2007 March

Today’s Warped site is not an advertisement for a laundry detergent or clothes drying aid. It is, in fact, a fan site dedicated to one of the most popular (in some circles, THE most popular) science fiction series of all times. So stand by to boldly go where no man has gone before. Warp factor [...]

Scientists from NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory announced today a new tool to monitor changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by region and source. The tool, called CarbonTracker, will enable its users to evaluate the effectiveness of their efforts to reduce or store carbon emissions.
The online data framework distinguishes between changes in [...]

Exposing teeth to soft drinks, even for a short period of time, causes dental erosion - and prolonged exposure can lead to significant enamel loss. Root beer products, however, are non-carbonated and do not contain the acids that harm teeth, according to a study in the March/April 2007 issue of General Dentistry, the AGD’s clinical, [...]

Did he or didn’t he? Did we or didn’t we? Did they or didn’t they? What am I referring to, you are most likely asking yourself right about now? According to some people, I am referring to the greatest hoax ever perpetrated by the U.S. Government. To others, it’s all a bunch of hogwash. You’ll [...]

Nanotechnology may unlock the secret for creating highly efficient next-generation LED lighting systems, and exploring its potential is the aim of several projects centered at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Seen everywhere today from traffic signals, taillights and cell phone displays to stadium JumboTrons, light emitting diodes fluoresce as electrical current passes through them. The most developed [...]

Researchers have made an important advance in the emerging field of ’spintronics’ that may one day usher in a new generation of smaller, smarter, faster computers, sensors and other devices, according to findings reported in today’s issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
The research field of ’spintronics’ is concerned with using the ’spin’ of an electron [...]

It used to be, in the good old days, rock stars were party animals, giving credence to the motto “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.” What has happened to those good ol’ days? Why aren’t they like they used to be? One reason is that many of the hardcore rock’n’rollers are no longer with us. [...]

A new NASA study has found that an important counter-balance to the warming of our planet by greenhouse gases - sunlight blocked by dust, pollution and other aerosol particles - appears to have lost ground.
The thinning of Earth’s “sunscreen” of aerosols since the early 1990s could have given an extra push to the rise in [...]

Sandia’s huge Z machine, which generates termperatures hottter than the sun, has turned water to ice in nanoseconds. However, don’t expect anything commercial just yet: the ice is hotter than the boiling point of water. “The three phases of water as we know them - cold ice, room temperature liquid, and hot vapor - are [...]

A number of evolving social changes highlight the importance of making computer technology accessible and usable for older adults. For instance, older adults are using email increasingly to keep up their social contact with others and are using the Internet to look up health information.
An innovative research study was conducted at the University of Alberta [...]

How’s your winter been so far? Kinda cold? Don’t you wish the weather guys and gals would get it right for once? If you forget your umbrella, it rains. If you only wear a sweater, it turns cold and snows. It is tough to predict the weather - after all, it is a game of [...]

According to a new study from the University of Rochester, playing action video games sharpens vision. In tests of visual acuity that assess the ability to see objects accurately in a cluttered space, game players scored higher than their non-playing peers.
“Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information,” says Daphne Bavelier, [...]

SRS Labs, Inc., a leading provider of surround sound, audio and voice technologies today announced that iRiver, a brand of Reigncom and a trendsetter and innovator in digital entertainment, has expanded its use of SRS WOW HD audio technology to include two new portable media device products, the Clix 2nd generation and S7.
Through the integration [...]

One of the first biographies I ever read was about George Washington Carver. I was amazed at how much work he had done, and how many different uses he found for the lowly peanut. The best use I have ever found for peanut butter involves two pieces of bread and a jar of jelly (it [...]

The Internet is enough of a marvel that most people would never ask, ”Is this really how we would build it if we could design it all today?” But asking that very question is the job of a broad-based team of Stanford researchers. Taking a nothing-is-sacred approach to better meet human communications needs, this month [...]

Purdue University chemical engineers have proposed a new environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from plant matter - or biomass - potentially available from agricultural and forest waste, providing all of the fuel needed for “the entire U.S. transportation sector.”
The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen [...]

One of the top movies last year was based on Dan Brown’s novel “The DaVinci Code,” starring Tom Hanks as protagonist Robert Langdon. Throughout the story, there were puzzles he encountered; they were complicated and required some brain power to solve. How did Mr. Brown create those puzzles, you probably asked? If you’re curious, he [...]

When a person fails to complete an advance directive and becomes incapacitated by illness or injury, doctors typically ask the patient’s loved one to predict what treatment the patient would have wanted. But a paper in PLoS Medicine reports that a computer-based decision tool can predict a patient’s treatment wishes better than a loved one.
To [...]

Peter Lewis at University of Washington writes:
If Phil Howard’s calculations prove true, by year’s end the 2 billionth personal record - some American’s social-security or credit-card number, academic grades or medical history - will become compromised, and it’s corporate America, not rogue hackers, who are primarily to blame. By his reckoning, electronic records in the [...]

One of the big scandals of the 1950s was the game show scandal featuring the show Twenty-One. It was the subject of the Robert Redford directed film “Quiz Show.” The chance to win money illegally was too great a temptation in the battle for television ratings. But have you ever heard about the event from [...]