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Shuttle Discover is set to launch today, bringing a new laboratory, the largest room yet for the ISS.

Imagine this from their perspective. Photographs of an Amazon tribe thought to have never made contact with the outside world reveal them firing arrows at the helicopter flying overhead.

Tribespeople Thought to never had any contact with the outside world Photo by Gleison Miranda, Funai

Sperm-Powered Nanobots, Focus Fusion, and a second time dimension are three ideas pushing the edge of science.

NY Mayor Bloomberg opened the World Science Festival by laying into political interference in Science.

With disintegrating ice posing a threat to human explorers, scientists are turning to robots to explore Antarctica.

The United States is on track for a record tornado year.

The ladies are more impressed with fuel efficient cars than sports cars.

A curious drop in temperature in 1945, previously thought to be the result of aerosols, was more likely a bad measurement.

Yay! The Annals of Improbable Research has gone open access.

Nanoparticles tracked up a food chain in the lab do not concentrate in top-level organisms like mercury does.

rotifer B. calyciflorus with quantum dots assimilated from ingested ciliates appearing red. Credit NIST

Carl Zimmer: What is a Species?

Playing golf increases your life expectancy by five years.

Betting on sports reduces our enjoyment of them.

The world’s rarest rhino has been caught on camera (attacking the camera).

Lot’s of countries have space programs.

Noise pollution isn’t just bad for our nerves, but is also bad for ecology.

Paleontology cat toys.

Festo Air Jelly:

53 years ago this Sunday, Dr. Vannevar Bush composed this incredible bit of futurism, where he describes an Information Technology tool called the “Memex,” a device that can instantaneously serve up any article or book in its user’s possession and navigate to any spot within the text. He describes scientists working in the field, their every action documented through audio recordings and indexed.

The features of Dr. Vannevar Bush’s device are myriad, and delivered through classical mechanical and electrical means. We can imagine pullies, levers, and gears all working to bring about its complex functionality. Section 7 of this text describes our World Wide Web’s hyperlinks, but within the context of microfiche.

I got exhilarating chills up my spine reading it:

All this is conventional, except for the projection forward of present-day mechanisms and gadgetry. It affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.

When the user is building a trail, he names it, inserts the name in his code book, and taps it out on his keyboard. Before him are the two items to be joined, projected onto adjacent viewing positions. At the bottom of each there are a number of blank code spaces, and a pointer is set to indicate one of these on each item. The user taps a single key, and the items are permanently joined. In each code space appears the code word. Out of view, but also in the code space, is inserted a set of dots for photocell viewing; and on each item these dots by their positions designate the index number of the other item.

Thereafter, at any time, when one of these items is in view, the other can be instantly recalled merely by tapping a button below the corresponding code space. Moreover, when numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail, they can be reviewed in turn, rapidly or slowly, by deflecting a lever like that used for turning the pages of a book. It is exactly as though the physical items had been gathered together from widely separated sources and bound together to form a new book. It is more than this, for any item can be joined into numerous trails.

The owner of the memex, let us say, is interested in the origin and properties of the bow and arrow. Specifically he is studying why the short Turkish bow was apparently superior to the English long bow in the skirmishes of the Crusades. He has dozens of possibly pertinent books and articles in his memex. First he runs through an encyclopedia, finds an interesting but sketchy article, leaves it projected. Next, in a history, he finds another pertinent item, and ties the two together. Thus he goes, building a trail of many items. Occasionally he inserts a comment of his own, either linking it into the main trail or joining it by a side trail to a particular item. When it becomes evident that the elastic properties of available materials had a great deal to do with the bow, he branches off on a side trail which takes him through textbooks on elasticity and tables of physical constants. He inserts a page of longhand analysis of his own. Thus he builds a trail of his interest through the maze of materials available to him.

And his trails do not fade. Several years later, his talk with a friend turns to the queer ways in which a people resist innovations, even of vital interest. He has an example, in the fact that the outraged Europeans still failed to adopt the Turkish bow. In fact he has a trail on it. A touch brings up the code book. Tapping a few keys projects the head of the trail. A lever runs through it at will, stopping at interesting items, going off on side excursions. It is an interesting trail, pertinent to the discussion. So he sets a reproducer in action, photographs the whole trail out, and passes it to his friend for insertion in his own memex, there to be linked into the more general trail.

The entire essay makes for fascinating and thoughtful reading, especially in the context of our world where these technologies have all ready manifested. As We May Think is what a Victorian Era Internet would look like, a Steam Punk flavor of the Web.

More on Steam Punk.

Photo essay of a chicken embryo growing.

Chicken Embryo

A new analysis of an old Mars rock shows water may have been too salty to support life.

Down in the dark depths of the ocean, explorers have found bacteria eating rocks.

More on the pixie dust in development to help people regrow body parts (ht Carolyn).

Shouldn’t computer programming be a mandatory subject for scientists in Universities?

Journals have found instances of scientists photoshopping their results to support their theses.

Rockslides from China’s earthquake are forming lakes and generating flood hazards.

China’s Sichuan Basin

Greenland, Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, and the United States have agreed that existing treaties will settle any territory disputes resulting from vanishing Arctic Ice.

Part of Stonehenge’s purpose from the very beginning was as a cemetery.

A Court order has forced the White House to release independent research indicating that Global Warming poses health risks to the poor.

We now have a vaccine to fight cervical cancer, next we might have one to fight brain tumors.

Girls are closing the mathematical proficiency gender gap.

Festo Aqua Jelly:

Finally installed the World Wide Telescope (WWT) after downloading it to sit on my desktop (aka “The Place of No Return”) for a few weeks. It’s very impressive, but less impressive when you run it side-by-side with Google Earth (GE). Still, there are a few features that are going to make me keep both softwares running on my system (and possibly a third software as soon as I get around to reviewing Digital Universe Atlas).

WWT’s library of subject matter is impressive. A “Planet Explorer” feature allows users to get a “Google Earth” style look at Venus, Mars, the Moon, Jupiter, and some of its moons. There are also some awesome panorama shots of Mars from Spirit and Opportunity rovers. I believe a Mandelbrot example was meant to demonstrate more to come, allowing users to zoom in on the fractal with fantastic detail; however, being an infinitely complex structure, it left me wanting to zoom in further.

The problem with all of these images is the way they tease. Giving me the ability to zoom in close on a Mars rock is no good if the zoom is blurry. The view of Earth was so bad it left me wondering why include it at all? Details in WWT don’t render as smoothly as they do in GE.

Google Earth Zoom of the Empire State Building

World Wide Telescope Zoom of the Empire State Building

Both WWT and GE software observatories allow you to see the night sky through WMAP and IRAS; however, WWT also has SFD, VLSS, IRIS, USNOB, and other sky survey projects, each providing a unique look at the hidden dimensions of our night sky. Just getting the opportunity to gaze at the SFD Infrared Dust Map made downloading the software totally worth it. At the same time, being able to view the night sky with Rumsey Star Maps from 1972 in GE is also a wonderful resource.

WWT edges out GE slightly for educational value as well. GE has many tours of the universe and topics to explore, but WWT has many more. WWT’s tours and features of the night sky are also much more apparent. GE has all the same tourist sites, but WWT does a better job of letting you know they are there.

Both softwares divide up the night sky into areas. In WWT the areas aren’t visible until users point their crosshairs at it, in GE there is a layer of areas users can toggle on and off. In fact, everything in GE is a layer that may be toggled, which is superiorly convenient. To WWT’s credit though, when an area becomes highlighted, the upper and lower navigation bars fill with items of interest.

Google Earth Viewing Orion

World Wide Telescope Viewing Orion

GE definitely wins on navigation, scrolling much more precisely and smoothly than WWT. Spinning the Earth in WWT, the mouse slips over its surface. GE is much more precise and responsive to the mouse wheel. Plus GE has that nifty effect where you can give the Earth a spin and let it go without you.

GE also wins on fun features, with a slide bar that allows users to watch planets orbit to where they will be three months from now. It also has a slider to watch the Earth spin through night and day cycles. These features increase the entertainment value of GE, which will make it more educational than WWT in the long run, because fun keeps people coming back for more. GE mashups like Twittervision and Flickrvision also ensure GE will continue to dominate the Internet’s Mindshare.

Overall, WWT is a keeper for the harder space enthusiasts, but for people who only have enough room for one astronomy software in their life, go with Google Earth.

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You can download the World Wide Telescope here.

You can download Google Earth here.

Awhile back I linked to this video of EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson refusing to explain to Congress why he will not do his job despite the Supreme Court mandating he take action on CO₂ pollution, and his refusal to allow Californians the right to take action on greenhouse emissions for themselves.

Three hearings later and he is still sitting there, refusing to answer any questions put to him. The most infuriating part of this is that #$%&ing smile he’s obviously trying to suppress as he knows he’s getting away with defecating on the American people:

Our hearts and prayers are with the ISS Crew today as they deal with a broken toilet, the only one onboard (Shiver).

Scientists are studying an infrared ring around a Magnestar, which has a magnetic field a million billion times stronger than the Earth’s.

Magnestar

Jane Goodall speaks to the European Union, urging them to do more to end animal testing.

Meanwhile, to muddle up this ethical conundrum, a monkey feeds itself using a robot arm controlled with its brain.

Climate change in America will reduce water flow in the west and increase it in the East.

One-third of the tap water used for drinking in North America goes toward brewing coffee, and other things to consider in water conservation.

Angry people watch more news but come away with less facts. Guess we should change those bumper stickers to read, “If You Aren’t Angry, You are Paying Attention.”

Lead exposure linked to violent crime.

Like the X-Men’s Wolverine, clawed frogs push bones through their skin to defend themselves.

Hairy Frog Trichobatrachus robustus Photo by Gustavocarra

A 380-million-year-old fish fossil, “Mother Fish” (Materpiscis attenboroughi), is the oldest known case of live birth, still attached to her offspring by the umbilical cord.

Rates of Childhood obesity in America have leveled off, but we’re still too fat.

New weapon in the war on depression: Brain Pacemakers.

Top 10 Things Science Can’t Explain, like yawning and female orgasms.

Awesome photos of swarm behavior.

Sweden is turning sewage into biofuels. Upon hearing this news, the price of human poop skyrocketed.

Eight ways to recycle a two-liter bottle:

“We’ll never know the worth of water until the well goes dry.” – Scottish proverb.

In November 2007 Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue prayed for rain to alleviate the state’s worst drought in history. Before this last-ditch effort, he had sued the Army Corps of Engineers to cut off Florida’s water supply. Georgia legislator even made an attempt to move their border a mile into Tennessee to claim a critical part of the Tennessee River. The state is still suffering, with water levels at Buford dam droping 15.46 feet between March 2007 and February 2008.

Lake Lanier Oct 2007 Photo by Magician pug

Thankfully, in America we have a fantastic system of governance that allows our states to resolve these conflicts of natural resources in a peaceful, legislative manner. A scarcity of water and other resources has led to conflicts in Africa, including genocide in Darfur.

Africa’s Disappearing Lake Chad Photos courtesy of NASA

In Kazakhstan, the Aral Sea has dwindled down to two smaller bodies of water, both of which could be gone in 15 years. Efforts are underway to save what has now become the northern sea, by damming up water feeding the southern sea, ensuring its doom.

Aral Sea 1989 - 2003 Photo courtesy NASA

Abandoned Ship Where the Aral Sea Once Was Photo courtesy Staecker

In America, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which supply 22 million people with water in the Southwest, has a 50/50 chance of running dry by 2021, and water levels there have dropped 118 feet. Unless Las Vegas can manage to grow and conserve water and electricity, it soon won’t have either.

Animation of Lake Mead’s Water Levels from 2000 - 2004 Courtesy of NASA

Australia, Great Britain, South America, Southern California and other regions are all experiencing water deficits for numerous reasons from over-consumption to climate change. This is both local to the areas affected and global for the human migrations currently happening and might happen in the near future, which will destabilize other communities with influxes of water-refugees.

Something to keep a wary eye on.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a photo of the Phoenix landing.

Pheonix Landing

An idea so simple it makes you wonder. Professor Arkadi Vigalok has found a way to make chemistry greener by replacing chemical solvents with water.

For the cost of the Iraq War we could have built 320 nuclear reactors, potentially eliminating a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions.

Automakers are rolling out the fuel-efficient tires.

Kids who imbibe energy drinks take more risks. Imagine Ned Flander’s kids on pixie sticks.

Tragically, dreams of a record-setting skydive may be over as the balloon left without the skydiver. Somebody please loan him another $200k for another balloon please?

Freakin sweet. The NYT has a “network visualization linking different diseases, represented by circles, to the genes they have in common, represented by squares.” It’s a lot cooler than it sounds, and it’s flashy

The Human “Diseasome”

Male bees prefer mating with the Ophrys orchid to mating with a female bee. I’m thinking there’s a point I could make about the porn industry using a similar evolutionarily exploitive tactic on human males, but I need to hurry up and get this blog post done so I can go stare at the Suicide Girls.

Antarctic icebergs set adrift due to global warming are smothering seals.

A computer program predicts that religion will flourish evolutionarily (You can view the code here (I’m often amazed at how simple most of these programs with revolutionary findings are)).

Insurance Companies value a human life at $50k, but a new study shows a human life is worth closer to $129k.

An Archeologist who wears an Indian Jones hat believes he has found Cleopatra’s Tomb, and this time there are no Nazis, Russians, or Savage Natives to fight off.

A microscopic organism, Daphnien, interfaces with a computer with a beautiful result:

My father teaches phlebotomy at ODU, but is a total wuss when it comes to donating blood. He used to fall back on the excuse that his type I diabetes excluded him from donation, but had to find another excuse when that prohibition was lifted.

I’ve been prohibited from donating blood for a year every time I get a tattoo. One time I got prohibited from donating blood for a year because I gave a false positive for Hepatitis B. The Red Cross assured me they did further tests on my blood and found I did not have Hep-B, but asked me to stop donating just the same (I was reinstituted a year later when the FDA approved a better Hep-B test).

I love giving blood. There’s a sense of camaraderie among blood donors at the drives, AND, most importantly, there’s FREE COOKIES and JUICE at the end of it!!! And you have to eat them! It’s mandatory! YOU CAN’T LEAVE UNTIL YOU’VE HAD COOKIES AND JUICE!!! FREE!!! w00t!!!

That’s why I think it’s sad that researchers have found that bad experiences giving blood can dissuade young people from repeat donations. Let me give you an incident I experienced giving blood that should, hopefully, get you kids back into the blood drives:

Yo Soy

About 15 years ago I was walking by a blood drive at Virginia Tech, and decided to step in and donate. No big deal. I knew the routine and within minutes I was relaxing on a cot with my arm being swabbed by a very nice woman. When it came time to stick me, she wrapped a rubber tourniquet-thingy (I’m pretty sure that’s the scientific name for it) around my bicep, let the vein stand out, and slipped the needle in with a momentary pinch…

Then she accidentally pulled it out.

Fssssst!!! A geyser of blood shot into the air.

“Oh dear,” the she understated, watching this crimson fountain uncertainly, her hand to her mouth. She had no clue what to do.

I pointed to the rubber-strap-thingy wrapped around my bicep, “I think you need to take this thing off–”

“I know what I’m doing!” she cut me off, and then proceeded to place a cotton ball over the pinhole-sized wound.

“I don’t think that’s…” I trailed off as the cotton swab quickly soaked with blood and a stream of red poured off my arm.

Next thing I know, I’m looking at the ceiling emerging from clouds of black from when I’d fainted, there’s a paper bag over my face and someone is coaching me to cough in order to get my blood pressure up. Thankfully, someone got the torniquet-rubber-strap-thingamagig off my arm, but not before half my shirt was sprayed with blood. Then I was escorted over the resting area…

WHERE I GOT TO HAVE COOKIES AND JUICE!!! YAY!!! HOORAY FOR COOKIES AND JUICE!!!

But you know what else I got? A really cool story to tell. My blood donation story kicks everyone else’s blood donation story’s butt! So you kids who won’t go back to the blood drive because you got a little queasy, suck it up!

Take pride in that queasy feeling. It’s a badge of honor, and if a metaphorical badge of honor isn’t good enough for you, they’ve got FREE STICKERS YOU CAN WEAR AS A REAL LIFE BADGE OF HONOR TOO!!!

YAY!!!

Rockefeller scientists have found a way to watch HIV particles assembling on the surface of an infected cell (Video Here (but I don’t know for how long)).

HIV Particles in a Cell

Prius sales have hit one million, saving 450 million tons of Carbon.

A woman came back to life after going 17 hours without brainwaves. She was dead long enough for rigor mortis to set in (HT Clint).

A new book explores the fascinating and sad life of Nim Chimpsky (a play on Noam Chompsky), a chimpanzee raised with humans and taught sign language to see if other animals could learn language.

The more Biblically literal the faith, the lower the average IQ of its members. Episcopals rock!

Oh Great! Now peak Internet Protocol Addresses as the Internet will run out of IPs in three years.

Very cool visual display for car navigation system that runs a red line on your windshield showing the path you’ll take. This is good for idiots like me who almost get into accidents trying to figure out what’s showing on the GPS.

It took life on Earth billions of years to figure out how to eat cellulose, before which, trees did not decay. Now a 16-year-old has isolated microbes that eats plastic, which is brimming with energy-dense hydrocarbons.

Odd photo essay of a Russian artillery experiment with a pig. My apologies for the Muppets reference in the caption.

Piiiiiiiiiiigs iiiiiiiin Spaaaaaaaace!!!!

Bush signed it, the Genetic Nondiscrimination act is law. I’m sure he had some unreported signing statement allowing Cheney to continue drinking our collective mortal blood.

Vast cracks in ice as thick as a 10-story building have appeared in the Arctic ice.

The Pantheon of Brains collected those of Russian geniuses in hopes of finding what makes the special.

A 150-year-old monkey puzzle tree is in danger of being chopped down because some feel its “syringe-like needles” pose a health and safety threat. Ninnies.

64-year-old Michel Fournier intends to sky dive 25 miles, breaking the sound barrier as well as numerous records, like the one for the most people wondering, “Are you #$%&ing crazy!?!?”

Survivalists are preparing for peak oil. I say we create a google map mashup so we know who to raid for supplies when civilization collapses.

With the LHC going online soon, it’s important to remember that America almost built a bigger one, but Congress axed it $15 Billion into the project. Now we have a $15 billion hole in the ground.

The Pheonix has landed (with photos)!!! Here’s a video of what it should have looked like:

Rush Limbaugh is right.

Rush is right when he says it would be better for Republicans to lose than vote for McCain, and Rush is right when he proposes Operation Chaos to help McCain win the general election.

Rush is right when he says he wants Hillary to win the nomination because she’ll be easier to beat than Obama, and Rush is right when he says he wants Obama to win the nomination because he’ll be easier to beat than Hillary.

Rush is right when he says war dissidents are patriotic, and Rush is right when he says war dissidents are unpatriotic.

Rush is right when he says Bill Clinton lacks a mandate for being elected without winning the popular vote, and Rush is right when he says George Bush has a mandate despite being elected without winning the popular vote.

Rush is right when he says drug users should be imprisoned, and Rush is right when he says he deserves leniency for his drug use.

Rush is Right when he supports Republicans through six years of failed policies, and Rush is right when he admits his support was nothing but lies.

Rush is right that Democrats use demoralizing and unfair rhetoric, and Rush is right when he says Chelsey Clinton is the “White House dog”.

Rush is Right!

Happy Monday! The North Pacific humpback whale is making a comeback, but is still endangered.

A Brittlestar City has been found in an unlikely place, on top of an underwater mountain taller than any human building.

Brittlestar City Image by NIWA

The science and history of efforts to bring back the American Chestnut Tree, which has suffered in America due to blight.

Check out Time’s photo album of our closest relatives.

Informative (and sorta yucky) video of the plasmablade in action.

Amazing x-ray photos of penetrating brain injuries and the stories behind them.

44-year-old Man Who Hammered Several Nails Through his Skull Over a Three Month Period

Beautiful slideshow of nature water color paintings by Roberto Osti.

To help the economy we must fund the NIH.

The Fed’s method of prosecuting the MySpace Suicide Case could federally criminalize anyone who violates a site’s “Terms of Service” agreement.

A standard practice for treating hyperactivity in children should be removing food additives from their diets.

The Gauss Gun:

Coolest item by far in this portion of the NY Hall of Science was the Cloud Chamber, an apparatus that uses dry ice and pure alcohol to let us see the paths of cosmic particles, which are passing through and around us all the time. Different particles leave different tracks in the display.

Simulating the Extreme Environment of a Yellowstone Geyser, where some Life Thrives

The next best thing about this display is all the speculation it encourages in young minds. This section is all about the myriad extreme environments supporting life, be it feeding on rocks, living around sulfur vents, in geysers, in ice, acidic rivers… whatever the environment, life seems to find a way.

View the complete flickr set here.

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Also of note is this nifty DIY Cloud Chamber. Not too complex to build.

Can this be real? The Bush Administration plans to establish the largest marine reserves in the world?

The International Institute for Species Explorations has a list of the Top 10 New Species, some wild new critters out there.

Shocking pink dragon millipede Desmoxytes purpurosea

Male painters are exposed to chemicals that damage their fertility.

By flying his hybrid lexus to America, Paul McCartney reduced its overall mileage to 4 MPG.

The first test of a thruster using the Lorentz force for propulsion has ended in explody-ness.

The crystal skull Indiana Jones is seeking did not come from ancient Mexico.

Rising CO₂ levels are acidifying the Pacific Ocean.

Jupiter gets a third red spot.

Jupiter’s Third Red Spot

We have an internal clock for sleep, and we may have an internal clock for mealtimes. Mice do.

People in London and New York may now see each other real-time thanks to the Telectroscope, a telescope tunneled through the Earth connecting the two cities (not really, but cool art project to inspire speculation).

The Phoenix lands on Mars tomorrow, where it will begin analyzing the planet’s water.

Culture, Mind reading, Tool Use, Morality, Emotions, and Personality don’t make humans unique to other animals.

Astronomers have caught a supernova from the start.

When Scientists make a Rube Goldberg contraption, you get Der Lauf Der Ding (HT easternblot):