Archive for the 'Technology' Category
Google Earth dives under the sea
• February, 2009Google Earth “Beneath the Surface” BBC Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth. Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain. Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain. The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers. Al Gore was at the launch event in San Francisco which, Google hopes,…
French fighter planes grounded by computer virus
• February, 2009French fighter planes grounded by computer virus Kim Willsher in Paris French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims. The aircraft were unable to download their flight plans after databases were infected by a Microsoft virus they had already been warned about several months beforehand. At one point French naval staff were also instructed not to even open their computers. Microsoft had warned that the “Conficker” virus, transmitted through Windows, was attacking…
Scientists Not So Sure ‘Doomsday Machine’ Won’t Destroy World
• February, 2009Scientists Not So Sure ‘Doomsday Machine’ Won’t Destroy World Wednesday, January 28, 2009 By Paul Wagenseil Still worried that the Large Hadron Collider will create a black hole that will destroy the Earth when it’s finally switched on this summer? Three physicists have reexamined the math surrounding the creation of microscopic black holes in the Switzerland-based LHC, the world’s largest particle collider, and determined that they won’t simply evaporate in a millisecond as had previously been predicted.
Earth’s Magnetic Field Changes Climate
• February, 2009Earth’s Magnetic Field Changes Climate Jan. 13, 2009 The Earth’s climate has been significantly affected by the planet’s magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that is unlikely to challenge the notion that human emissions are largely responsible for global warming. “Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics,” one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in…
Mars Methane Found, Raising Possibility of Life
• February, 2009Mars Methane Found, Raising Possibility of Life Irene Klotz, Discovery News Scientists have discovered rich plumes of methane on Mars that not only disappear quickly, but are replenished by unknown sources that could be biological or geochemical in origin. “Either way, it’s very interesting,” planetary scientist Michael Mumma, with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told Discovery News. “Mars is not a dead planet.” Mumma and colleagues used infrared spectrometers on three ground-based telescopes to monitor concentrations of methane in Mars’ atmosphere over…
Do we live in a holographic universe?
• January, 2009Do we live in a holographic universe? by Marcus Chown 15 January 2009 DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn’t look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres. For the past seven years, this…
World’s first flying car on the roads
• January, 2009World’s first flying car on the roads from next year – yours for just £130,000 By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:50 PM on 18th December 2008 It’s been a pipe dream for 30 years but now the world’s first fully available flying car is set to hit the roads next year. Ever since the Back to the Future movies lit up our screens in the 80s, designers have dreamt of an automobile that could take to the skies at the push of a…
Scientists plan to ignite tiny man-made star =Update=
• January, 2009Scientists plan to ignite tiny man-made star by using the National Ignition Facility. By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent Last Updated: 4:50PM GMT 27 Dec 2008 It is science’s star experiment: an attempt to create an artificial sun on earth — and provide an answer to the world’s impending energy shortage. While it has seemed an impossible goal for nearly 100 years, scientists now believe that they are on brink of cracking one of the biggest problems in physics by harnessing the power of nuclear fusion,…
Robot wars: The rise of artificial intelligence
• January, 2009Robot wars: The rise of artificial intelligence By Steve Connor Friday, 19 December 2008 They can entertain children, feed the elderly, care for the sick. But warnings are being sounded about the march of robots The robots are not so much coming; they have arrived. But instead of dominating humanity with superior logic and strength, they threaten to create an underclass of people who are left without human contact. The rise of robots in the home, in the workplace and in warfare needs to be…
Is a sunstorm blowing in?
• January, 2009Is a sunstorm blowing in? By BILL McAULIFFE, Star Tribune Last update: December 8, 2008 – 9:37 AM The long-term space forecast is calling for gusts of charged particles – and possible power disruptions. It’s not the ache in their joints that tells Mark Engebretson and David Murr the weather’s about to change. It’s sunspots. The two Augsburg College physicists say a revival of sunspots after an unusually long lull is a signal that it could get stormy above Earth. Stormy enough to mess with…
Sprayed Aerosols Could Ease Climate Woes
• January, 2009Sprayed Aerosols Could Ease Climate Woes Irene Klotz, Discovery News Dec. 29, 2008 It won’t solve global warming, but a group of scientists are calling for a focused research program to investigate ways to seed the atmosphere with chemicals that would let the heat out — literally. Geoengineering is not a new concept. Governments have changed how and where water flows, filled in lakes and other wetlands for construction, even attempted to control the weather. A project to counter climate change, however, would take geoengineering…
Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet
• December, 2008Hubble Finds Carbon Dioxide on an Extrasolar Planet Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star. This breakthrough is an important step toward finding chemical biotracers of extraterrestrial life. The Jupiter-sized planet, called HD 189733b, is too hot for life. But the Hubble observations are a proof-of-concept demonstration that the basic chemistry for life can be measured on planets orbiting other stars. Organic compounds also can be a…
New dark energy findings suggest Einstein’s theory is dead-on
• December, 2008New dark energy findings suggest Einstein’s theory is dead-on Trendwatch By Rick C. Hodgin Tuesday, December 16, 2008 18:11 Washington (DC) – NASA held a phone-in press conference today wherein three astrophysicists reported the latest findings on dark energy. They have now “clearly seen” the effects of dark energy on the most massive collapsed objects in the universe. This new evidence has aligned scientists behind the central belief that 1) dark energy exists, 2) that it explains why we are seeing the universe expanding and…