imax.com/hubble/)

[boca]

Nature by Numbers by Crist? Vila (watch it in 720p HD)

[video=youtube;kkGeOWYOFoA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkGeOWYOFoA[/video]


More info on the theory behind the numbers @ http://www.etereaestudios.com/docs_html/nbyn_htm/about_index.htm

[ksheer3]

GM Fish
THE Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty cow that has 40% more muscle than it should have. It is the product of random mutation followed by selective breeding—as, indeed, are all domesticated creatures. .........
Belgian blues are so big because their genes for a protein called myostatin do not work properly. Myostatin is a hormone that regulates muscle growth. Disable its action and muscles will grow in parts of the anatomy where other animals do not even have them.
Dr Bradley has launched a four-pronged attack on the myostatin in his trout. First, he has introduced into them a gene that turns out a stunted version of the myostatin receptor, the molecule that sits in the surface membrane of muscle cells and receives the message to stop growing. The stunted receptor does not pass the message on properly.
He has also added two genes for non-functional variants of myostatin. These churn out proteins, and those proteins bind to the receptors, but they do not tweak them in a way that passes the message on. They do, however, swamp and dilute the effect of functional myostatin molecules.
Finally, he has spliced in a gene that causes overproduction of another protein, follistatin. This binds to myostatin and renders it inoperative.
The upshot of all this tinkering is a trout that has twice the overall muscle mass of its traditional counterparts. Moreover, this muscle is low in fat, like that of its bovine counterparts. That, and the fact that the animal’s other organs are unaffected, means it does not take twice as much food to grow a fish to maturity.
From The Economist -- Science

[boca]

I am sure we all have a friend or know of a person who has the wits to recall a funny incident from the past and each time they narrate an incident, it is more like a new revision to make it spicier. :) I used to think that they were purposely twisting the narration each time, until...

It is fascinating to even think that the "very act of remembering can change our memories" (still in contention, this hypothesis). However, memory re-consolidation has been the focus of late with researchers and I find this plausible.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/How-Our-Brains-Make-Memories.html
[quote]Long-term memories must literally be built into the brain?s synapses. Kandel and other neuroscientists have generally assumed that once a memory is constructed, it is stable and can?t easily be undone. Or, as they put it, the memory is ?consolidated.?

According to this view, the brain?s memory system works something like a pen and notebook. For a brief time before the ink dries, it?s possible to smudge what?s written. But after the memory is consolidated, it changes very little. Sure, memories may fade over the years like an old letter (or even go up in flames if Alzheimer?s disease strikes), but under ordinary circumstances the content of the memory stays the same, no matter how many times it?s taken out and read. Nader would challenge this idea.

In what turned out to be a defining moment in his early career, Nader attended a lecture that Kandel gave at New York University about how memories are recorded. Nader got to wondering about what happens when a memory is recalled. Work with rodents dating back to the 1960s didn?t jibe with the consolidation theory. Researchers had found that a memory could be weakened if they gave an animal an electric shock or a drug that interferes with a particular neurotransmitter just after they prompted the animal to recall the memory. This suggested that memories were vulnerable to disruption even after they had been consolidated.

To think of it another way, the work suggested that filing an old memory away for long-term storage after it had been recalled was surprisingly similar to creating it the first time. Both building a new memory and tucking away an old one presumably involved building proteins at the synapse. The researchers had named that process ?reconsolidation.? But others, including some prominent memory experts, had trouble replicating those findings in their own laboratories, so the idea wasn?t pursued.
[/quote][quote]

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/How-Our-Brains-Make-Memories.html?c=y&page=2#ixzz0ldnSvgwj

[/quote]I would never interrupt my friend to point out the inaccuracies with the recall. I would rather be eager to hear the latest revision. It was always funnier. :) PG, are you like that with your stories about your friend? (you may never know).

[dbs]

I am sure we all have a friend or know of a person who has the wits to recall a funny incident from the past and each time they narrate an incident, it is more like a new revision to make it spicier. :) I used to think that they were purposely twisting the narration each time, until...

That is fascinating to learn.

There is another angle. I do remember telling the same story twice in an evening, to different group, ofcourse. During the second narration, another participant of the incident was present and he kept reminding me of the parts that I had forgotten. That rekindled some more memories, and we kept recalling additional parts; a regular jugalbandi; and subsequently a more spicer story got told. But it was factually true.

[rajsriadit]

Speed trap from outer space ?

Link

[QUOTE]A new type of speed cameras which can use satellites to measure average speed over long distances are being tested in Britain.

The cameras, which combine number plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver, are similar to those used in roadworks.

The AA said it believed the new system could cover a network of streets as opposed to a straight line, and was ?probably geared up to zones in residential areas.?

The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall.

The `SpeedSpike? system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with a base in Hampshire.

Details of the trials are contained in a House of Commons report. The company said in its evidence that the cameras enabled "number plate capture in all weather conditions, 24 hours a day". It also referred to the system's "low cost" and ease of installation.

The system could be used for "main road enforcement for congestion reduction and speed enforcement", and could help to "eliminate rat-runs" and cut speeds outside schools, it added. It could also reduce the need for speed humps.
The development of speed cameras has raised concerns about expanding state surveillance.

The Home Office said it was unable to comment on the trials because of "commercial confidentiality".

The AA said it would watch the system ?carefully? but it did not believe there was anything sinister. ?It is a natural evolution of the technology that is out there,? a spokesman said.

[boca]

[video=youtube;j2JbQxezyaM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2JbQxezyaM[/video]

http://news.discovery.com/space/unlocking-the-suns-coronal-rain-puzzle-solved.html
[quote]The erupting plasma was funneled through massive arcs of magnetic field lines known as coronal loops. After being launched, the plasma fell back to the sun, looking like droplets of rain. The scale of these 'droplets' are gargantuan, each could easily engulf the Earth.[/quote]

[cyberabadi]

Web site celebrates often unknown scientists who have saved lives

www.scienceheroes.com

[Froogle]

Whatever Happened to the Hole in the Ozone Layer?

Three British scientists shocked the world when they revealed on May 16th, 1985 ? 25 years ago ? that aerosol chemicals, among other factors, had torn a hole in the ozone layer over the South Pole. The ozone layer, which protects life on Earth from damaging solar radiation, became an overnight sensation. And the hole in the ozone layer became the poster-child for mankind?s impact on the planet.

Today, the ozone hole ? actually a region of thinned ozone, not actually a pure hole ? doesn?t make headlines like it used to. The size of the hole has stabilized, thanks to decades of aerosol-banning legislation. But, scientists warn, some danger still remains.

First, the good news: Since the 1989 Montreal Protocol banned the use of ozone-depleting chemicals worldwide, the ozone hole has stopped growing. Additionally, the ozone layer is blocking more cancer-causing radiation than any time in a decade because its average thickness has increased, according to a 2006 United Nations report. Atmospheric levels of ozone-depleting chemicals have reached their lowest levels since peaking in the 1990s, and the hole has begun to shrink.
.... Source LiveScience.com