Exoplanet Rotation Detected for the First Time

A gas giant orbiting a relatively nearby star rotates every eight hours, its spectrum reveals

|By Ron Cowen 

The planet β Pictoris b, at bottom left in this artist's impression spins faster than any planet in the Solar System.
Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/F. Reddy

Astronomers have for the first time managed to detect the rotation of an extrasolar planet, by analysing the way its atmosphere filters light. This technique could also provide clues about planet formation. Ignas Snellen and his colleagues at Leiden University in the Netherlands report in Nature that a gaseous planet orbiting the star β Pictoris rotates at 25 kilometers per second at its equator — faster than any planet in the Solar System and about 50 times faster than Earth. A day on the planet, called β Pictoris b, lasts just over eight hours, even though the planet has a diameter more than 16 times that of Earth's and carries more than 3,000 times Earth's heft.

Tiny Robots Mimic Termites' Ability to Build without a Leader

The small, autonomous robots developed by the researchers.
Credit: Eliza Grinnell, Harvard SEAS

Termites can create mounds that are hundreds of times their own size, working independently without communication or a leader. Inspired by the creatures, scientists have created robots that use just a few simple rules and environmental cues to build castle-like structures and pyramids.

This Tiny Animal Can Live an Estimated 1,400 Years

  

Some of us age more gracefully than others, but perhaps no animal group does it better than the tiny freshwater polyps known as hydras. In 1998 one biologist ventured that the tentacled creatures, by continually renewing their own cells, may stave off aging altogether to achieve a kind of biological immortality.

How A Tiny Town In Germany Is Completely Changing The Human Sleep Cycle

Bad Kissingen, Germany.

Bad Kissingen is a spa town. According to the town’s website, Bavarian King Ludwig II bestowed the “Bad” part of its name on it in 1883, but not because he didn’t enjoy his stay—“bad” means “bath” or “spa” in German.

Hacking of MIT website marks first anniversary of Aaron Swartz's death

Aaron Swartz, who killed himself shortly before his trial for downloading academic journals was due to begin. Photograph: Chris Stewart/San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis

Saturday marked one year since the death of the internet activist Aaron Swartz. The 26-year-old, who was one of the builders of Reddit, killed himself in New York City on Friday 11 January 2013. 

Universe Really Is a Hologram According to New Simulations

A 10-dimensional theory of gravity makes the same predictions as standard quantum physics in fewer dimensions

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Image: Astronomy Picture of the Day

A team of physicists has provided some of the clearest evidence yet that our Universe could be just one big projection.

Maldacena's idea thrilled physicists because it offered a way to put the popular but still unproven theory of strings on solid footing—and because it solved apparent inconsistencies between quantum physics and Einstein's theory of gravity. It provided physicists with a mathematical Rosetta stone, a "duality," that allowed them to translate back and forth between the two languages, and solve problems in one model that seemed intractable in the other and vice versa. But although the validity of Maldacena's ideas has pretty much been taken for granted ever since, a rigorous proof has been elusive.In 1997, theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena proposed that an audacious model of the Universe in which gravity arises from infinitesimally thin, vibrating strings could be reinterpreted in terms of well-established physics. The mathematically intricate world of strings, which exist in nine dimensions of space plus one of time, would be merely a hologram: the real action would play out in a simpler, flatter cosmos where there is no gravity.

Can Geoengineering Slow Climate Change?

 

ESA

The 1991 explosion of the Mount Pinatubo volcano in the Philippines. "Aerosoles in the stratosphere reduce the rate of climate change," says David Keith.

Interview by Johann Grolle

Canadian environmental scientist David Keith wants to change the world's climate by creating a type of sun filter in the sky to halt global warming. In an interview, he argues the technology is effective and inexpensive, but critics liken it to a nuclear bomb.

'Feel' objects in thin air: The future of touch technology

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Researchers are working on allowing you to 'feel' objects in mid-air
• Disney Research uses bursts of air, Bristol students experimenting with ultrasound
• New touchscreens also offer tactile feedback
• Inventions point to a future where you can feel technology in new ways

 Touch technology has come a long way in the last decade. Just six years ago, most phones used traditional keypads; today, almost all smartphones have a touchscreen, and the technology has spread to tablets, handheld consoles and laptops as well.

The 41 Most Unusual Economic Indicators

With the government shutdown showing no sign of abating, it looks like we could be left without some of our favorite economic indicators for some time.

For example, economists and market watchers won't get their hands on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' jobs report — the oft-hyped monthly indicator — until Congress can produce a budget.

The good news is there are other economic indicators to supplement our view of the economy.

Though some, like Tylenol usage and the Mosquito Bite Indicator, are stranger than others.

The First Date Indicator

Fox Sports

Reviving mammoths and other extinct creatures is a good idea

Image: Carlo Giambarresi

George Church

In its June issue Scientific American published an essay stating emphatically that reanimating species such as woolly mammoths from surviving DNA is a bad idea. This dismissal is too hasty. The idea has merit and is worth discussing with an open mind—and with multidisciplinary viewpoints.

'Neural Dust,' Implanted In Brain, May Let Minds interact with machines

Earlier this month, five researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, put out a paper discussing the possible development of mind-reading "neural dust," which could be implanted directly into the human brain to allow people to interact with machines.

The paper is what the MIT Technology Review calls a theoretical study: The idea is "littered with challenges beyond the state-of-the-art."

We'll be uploading our entire MINDS to computers by 2045 and our bodies will be replaced by machines within 90 years, Google expert claims

In over 30 years, humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity - according to a futurist from Google.
Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, also claims that the biological parts of our body will be replaced with mechanical parts and this could happen as early as 2100.
Kurweil made the claims during his conference speech at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York at the weekend.
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Ray Kurzweil - director of engineering at Google - claims that by 2045 humans will be able to upload their entire minds to computers and become digitally immortal - an event called singularity. He made the statement at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York

It's Not Your Genes That Doom You To Mediocrity

10000 hours? Seriously?

So why has this 10000 hours-to-genius idea that Malcolm Gladwell popularized loomed so large?

It feels good to think we could all be great, that we’re not at the mercy of our genes.

But David Shenk also believes there’s a second reason: the dread it instills in us.

The notion that we’re now responsible for whether or not we become great can be a gnawing burden that the mind finds hard to let go.

‘EU wants to facilitate clinical trials on humans’

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18 February 2013

The European Commission plans to introduce aregulation to simplify the procedure for carrying out pharmaceutical tests on humans. The text, which will be debated in parliament in June, will dispense with the requirement for independent ethical committees to be involved in the authorisation of tests.

In future, a single member state (and more importantly, one selected by the healthcare industry) will evaluate the risks involved in trials for a particular product, and its decision will apply for all other member states. Doctors have pointed out that states with a record for imposing higher standards will be systematically circumvented, and that the constraints on human testing will be less rigorous than those that apply for animal testing.

Oxford researchers develop cheap robot cars

SUMMARY:

Using a system that costs little over $7,000, researchers at the venerable University of Oxford have developed a modified Leaf that can drive itself — as long as it recognizes its surroundings.

Is the future of the self-driving car one of full autonomy, or, as car manufacturers such as Ford have suggested, one of part-time autonomy? In the near-term, the latter option seems far saner, and it’s the approach that underpins new research being shown off by academics at the University of Oxford.

Creationist Paradise: Happy Darwin Day! Celebrate and be condemned to eternal damnation.

Dinosaurs of Eden by Ken Ham

 Mark Joseph Stern

Today marks the 204th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, father of modern biology, and inspiration for the Holocaust (depending on whom you ask). Happy Darwin Day! Scientists around the world will be celebrating the occasion withlectures, book readings, and even bake sales. Rep. Rush Holt, a physicist (and Jeopardy!champion), has introduced a bill to designate Feb. 12 a national holiday.

The secret to tackling mobile, cloud and big data? Treat them as one.

It’s no secret that mobile, big data and cloud computing are transforming IT. Sanjay Poonen, president of SAP’s mobile division, says companies need a single unified strategy to tackle them, not three separate ones.

There is widespread agreement—across the globe and in every industry—that mobile, big data, and cloud computing are the three cornerstone issues of tomorrow’s business environment. In fact, a strong organizational response to each of these issues is already critical to competitive survival.

World's Lightest Material Is a Metal 100 Times Lighter Than Styrofoam

New metal - which is 99.9 percent air - is so light that it can sit atop dandelion fluff without damaging it. (Credit: Dan Little, HRL Laboratories LLC)

A team of researchers from UC Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology have developed the world's lightest material -- with a density of 0.9 mg/cc -- about one hundred times lighter than Styrofoam™.

Big Data's International Influence

Can simple text messages alert a team halfway around the world that there may be a disease outbreak in the remote Sub-Saharan region? Could mobile payments help predict a possible coming food shortage?

While analysis of big data is nothing new for private companies and the government, the nonprofit sector's  introduction to that technology and data could play a crucial role in many international development initiatives.

It's a smart digital world

The real and the digital worlds are converging, bringing much greater efficiency and lots of new opportunities, says Ludwig Siegele. But is it what people want?

WHAT if there were two worlds, the real one and its digital reflection? The real one is strewn with sensors, picking up everything from movement to smell. The digital one, an edifice built of software, takes in all that information and automatically acts on it. If a door opens in the real world, so does its virtual equivalent. If the temperature in the room with the open door falls below a certain level, the digital world automatically turns on the heat.