Friday January 27, 2012
Happy Anniversary:
Mars Rover's Eight Year Mission
The Mars rover Opportunity has just marked eight years on the red planet.
While its companion rover Spirit bit the dust long ago, Opportunity has managed to keep on trucking as it searches for signs of life.
From Time:
It was on January 25, 2004 that the rover Opportunity — swaddled in its cocoon of shock-absorbing air bags — bounced down on Mars for a mission designed to last a minimum of three months and a maximum of just a year or two. Eight years later, Opportunity is slower, creakier and much, much dirtier, and yet it's still at work, hunkering down on the crater rim as it prepares to ride out another bitter Martian winter. When the relative warmth and sunlight of spring return, the golf-cart-sized rover will resume its wanderings, adding to the mass of data it's already collected about Mars's wet, balmy, and perhaps biologically active past.
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 08:04 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Wednesday January 25, 2012
Mother Russia on the Move:
Russia Eyes Moon Base With Nasa
In spite of the failure of the recent Phobos-Grunt mission, Russia's space programme is still forging ahead with ambitious ideas.
One possible way forward might be a joint base on the Moon in cooperation with Nasa.
From The Register:
"We don’t want the man to just step on the Moon,” agency chief Vladimir Popovkin said in an interview with Vesti FM radio station. “Today, we know enough about it. We know that there is water in its polar areas," he added. "We are now discussing how to begin [the Moon’s] exploration with NASA and the European Space Agency."
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 12:29 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Tuesday January 24, 2012
Become A Secret Agent While You Wait
If you were ever wondering if you had what it takes to be a secret agent than, courtesy of MI5, you can finally put your abilities to the test.
Fortunately you can practice your wits online in case of abysmal failure.
From Spy Blog:
"The United Kingdom Security Service MI5 has an interesting little Quiz, to help pre-screen potential Intelligence Officer recruits...
This fictional scenario involves some alleged foreign intelligence officers operating from their Embassy in London"Posted in: Politics by bubblejam at 05:40 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Monday January 23, 2012
YouTube expands by one hour every second
The ubiquitous online video sharing website keeps growing at the astounding rate.
Its the third most popular destination on the net and it seems that there nothing more satisfying for millions of users than watching and uploading or vice versa...
From New Scientist:
People who complain about some of the racier content on YouTube are often told that the sheer rate at which that content is uploaded makes it impossible to moderate. That claim would seem to be more than borne out by the figures released by Google, YouTube's owner, today.
Posted in: Net by bubblejam at 04:44 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Sunday January 22, 2012
No Guts, No Glory:
Genetically Engineered Gut Bacteria Turn Seaweed Into Biofuel
Biofuels have been controversial as they have caused the prices of crops such as corn to rise.
But researchers may have found a way to turn abundant seaweed into ethanol using genetically engineered E.coli bacteria -- which could eventually be used to manufacture other substances such as plastics.
From Scientific American:
The microbe could turn out to be useful for making molecules other than ethanol, such as isobutanol or even the precursors of plastics, Yoshikuni says. "Consider the microbe as the chassis with engineered functional modules," or pathways to produce a specific molecule, Yoshikuni says. "If we integrate other pathways instead of the ethanol pathway, this microbe can be a platform for converting sugar into a variety of molecules."
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 08:30 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Saturday January 21, 2012
Hotshots:
Coronal Mass Ejection From Sun Heads For Earth
A coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun is heading for Earth but don't panic just yet.
Whilst the CME was originally predicted to head straight for us, it now looks like we're in for a near miss.
From The Washington Post:
“At first glance, it was, ‘Oh my God, it’s at the center of the [sun’s] disk, it ought to go right to the Earth,’ ” Kunches said. But upon further review and “head-scratching” Thursday, NOAA’s space weather team calculated that most of the plasma blob should pass harmlessly over the top of our planet.
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 05:28 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Friday January 20, 2012
The DNA Code:
Using Genetics to Defeat Counterfeiters
Methods to defeat counterfeiters such as holograms often don't take long to be circumvented.
So the US Department of Defense are turning to DNA as a way of embedded invisible 'barcodes' that are impractical to replicate.
From Wired:
“DNA is beyond what the bad guys can copy,” Hayward says. “You can counterfeit your way through visual inspection, through X-Rays. DNA is easily the strongest platform for authentication in the world.”
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Thursday January 19, 2012
Sweden formally recognise file sharing as a religion
The Church of Kopimism was founded by the group of around 3,000 Swedish file sharers and approved as a spiritual movement before Christmas last year.
The name is derived from "Kopimi" pronounced "copy me" and its followers hold sharing information as a sacred act and believe that monitoring and eavesdropping on people is wrong.
From BBC News:
"The church, which holds CTRL+C and CTRL+V (shortcuts for copy and paste) as sacred symbols, does not directly promote illegal file sharing, focusing instead on the open distribution of knowledge to all.
It was founded by 19-year-old philosophy student and leader Isak Gerson. He hopes that file-sharing will now be given religious protection.."
Posted in: Esoterics by bubblejam at 04:32 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Wednesday January 18, 2012
RIM Job:
Blackberry Maker Prepares For Sale to Samsung
Blackberry maker RIM has been in financial trouble for some time, but salvation may be on the horizon.
Rumours indicate that Samsung may be interested in acquiring the Canadian smartphone manufacturer.
From The Globe and Mail:
The Boy Genius Report blog said on Tuesday, citing “a trusted source with knowledge of the situation,” that RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie was pushing for a sale to Samsung, but that talks had so far led nowhere, given the large difference between what RIM executives think their company is worth and what potential suitors are willing to pay.
Posted in: Net by bubblejam at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Wikipedia and Boing Boing take a break today!
Most popular encyclopedia in the world and immensely popular guide to what is quirky on the net are joining forces in protest at looming SOPA regulation slowly making its way through US House and Senate and will be unaccessible for the next 24 hours for English speaking users.
They will be joined in the blackout - symbolising what the SOPA may allow content creators to do to sites they accuse of copyright infringement - by thousands of other popular sites including Reddit, Wired, browser pioneer Mozilla and photo-sharing favorite Twitpic.
From Wikipedia:
Today, the Wikipedia community announced its decision to black out the English-language Wikipedia for 24 hours, worldwide, beginning at 05:00 UTC on Wednesday, January 18 (you can read the statement from the Wikimedia Foundation here). The blackout is a protest against proposed legislation in the United States – the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the U.S. Senate – that, if passed, would seriously damage the free and open Internet, including Wikipedia.
Posted in: Politics by bubblejam at 04:50 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Vote Techno party
By Alexia in Berlin
I had an interesting question the other day from a group of English tourists. They asked me where they could go to find an illegal warehouse party in Berlin. The group's spokesperson explained: "We sometimes go to these parties in Brighton. They aren't advertised and they're usually pretty filthy but the music is way better than it is in a club." He was talking about free parties (or squat parties, as they are also known).
Posted in: Fringe by bubblejam at 01:02 AM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
Sunday January 15, 2012
Here's Ears:
Scientists Create Tiniest Microphone Ever
Scientists have developed the smallest microphone ever created, using gold nanoparticles and lasers.
The tiny microphone could record the sound of activity inside the smallest cells.
From ScienceNOW:
Feldmann's team recorded and analyzed the movements of this particle in response to acoustic vibrations caused by the laser-induced heating of other gold nanoparticles in the water nearby. As well as having unprecedented sensitivity, their nano-ear could also calculate the direction the sound had come from. They suggest three-dimensional arrays of nano-ears working together could be used to listen in on cells or microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses, all of which emit very faint acoustic vibrations as they move and respire. "There are definitely medical opportunities which we can tackle together with the right people," Feldmann says, "but we just have to see how it works first."
Posted in: Science by bubblejam at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | Email This Entry
