Flying car takes to the skies

The world’s first road-legal, bio-fuelled, flying car is about to embark on its maiden voyage.

Former British army officer Neil Laughton plans to journey from London to Timbuktu in the Skycar.

He described it as a type of dune-buggy that has been turned it into an aircraft with a parachute and propellor fan.

via BBC NEWS | Technology | Flying car takes to the skies.

Hair Of Tasmanian Tiger Yields Genes Of Extinct Species

Photo: two thylacinus in the Washington D.C. National Zoo, c. 1906. (Credit: Photograph by E.J. Keller, from the Smithsonian Institution archives (via Wikipedia))

All the genes that the exotic Tasmanian Tiger inherited only from its mother will be revealed by an international team of scientists in a research paper to be published on 13 January 2009 in the online edition of Genome Research. The research marks the first successful sequencing of genes from this carnivorous marsupial, which looked like a large tiger-striped dog and became extinct in 1936.

The research also opens the door to the widespread, nondestructive use of museum specimens to learn why mammals become extinct and how extinctions might be prevented.

“Our goal is to learn how to prevent endangered species from going extinct,” said Webb Miller, a Penn State professor of biology and of computer science and engineering and a member of the research team that includes scientists from the United States, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and Germany. “I want to learn as much as I can about why large mammals become extinct because all my friends are large mammals,” Miller said. “However, I am expecting that publication of this paper also will reinvigorate discussions about possibly bringing the extinct Tasmanian Tiger back to life.”

The team’s research relies on new gene-sequencing technology and computational methods developed by Miller and Stephan C. Schuster, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State. The new methods involve extracting DNA from the hair of extinct specimens, not from bone, which has been used in previous studies of extinct species. The team’s work reveals that hair is a powerful time capsule for preserving DNA over long periods and under a wide range of conditions. “I think of hair as a shrine for ancient DNA,” Schuster said. “It is sealed so well that not even air or water are able to penetrate the DNA stored inside. Most importantly, bacteria cannot reach the DNA as long as the structure of the hair remains sound.”

“Tasmanian Tiger” is a common name of the extinct thylacine species (Thylacinus cynocephalus), which is more closely related to kangaroos and koalas than to dogs or tigers. The last known specimen died in a Tasmanian zoo in 1936.

via Science Daily | Hair Of Tasmanian Tiger Yields Genes Of Extinct Species.

Dino feathers ‘were for display’

The earliest dinosaur feathers were probably used for visual display, according to a new study.

The evidence comes from two 125-million-year-old dinosaur fossils unearthed in north-east China. Writing in PNAS journal, the team says its findings may shed light on the origin of feathers. They identified a previously unknown type of feather on the specimens which, they argue, could not have been used either for flight or for keeping warm. The two specimens belong to the genus Beipiaosaurus, a member of the theropod group of dinosaurs. The study was led by Xing Xu, a palaeontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

Filamentous – and momentous?

The structures found on the fossils appear to be early feathers, based on their simple form. The first type of feather is a short, slender filament that resembles those found on other flightless theropods. The second type was previously unknown to science: it is a single, unbranched filament which is much longer than those seen before on theropod dinosaurs. The researchers named these Elongated Broad Filamentous Feathers (EBFFs), because of their unique shape.

It is difficult to know what the principal function of these feathers was. But the researchers think the dinosaurs probably did not use them for flight or insulation. …

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Dino feathers ‘were for display’.

Ground-based bacteria may be making it rain

BACTERIA may be able to make it rain without ever leaving the ground – if the powerful detergents they produce can reach the clouds, that is.

Previous studies have suggested that bacteria can affect cloud formation. For example, an analysis of snow samples has hinted that bacteria swept up into the atmosphere trigger precipitation so that they can return to the ground.

Now Barbara Nozière of Stockholm University, Sweden, and colleagues suggest that surfactants secreted by many species of bacteria could also influence the weather. While these are normally used to transport nutrients through membranes, the team have shown that they also break down the surface tension of water better than any other substance in nature. This led them to suspect that if the detergent was found in clouds it would stimulate the formation of water droplets.

To find out if they were present in the atmosphere, Nozière collected air samples over a coastal region, an ocean, a forest and a jungle at locations in Brazil, Sweden and Finland. Particles in all the samples contained minute amounts of detergent with a chemical structure that resembled the surfactants. It also broke down the water into droplets in the same way. “The only thing we know of that could cause this strong an effect is the bacterial surfactants,” Nozière said in a presentation at last month’s meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

Nozière suggests that the bacteria may be helping to keep the atmosphere healthy and active. She also speculates that they evolved the ability to summon water from the sky to help them survive.

The next step will be to work out how these substances get up to the clouds, says Andi Andreae of the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany. Only a small proportion of cloud-forming particles come from the ground, carried by the wind. “This bacterial gunk could hitch a ride on particles that travel from the surface to the clouds and supercharge them,” he says.

via Ground-based bacteria may be making it rain – life – 12 January 2009 – New Scientist.

Toy trains ‘Star Wars’ fans to use The Force

Could The Force be with you? A toy due in stores this fall will let you test and hone your Jedi-like abilities.

The Force Trainer (expected to be priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower, analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker’s abilities in the Star Wars films.

No, you’re not tapping into some “all-powerful force controlling everything,” as Han Solo said in the movies. But you are reaching out with mind power via one of the first mass-market brain-to-computer products. “It’s been a fantasy everyone has had, using The Force,” says Howard Roffman, president of Lucas Licensing.

Mind-control games may be the coming thing: Mattel plans to demonstrate a Mind Flex game (also due this fall), which uses brain-wave activity to move a ball through a tabletop obstacle course, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.

In the Force Trainer, a wireless headset reads your brain activity, in a simplified version of EEG medical tests, and the circuitry translates it to physical action. If you focus well enough, the training sphere, which looks like a ping-pong ball, will rise in the tower.

A state of deep concentration is needed to achieve a Force-full effect. “When you concentrate, it activates the training remote,” says Frank Adler of toymaker Uncle Milton Industries, which is creating the Trainer. “There is a flow of air that will move the (ball). You can actually feel like you are in a zone.”

Star Wars sound effects and audio clips emitted from the base unit “cue you in to progress to the next level (from Padawan to Jedi) or when to move the sphere up or down to keep challenging yourself,” Adler says.

“Until today, EEG technology has been designed for rigorous medical and clinical applications with little regard to price (and) ease of use,” says Greg Hyver of NeuroSky, which developed the brain-wave technology for both games. “We are putting this exciting technology into everyone’s living room.”

via Toy trains ‘Star Wars’ fans to use The Force – USATODAY.com.

Would-be Chinese bride, 107, seeks first husband

A 107-year-old Chinese woman who was afraid to marry when she was young has decided to look for her first husband and hopes to find a fellow centenarian so they will have something to talk about, a Chinese paper reported. Wang Guiying is worried she is becoming a burden to her aging nieces and nephews since breaking her leg when she was 102 and had to stop doing chores like washing her clothes. “I’m already 107 and I still haven’t got married,” the Chongqing Commercial Times quoted her saying. “What will happen if I don’t hurry up and find a husband?” Born in southern Guizhou province the child of a salt merchant, Wang grew up watching her uncles and other men scold and beat their wives and often found her aunt crying in the woodshed after an attack, the paper said. “All the married people around there lived like that. Getting married was too frightening,” she said of an era when Chinese women had few rights and low social standing. Many also had their feet bound in an excruciating process aimed at making them look more dainty and marriageable. After Wang’s father, mother and older sister died, she still shied away from marriage. Instead she moved to the countryside and survived as a farmer until she was 74 years old and no longer strong enough to work in the fields, the report said. … Local officials have said they are happy to help Wang search for a 100-year old groom, and suggested her family get in touch with old people’s homes to find candidates, the paper said.

via Would-be Chinese bride, 107, seeks first husband – Yahoo! News.

Photo is, I believe, Albertina Dion who is another 107 year old woman… although the date for the story about Albertina is April 1st…

Earth Life Headed for Mars Moon

… Russia is also dispatching on the flight the “world’s hardiest” or “toughest” organisms found here on Earth, sealed up in a bio-container for the Earth-to-Mars/Mars to Earth three year trek. The bio-module will provide 30 small tubes for individual microbe samples.

That’s LIFE

Turns out that The Planetary Society is at the root of this “hardy boys go to Mars” saga – dubbed LIFE, short for Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment.

LIFE is intended to help better understand the nature of life, its robustness, and its ability – or not – to move between planets. The journey will be a test of one facet of the “transpermia” hypothesis. That is, the possibility that life can voyage from planet to planet inside rocks blasted off one planetary surface by impact, to land on another planetary surface.

I guess what set off my buzzer was lobbing organisms toward Mars, on purpose, given that lots of effort – and money – is involved in preventing hitchhiking microbes from Earth making it to the red planet in the first place.

It is called forward contamination.

Under The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, planetary protection policies are in place to prevent cross contamination between planets – avoiding both forward contamination on outbound spacecraft, and back contamination of Earth upon return. For this mission, it’s the possibility of forward contamination that raises concerns.

International protocols

So I shot an email over to Lou Friedman, he’s the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, asking him to allay concerns about forward contamination.

“I guess the most important thing I can say to ‘allay concerns’ is that…us and the Russians with whom we are working with are committed to observing the international protocols and agreements concerning planetary protection,” he told SPACE.com.

“The main point is the product of probabilities of this experiment even entering Mars, let alone breaking up and then dispersing organisms in a way that they could survive on Mars is incredibly small – orders of magnitude less than the minimum allowed in the international science protocols,” Friedman advised….

via SPACE.com — Earth Life Headed for Mars Moon.

How Moon Dust Could Yield Oxygen, Fuel and Water

… The type of dust that attracted the engineers to Hawaii is called “tephra,” a fine, powder-like material that is ejected during a volcanic eruption. Tephra works well in the prototype chemical processing units because it mimics the dust found on the moon.

A NASA-developed rover called SCARAB showed how a prospecting rover could dig beneath the dusty lunar surface to process soil in order to extract oxygen. A similar rover on the moon could look for water ice and volatile gases such as hydrogen, helium and nitrogen in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles.

Larger systems could produce oxygen from greater quantities of moon soil. Roxygen (developed by NASA) and the Precursor In Situ Resource Utilization Lunar Oxygen Testbed, or PILOT (developed by Lockheed Martin) both feature a hydrogen reduction system that can produce and store oxygen from soil.

“We’re trying to make the lunar outposts more self-sustaining,” explained Tom Simon, head of the OPTIMA program at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center, which is overseeing the development of the PILOT and ROxygen test units. “We want to produce oxygen, but we also want to extract oxygen from the regolith so that we can combine it with what’s left of the residual hydrogen from the descent tanks and make water. Our goal is to never send a tank of oxygen or a tank of water to the moon.”

During this field test, a robotic excavator, similar in size and weight to those currently exploring the planet Mars, showed how soil could be extracted and delivered to the ROxygen system. Also tested was an excavator that uses a bucket drum to collect and deliver soil to the PILOT system.

“It’s one thing to test these instruments in the laboratory,” said Hamilton, “but that really doesn’t tell you how it will perform during a lunar mission. Our challenge is to replicate those conditions as closely as possible to ensure that the test results will be a true reflection of how these instruments will perform on the moon.”

Advanced Life Support

NASA’s lunar exploration plan says that on-site lunar resources could generate about one to two metric tons of oxygen per year, enough to support four to six people annually. Since it takes about 100 kilograms (kg) of soil to get 1 kg of oxygen, team leaders are looking at electrostatic and magnetic separation techniques to possibly concentrate the soil and increase the production rate. Next June, for example, testing will begin on a process that could potentially draw as much as 10 or 20 kg of oxygen out of every 100 kg of soil. …

via SPACE.com — How Moon Dust Could Yield Oxygen, Fuel and Water.

Thief Uploads Photos of Self with Stolen Phone?

Do you know this guy? Odds are, he is a criminal who stupidly uploaded his photo with a cell phone he stole … to the original owner’s account. The police just need a name in order to ask him some questions.

One man whose photos were taken with a stolen phone could be the key to learning who broke into a west Phoenix house.

When Sam Denison’s home was burglarized in the middle of an October day, the thief stole his cell phone along with other items.

• Images: Photos Taken With Stolen Cell Phone Appear Online

Denison recently replaced the stolen Treo with a Blackberry, and Sprint told him to log onto the picture mail section of its Web site to send photos with his new phone.

To his surprise, Denison found photos of a mystery man.”I actually came to a block of photos of this individual male (I’ve) never seen before in my life (that was) uploaded a couple of days right after my house was burglarized,” he said. “(I) put two and two together and thought, ‘He took it off my Treo, which was stolen!’ “Denison said he is convinced the man in the photos, who has the word “Arizona” tattooed on his arm, may know who burglarized the house, so he turned the pictures over to Phoenix police. Police, however, said they can’t investigate the man without his name.”There’s nothing they can do with it, which is why I’m reaching out (and) going to the community looking for somebody who knows this individual,” Denison said.He asks that anyone who recognizes the man call Phoenix police at 480-WITNESS and reference case No. 2008-817-18358. – kpho

Obama selects former Harvard classmate to head FCC

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has selected Julius Genachowski, a technology executive and former classmate from Harvard Law School, to lead the Federal Communications Commission, a Democratic source said on Monday.

Genachowski served as chief counsel for former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, the chairman under former President Bill Clinton, and held various positions at IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI.O), as well as other technology posts.

Genachowski, who has been advising Obama, had been considered the front-runner for the job.

The FCC oversees U.S. telecommunications regulation and policy. Its reach includes regulation of telephone and cable companies; oversight of concentration of ownership of radio, television outlets, and auctioning public airwaves.

via UPDATE 1-Obama selects former Harvard classmate to head FCC | Reuters.

I hope he breaks up the Clear Channel Communications monopoly so we get more variety of views on the big stations.