Alok Jha | May 24

The Guardian - Notoriously reclusive Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong gives video interview to Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia

As the first person to walk on the moon, he is a man whose name will be remembered for generations to come. But perhaps one of the other well-known things about Neil Armstrong is that he hardly ever gives interviews.

It was therefore something of a coup for Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia, to secure almost an hour of Armstrong's time to discuss the astronaut's trip to the moon.

In the illuminating conversation posted online on the CPA Australia website, Armstrong revealed how he thought his mission, Apollo 11, only had a 50% chance of landing safely on the moon's surface and said it was "sad" that the current US government's ambitions for Nasa were so reduced compared with the achievements of the 1960s.

"Nasa has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve," said Armstrong. "It's sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people."

** CPA Australia Presents
An Audience with Neil Armstrong
In this four part series the first man to walk on the moon, gives a personal commentary on Apollo 11’s historic lunar landing, his thoughts on leadership and taking risks to innovate for the future

Let's take the last first. Apparently the Great Pacific Plastic Patch, where ocean currents collect discarded plastic junk, has been misrepresented by use of a photo from Manila Harbor, which shows a guy paddling a boat through a layer of garbage, mostly plastic. According to Scripps Institution marine biologist Miriam Goldstein, who has actually been there, it's not like that. The plastic is there, but it's in much smaller pieces and more spread out. The danger to fish and birds, often exemplified by a cut-open stomach crammed with plastic, may be overhyped too. Read the whole thing.

That's the pretty interesting, if simplistic, question posed by The Atlantic:

Not everyone is thrilled by the prospect of radical life extension. As funding for anti-aging research has exploded, bioethicists have expressed alarm, reasoning that extreme longevity could have disastrous social effects. Some argue that longer life spans will mean stiffer competition for resources, or a wider gap between rich and poor. Others insist that the aging process is important because it gives death a kind of time release effect, which eases us into accepting it. These concerns are well founded. Life spans of several hundred years are bound to be socially disruptive in one way or another; if we're headed in that direction, it's best to start teasing out the difficulties now.

May 19

Alzforum - In a slow-mo game of mental Whack-a-Mole, two paralyzed people, using only their thoughts and an implanted brain sensor, manipulated a robotic arm to grasp foam balls. The achievement, reported in the May 17 Nature, is the first instance of a human brain-computer interface controlling such complex, three-dimensional motion.

In a more practical test, one woman was able to grab a thermos of coffee with the robotic arm and bring it to her lips for a drink. While many challenges remain to bring this technology to people who need it, the time will be measured in “years, not decades,” suggested study authors Leigh Hochberg and John Donoghue of Brown University and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The work is part of the ongoing BrainGate pilot trial by researchers at the Rhode Island institutions
and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Andy Gallacher | Cape Canaveral, FL | May 19

Al Jazeera - SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral ends NASA's decades-long dominance and marks debut for commercial space operators.

For the first time in history, a private company plans to launch an unmanned rocket into orbit.

People working near the Cape Canaveral on Florida's "Space Coast" are keenly awaiting Saturday's scheduled launch of the SpaceX mission.

The results of this poll sort of reflect my own feelings and experiences with Facebook:

According to a new AP-CNBC poll, 57 percent of Facebook users say they never click ads or other sponsored content when they use the site, with another 26 percent saying they hardly ever engage in such activity.

While the company makes money, in part, simply by displaying sponsored content, user clicks are a critical part of an advertiser’s calculus when gauging how effective those ads are and how much they’re willing to pay for them. In the first quarter, Facebook generated 82 percent of its $1.06 billion in revenue from advertising sales. In the company’s online IPO pitch to retail investors, CFO David Ebersman says the company is working to make ads “more relevant, more social, and more engaging” as it looks to grow.

Sindya N. Banhoo | Abri Castanet site, France | May 14

NYT - Researchers have discovered illustrations of female anatomy in a rock shelter in France that date back 37,000 years.

It is “the oldest evidence of any kind of graphic imagery,” said Randall White, an anthropologist at New York University and one of the researchers working on the project.

Robert Lee Hotz | May 7

WSJ - Talking about ourselves—whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter—triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money, researchers reported Monday.

Carl Franzen | Geneva | April 27

TPM - An entirely new type of particle has been discovered by scientists using the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), near Geneva, Switzerland.

The discovery of the new particle, called “neutral Xi_b^star baryon,” was made by the CMS experiment, one of six separate particle physics experiments running at the LHC. It was announced Friday by Symmetry Magazine.

John Vidal | London | April 25

The Guardian - Economic and environmental catastrophes unavoidable unless rich countries cut consumption and global population stabilises

World population needs to be stabilised quickly and high consumption in rich countries rapidly reduced to avoid "a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills", warns a major report from the Royal Society.

Contraception must be offered to all women who want it and consumption cut to reduce inequality, says the study published on Thursday, which was chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston.

Scientists shocked to find greenhouse gas 70 times more potent than CO2 bubbling from deep ocean

A new source of methane – a greenhouse gas many times more powerful than carbon dioxide – has been identified by scientists flying over areas in the Arctic where the sea ice has melted.

The researchers found significant amounts of methane being released from the ocean into the atmosphere through cracks in the melting sea ice. They said the quantities could be large enough to affect the global climate. Previous observations have pointed to large methane plumes being released from the seabed in the relatively shallow sea off the northern coast of Siberia but the latest findings were made far away from land in the deep, open ocean where the surface is usually capped by ice.

Eric Kort of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said that he and his colleagues were surprised to see methane levels rise so dramatically each time their research aircraft flew over cracks in the sea ice.

"When we flew over completely solid sea ice, we didn't see anything in terms of methane. But when we flew over areas were the sea ice had melted, or where there were cracks in the ice, we saw the methane levels increase," Dr Kort said. "We were surprised to see these enhanced methane levels at these high latitudes. Our observations really point to the ocean surface as the source, which was not what we had expected," he said.

"Other scientists had seen high concentrations of methane in the sea surface but nobody had expected to see it being released into the atmosphere in this way," he added.

Link Fixed: Click here to see 'The deadly depths - Methane release in the Arctic' graphic

Read more from Steve Connor at The Independent

Maybe this isn’t a newsflash to anyone but me, but, um, the Moai “heads” on Easter Island have bodies. Because some of the statues are set deep into the ground, and because the heads on the statues are disproportionately large, many people (myself included) tend to think of them as just big heads. But the bodies (generally not including legs, though there is at least one kneeling statue) are there — in many cases, underground. What’s even more interesting — there are petroglyphs (rock markings) that have been preserved below the soil level, where they have been protected from erosion. more

New science is shedding light on what really happens during out-of-body experiences -- with shocking results. SALON

pretty intriguing

W.J. Hennigan | Apr 21

LA Times - The results are in from last summer’s attempt to test new technology that would provide the Pentagon with a lightning-fast vehicle, capable of delivering a military strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour.

In August the Pentagon's research arm, known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, carried out a test flight of an experimental aircraft capable of traveling at 20 times the speed of sound.

The arrowhead-shaped unmanned aircraft, dubbed Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2, blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, northwest of Santa Barbara, into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere aboard an eight-story Minotaur IV rocket made by Orbital Sciences Corp.

After reaching an undisclosed altitude, the aircraft jettisoned from its protective cover atop the rocket, then nose-dived back toward Earth, leveled out and glided above the Pacific at 20 times the speed of sound, or Mach 20.

The plan was for the Falcon to speed westward for about 30 minutes before plunging into the ocean near Kwajalein Atoll, about 4,000 miles from Vandenberg.

But it was ended about nine minutes into flight for unknown reasons. The launch had received worldwide attention and much fanfare, but officials didn’t provide much information on why the launch failed.

On Friday, DARPA said in a statement that the searing high speeds caused portions of the Falcon’s skin to peel from the aerostructure. The resulting gaps created strong shock waves around the vehicle as it traveled nearly 13,000 mph, causing it to roll abruptly.

James Gorman | Frankfurt | April 19

NYT - Polar bears, long thought to have branched off relatively recently from brown bears, developing their white coats, webbed paws and other adaptations over the last 150,000 years or so to cope with life on Arctic Sea ice, are not descended from brown bears, scientists report.

Instead, according to a research team that looked at DNA samples from the two species and from black bears, the brown bear and polar bear ancestral lines have a common ancestor and split about 600,000 years ago.

Robert Langreth | Cambridge, England | April 19

Bloomberg Businessweek - Scientists moved a step closer to synthesizing new life forms in the laboratory after researchers showed that artificial genetic material called XNA can be replicated in the test tube much like real DNA.

Researchers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the U.K. demonstrated for the first time a way to extract information from the artificial genetic molecules and mass produce copies of them. The finding, published today in the journal Science, shows that DNA and its sister molecule RNA may not be the only chemical structures upon which a living unit can be based.

For your enquiring minds, an incredibly detailled interview with a bunch of MIT fusion power researchers. Along with lots of excellent technical details, they "discuss the things we've learned about fusion in the past decade, how long it's likely to take for fusion to power your home, the biggest problems fusion researchers are working to solve, and why it's important to continue funding fusion projects". For me, the biggest takeaway is that we could have fusion power a lot quicker if the programs weren't starved of funding. A measly $80 billion, given what we've squandered on wars, doesn't seem a lot to get abundant, clean power in two decades instead of four.

Tennessee's governor has taken the coward's way out and allowed legislation to pass which will be used to justify the teaching of creationism and climate change denialism in schools. The bill states:

This bill prohibits the state board of education and any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or principal or administrator from prohibiting any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught, such as evolution and global warming.

By the way, if you think that wording could also be used to teach John Derbyshire style "critiques" of the basic equality of all humans, you'd be absolutely right.

Pierre Bertrand | San Diego | April 9

IBT - A U.S. Geological Survey team is preparing ready to publish a report that has drawn a link between hydraulic fracturing and an increase in earthquakes in the U.S.

The study's findings will be a topic of discussion later this month when the Seismological Society of America meets in San Diego.

Neela Banerjee | Nashville, TN | April 6

McClatchy - Tennessee is poised to adopt a law that would allow public school teachers to challenge climate change and evolution in their classrooms without fear of sanction, according to educators and civil libertarians in the state.

Passed by the state Legislature and awaiting Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's signature, the measure is likely to stoke growing concerns among science teachers around the country that teaching climate science is becoming the same kind of classroom and community flash point as evolution. If it becomes law, Tennessee will become the second state, after Louisiana, to allow the teaching of alternatives to accepted science on climate change.

Lara Salahi | USA | April 4

ABC News - While experts remain perplexed about what causes autism, Gray said for her kids, she knew the answer.

"In our case, it's so clearly genetic," she said, even though medical experts cannot yet confirm the exact cause of any autism diagnosis. "There's no doubt in my mind."

And many scientists agree that the growing autism numbers may in part be attributed to certain genetic mutations that are most likely inherited from the father, according to the combined findings of three studies published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The studies are the largest to date to use whole-exome sequencing, which decodes the protein in both children and their parents, an arguably more precise method of detecting genetic mutations in multiple genes that may be associated with autism.

I know there are quite a few Agonists from Texas, so I figured I'd fly this here in case anyone knows people in Brownsville, TX. This is a note from Dr. Al Dove who writes at Deep Sea News, he'ss active on G+, and does some interesting research:
Please help me! Someone in Brownsville Texas has found one of my whale shark satellite tags and I would dearly love to get it back. If you can +1 this and share through whatever SM avenues you have, you never know who is 1 degree of separation away from the finder! Tag looks like the ones in this photo. Finder can contact me for a small reward. TO BE CLEAR - nobody stole the tag from me; it just came off the shark as designed and washed up somewhere, which is when someone found it. I want it back because it contains all sorts of juicy data about whale shark migrations that can't be transmitted via the GPS satellite. Think of it like losing the memory card from your camera, only the whale shark was the one on vacation :)

April 3

AFP - Austrian and Japanese researchers on Wednesday unveiled solar cells thinner than a thread of spider silk that are flexible enough to be wrapped around a single human hair.

The thin-film device, comprising electrodes on a plastic foil, is about 1.9 micro-metres thick, a tenth the size of the thinnest solar cells currently available, the researchers said.

March 31

Al Jazeera - HIV treatment as prevention strategy considered a "game changer" but lack of funding prevents implementation.

When Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Director of the Louis Pasteur Institute in France and winner of the Nobel Prize in 2008 for her discovery of HIV, first isolated the HIV virus in 1982, she had no idea she had stumbled onto the greatest epidemic of our time.

"Initially, we thought only a small group of people were affected by the disease," Barre-Sinoussi told Al Jazeera. "Very naively, we did not realise the magnitude of the epidemic."

She was right to be wary. Since then, 60 million people have been infected with HIV and over 30 million have died, akin to half the population of the United Kingdom.

But Barre-Sinoussi was not easily disheartened. "I believe in science. If not now, in the long term, we will find other strategies. My dream is to see the end of HIV before I die."